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Open source software for disaster management
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Effective information systems that can provide timely access to comprehensive, relevant, and reliable information at the time of disasters, are critical to humanitarian operations. Free Open Source Software (FOSS) disaster management systems such as Sahana, with the characteristics of an open-access approach, low-cost deployment, and easy adaptability, can play important role in humanitarian sector. Sahana was developed by a group of volunteers from the Sri Lankan IT industry, in Sri Lanka in the immediate aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami. This system was authorized as part of of official portal for the Center of National Operations, the main government body in Sri Lanka coordinating the relief effort. Sahana deployment in the Sri Lanka, filled a need in the disaster response community, specifically for an extensible and usable platform for the basic coordination functions required in responding to disaster.
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... The term "emergency management system" is used by the United Nations [4] and Landau [54], which refers to a system that works for emergency planning, control, and reduction. The term "disaster management system" is used by Hannan et al [55] and Currion et al [56] as a system that aims to manage relief operations, recovery, and rehabilitation. The term "emergency response system" is used by Amailef and Lu [57] and refers to a system that supports communications, data gathering, data analysis, and decision-making during the response phase. ...
Background:
Health-related hazards have a detrimental impact on society. The health emergency and disaster management system (Health EDMS), such as a contact-tracing application, is used to respond to and cope with health-related hazards. User compliance with Health EDMS warnings is key to its success. However, it was reported that user compliance with such a system remains low.
Objective:
Through a systematic literature review, this study aims to identify the theories and corresponding factors that explain user compliance with the warning message provided by Health EDMS.
Methods:
The systematic literature review was conducted using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses 2020 guidelines. The search was performed using the online databases Scopus, ScienceDirect, ProQuest, IEEE, and PubMed, for English journal papers published between January 2000 and February 2022.
Results:
A total of 14 papers were selected for the review based on our inclusion and exclusion criteria. Previous research adopted 6 theories when examining user compliance, and central to the research was Health EDMS. To better understand Health EDMS, based on the literature reviewed, we mapped the activities and features of Health EDMS with the key stakeholders involved. We identified features that require involvement from individual users, which are surveillance and monitoring features and medical care and logistic assistance features. We then proposed a framework showing the individual, technological, and social influencing factors of the use of these features, which in turn affects compliance with the warning message from Health EDMS.
Conclusions:
Research on the Health EDMS topic increased rapidly in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. An in-depth understanding of Health EDMS and user compliance before designing the system is essential for governments and developers to increase the effectiveness of Health EDMS. Through a systematic literature review, this study proposed a research framework and identified research gaps for future research on this topic.
... However, what specific information technologies can enable and support agility for crisis management and how they do so have seldom been discussed in the literature. When considering the growing attention to IT as a media and infrastructure for monitoring, communication, and information/knowledge sharing in various crisis situations (Banipal, 2006;Chou et al., 2014;Currion et al., 2007;Yates et al., 2011), understanding the role of IT in agile crisis management will be a salient question for various parties involved in crisis management. This is especially true for recent advancements in IT including artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) devices, social media, location-based social networks (LBSN), and big data analytics, which have great potential to dramatically improve responding organizations' capabilities to sense and react to the emerging or anticipated crises (e.g., Avvenuti et al., 2018;Chaudhuri & Bose, 2020;Kuilboer et al., 2016;Sareen et al., 2018;Thapa et al., 2017). ...
