Disaster Response - Science topic

To Everyone out there - thank you for your comments in advance. I welcome all comments and suggestions.

I am involved in a project studying country/region level catastrophe response systems.

To be clear, I need to clarify my use of the term catastrophe.

Insurance companies define disaster and catastrophe differently. There are 2 main contextual differences.

Disasters are predicable and local.

Catastrophes are widespread (regions, country wide) and not predictable.

Disaster Example: Tornadoes in Oklahoma

Catastrophe Example: The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami

Our research is trying to codify differences in the context of (for example) widespread floods, fires, hurricanes, cyclones, wind events, chemical spills, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc. impacting a large geographic area.

Catastrophe Response:

Here is our Main Area of Inquiry (let's call this Q1):

In your country, when there is a large scale catastrophe, what international, country or regional Institutions are in control and what is the scope of their control (to what level are they responsible for the response)? Please clarify if they are governmental or public/private organizations. Also, are they local, regional or national? What does it take to elevate a regional catastrophe to receive country level (national) response? To what degree is the response elevated to international response?

Here is our Secondary Area of Inquiry (let's call this Q2):

To what degree are independent, non-governmental or local response organizations involved? (UN, Red Cross, local NGOs). If they are involved, how responsible are they (in a percentage compared to a government agency or military role)? In a catastrophe, to what extent (% response) is left up to local businesses, regional governments, local citizens?

We welcome ALL answers, comments and questions.

Thank you.

MT

I had hoped to run a workshop to understand how militaries and humanitarians should share clinical best practice (or indeed IF they should). It was intended to be a workshop over a day or two - a couple of thought provoking presentations with our data so far - that people feel we should share, but that there have to be clear limits on what is shared and when, and that no-one yet has expressed ideas about what those limits are or how best to do the sharing.

Clearly COVID 19 means that large university based workshops are a thing of the past, for the moment at least. The problem is that platforms such as zoom often favour the loudest/most assertive participants, and shut out the quieter/less confident ones. Equally a Delphi probably won't provide the richness of data that I'd need.

Does anyone have experience of running workshop style qualitative data collection in the 'new normal'? What works? Are there mechanisms for making an on-line event work in this way?

Thank you!

Do you use any structured questionary to evaluate your disaster drill?

Or do you know any tool that is used?

As everyone knows, the evaluation of performance of proposed MANET routing protocol related to Disaster Response Applications is very difficult to implement in real-environment. So, can you suggest any Environment (Govt/Private), where the proposed MANET routing protocol performance be tested for Disaster Response Applications?

I realize that Structural Equation Modelling is currently used in many fields of SCM and Logistics, such as Supply Chain (SC) agility , Sustaintable SC, Disaster Response logistics, and some others.

Why is the use of SEM becoming popular among Logistics and Supply Chain researchers?

What can be wrong when using SEM in logistics and SC?

I am working related to disaster management in IT field. How artificial intelligence used in disaster response related to information technology .

Suggest some topics or works related to disaster management

thanks

We are living in urban world. Cities are housing more than 50% of world population. The size or urban land and population are increasing. Urbanization is inevitable . Urbanization bringing both opportunities and challenges for future.

What will be the biggest challenge in future urban disaster response and management?

1. Climate change

2. Population growth

3. Resource scarcity

4. Infrastructures and services

5. Terrorism

6. Complex technological hazards

7. Social justice

8. Or, something else

Why you think it as the biggest challenge?

I'm very intersted in this research. I've conducted a study that document bleak results for nurses perceived knowledge of disaster response. We are in the process of developing education modules to distribute. I believe we need to have educational options that range from univsersity coursework to 1 hour modules for nurses in the work environment.

Thank you,

Julie Bulson DNP, MPA, RN, NE-BC

I'm looking into doing a qualitative research on disaster response, either from the perspective of the rescuers or from disaster victims. Any ideas for a topic to study?

When accounting for uncertainty in demand for humanitarian logistics planning, one of the most common ways is to use stochastic optimization approach in which the demand is generally assumed to follow a certain distribution (usually normal or uniform).

My question here is, how to identify these distributions when there is no historical data (as is the case in most disasters)?

I am searching for anyone with interest on nurses' experience during disaster response or perhaps already conducted any study on the topics for collaboration in writing up articles.

Hi,

I am working on a project and I would like to have some recommendations on the following issues:

- How can the smart devices and applications be used for disaster response?

- How these technologies can be used for indoor and outdoor navigation for mass crowd evacuation and rescue?

- How can navigation methods or system that utilize geographic information or building information modeling (BIM) help for mass crowd evacuation and rescue?

- What are the dependability and safety issues of disaster response systems?

Any recommendation (your views, research papers, books etc.) would be highly appreciated.

Thank you very much.

I hoping to study the influence of culturally relevant disaster response. Does it improve the response efficiency and efficacy?

Disaster professionals, security analyst, emergency management expert

I am interested if any colleges or universities might have contracts in place with other institutions to accept their students during the period of recovery from a major disaster.

Recently I have visited a rural area of Nepal where frequency of Thunder and Lightning is very high and thus there is a high number of human casualty and property loss for many years. I would like to know any research work about localized effect of Thunder and Lightning in a very small area and any mitigation measures?

Disaster Risk Reduction has become a central agenda in many parts of the world. This is due to increases in intensity and frequency of extreme events like cyclone/typhoon, heavy rainfall, earthquake, tsunami etc. Ecosystems are the close entities of causes to consequences of these events. However, a system approach that relates ecology and ecosystem services of a particular region are not significantly addressed. Do you think so, and why? How to address these?

I am a BTech student, doing a research on the effectiveness of Performance Management in local government.

How can I find open source model of landslides related disasters. I want learn something about the process of  developing such kind of model including statistical or physical based models.

I need to find some studies done related to extramarital issues among the military personnel. 

The method of data collection will be an appraisal and evaluation of different disastrous situations. While the objectives is to;

1.      Identify possible causes of some disasters

2.      Investigate the effects of disasters on conditions, and essential lifeline services

3.      Analyze the effect of disasters on public services and Environmental Health Services

4.      Identify ways of Planning for effective management of environmental health services and resources in the event of a sudden natural disaster.

5.      The management of disaster-created environmental health conditions

Creating a link between tourism and disaster risk reduction and management is particularly important in places that rely heavily on tourism and, at the same time, are prone to natural hazards.  Many tourists don't talk the local dialect and can't without much of a stretch find directions of how to carry on in a calamity setting. Nobody can assure earthquake safety unless if anyone is aware of earthquake consequences and gets prepared. Man tourist destinations are lacking the sufficient notice boards and emergency contact numbers, thus the conduct of visitors is harder to control in case of a fiasco. This makes a more grounded need to effective disaster management in the tourism industry and tourist destination. Away from home, in unfamiliar surroundings when an earthquake/disaster hits a tourist area, the priority of voyagers is to go home first and this powerful urge to exit facilitate many other gigantic difficulties that are hard to manage.

So I am currently looking for article /report and similar items on awareness level amongst International tourists regarding measures to be taken