Introduction: Human life has always been subject to crisis. The important thing in dealing with a crisis is the appropriate response. The emergence of information technology has provided crisis managers with the best possible potential and capacities for crisis management. Today, managers should always be ready to deal with crises. These crises can be economic and financial or natural events such as storms, floods, tsunamis, or disease outbreaks. Managers who have not taken measures in advance to deal with such events will lose more. No one is aware of the crisis in advance. Expert managers have basic plans to deal with such situations. To overcome uneven events, managers should use the experiences of their predecessors to get acquainted with crisis coping strategies. Not all managers can overcome the crisis. However, if the managers in their organization believe in crisis management as an inseparable part of their strategic management responsibility, the probability of confronting a crisis will be significantly reduced. Crisis management activities are performed in three stages before the crisis, during the crisis, and after the crisis. The first step consists of the actions needed to prevent the crisis. This stage is the first step in identifying and diagnosing the crisis and also gathering information to deal with the crisis. The second stage includes the stage of crisis occurrence. In this stage, it is necessary to gather information to diagnose the causes of the crisis. The third stage is the actions that must be taken after the crisis. At this stage, we had to ensure that the crisis has resolved or not. Also, learning from the crisis so that it does not happen again occurs at this stage. The crisis is a test for stability in a system. A crisis is an unusual situation in which a problem or sudden event occurs that is not predictable. Etymologically, the word crisis has been derived from the Greek language. In ancient Greek, the word crisis (κριςις) means "judgment" or "decision". The crisis means that it is necessary to make a decision that has not been made before. In the 21st century, the growth of information technology and the expansion of research has created a significant increase in the understanding of the challenges of crisis management when facing a crisis to reduce victims, and thanks to technology and the use of communication technologies, crisis management has become more realistic. During crisis management, by using correct communication, participation, coordination, and integration in information systems play an important role in crisis control. In a crisis, those affected perceive, process, and act on information differently than in non-crisis times. One of the applications of information technology in crisis management is "crisis
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Frontline crisis response is challenging. Emergency responders, soldiers, and humanitarian aid workers all operate at the frontlines of threatening, uncertain crisis situations on a daily basis. Under intense pressure, they need to make a range of difficult decisions: to follow preexisting plans or improvise; to abide by top-down instructions or take discretionary actions; to get emotionally involved or keep a rational distance? These dilemmas define their work but, until now, have not been subjected to systematic investigation. This book conducts in-depth studies of eleven such dilemmas by integrating a wide array of research findings on crisis response operations. The comprehensive overview of crisis response research shows how frontline responders deal with these dilemmas amidst the chaos of crises and forms the basis for the formulation of a theory of frontline crisis response. As such, this book will undoubtedly help to understand, evaluate, and advance crisis response operations.
Information exchange is regarded as a vital component of crisis management, yet organizations continue to struggle with the timely distribution of information across organizational and professional boundaries in a crisis. In this chapter, we reflect on the doctrine of “netcentric operations” in the Netherlands, which has been implemented to enhance the quality and speed of information exchange in distributed crisis management networks. First, we provide an overview of the principal tenets of netcentric operations: self-synchronization, distributed sensemaking, information superiority, transparency, and connectivity. Next, we highlight five key challenges from a decade of operations: (1) how to codify and make sense of information; (2) how to foster goal-directed collaboration; (3) how to enable collaborative decision-making; (4) how to overcome a reluctance to share information; and (5) how to maintain functionality in extensive distributed networks. Finally, we specify future directions to improve connectivity and transparency and reflect on finding an alternative for self-synchronization.KeywordsCrisis managementInformation managementNetcentric operationsCommand and controlNetworks
Although research on open collaboration for innovation has generally focused on the voluntary participation of individuals who are not strictly governed by formal authority concentrated at higher levels of organizational hierarchy, more recent studies highlight the importance of exploring how their tasks should be organized in order to enhance performance outcomes. This study extends this line of work by conceptualizing polyarchy as a decentralized decision-making structure that directs how core members of a project team screen a large collection of novel ideas generated by team members, and empirically examining whether and how polyarchy affects task completion time. In the context of online projects for open source software development at GitHub, we find that a polyarchical decision-making structure reduces task completion time. Closer examination also shows that this positive effect on decision-making speed becomes stronger when tasks are explorative rather than exploitative in nature. Implications for open, distributed models of innovation and non-traditional forms of decision-making structures are discussed.
Citation: Thakuri, S.; Parajuli, B.P.; Shakya, P.; Baskota, P.; Pradhan, D.; Chauhan, R. Open-Source Data Alternatives and Models for Flood Risk Management in Nepal. Remote Sens. 2022, 14, 5660. https://doi.
Availability and applications of open-source data for disaster risk reductions are increasing. Flood hazards are a constant threat to local communities and infrastructures (e.g., built-up environment and agricultural areas) in Nepal. Due to its negative consequences on societies and economic aspects, it is critical to monitor and map those risks. This study presents the open access earth observation (EO) data, geospatial products, and different analytical models available for flood risk assessment (FRA) and monitoring in Nepal. The status of flood risk knowledge and open-source data was reviewed through a systematic literature review. Multispectral optical data are widely used, but use of microwave data is extremely low. With the recent developments in this field, especially optical and microwave data, the monitoring, mapping, and modeling of flood hazards and risk have been more rapid and precise and are published in several scientific articles. This study shows that the choice of appropriate measurements and data for a flood risk assessment and management involves an understanding of the flood risk mechanism, flood plain dynamics, and primary parameter that should be addressed in order to minimize the risk. At the catchments, floodplains, and basin level, a variety of open data sources and models may be used under different socioeconomic and environmental limitations. If combined and analyzed further, multi-source data from different models and platforms could produce a new result to better understand the risks and mitigation measures related to various disasters. The finding of this study helps to select and apply appropriate data and models for flood risk assessment and management in the countries like Nepal where the proprietary data and models are not easily accessible.
Emergency situations occur unpredictably and cause individuals and organizations to shift their focus and attention immediately
to deal with the situation. When disasters become large scale, all the limitations resulting from a lack of integration and
collaboration among all the involved organizations begin to be exposed and further compound the negative consequences of the
event. Often in large-scale disasters the people who must work together have no history of doing so; they have not developed
a trust or understanding of one another’s abilities, and the totality of resources they each bring to bear have never before
been exercised. As a result, the challenges for individual or group decision support systems (DSS) in emergency situations
are diverse and immense. In this contribution, we present recent advances in this area and highlight important challenges
that remain.
There are innumerable human and organizational circumstances when free flowing information is essential for effective decision-making. In a closed system with limited boundary scanning, information handling is a fairly manageable task [School Library Journal, 39 (1993) 146]. However, where sources of data and/or decisions are high volume encompass a large geographic area and cover a gamut of organizational entities, information gathering and fusing can be daunting [FEMA, Publication No. 229 (4) (1995)]. This paper analyzes the workflow typical in a disaster scenario and discusses the design considerations for a virtual information center (VIC) that can both efficiently and effectively coordinate and process a large number of information requests for disaster preparation/management/recovery teams. The proposed design is domain independent, uses a net-centric approach and can be readily exported to many other governmental and organizational decision environments. The prototype version of the system uses the object-oriented model in connecting to multiple databases across the Internet and has all the essential features that can readily be cloned to enlarge the system's scope.
An effective information and communication system (ICS) is a central component of successful humanitarian relief efforts. An ICS involves not only IT but also people, practices, policies, and organizational environments. This paper explores major issues and challenges inherent to developing an effective ICS within the humanitarian relief non-governmental organization (NGO) sector. Although closely related, the issues and challenges inherent in both intraand inter-organizational communication in NGOs are discussed separately. The analysis goes beyond the IT issues usually focused on, emphasizing the enormous impacts of human, organizational, and environmental issues such as organizational structure, coordination, security, politics, and funding. We discuss both the strategic impact of these issues as well as the impact on an NGO's ability to communicate effectively during emergency response efforts.
Currion P. New lamps for old: The role of information management in humanitarian assistance. TalkBack: The Newsletter of the International Council for Voluntary Agencies (ICVA)
- P Currion
Report on Information and Technology Requirements
- P Currion
Sahana FOSS disaster management system Breaking Barriers: The Potential of Free and Open Source Software for Sustainable Human Development---A Compilation of Case Studies from Across the World United Nations Development Programme UNDP-APDIP
- C De Silva
Breaking Barriers : The Potential of Free and Open Source Software for Sustainable Human Development---A Compilation of Case Studies from Across the World United Nations Development Programme UNDP-APDIP Elsevier
- C De Silva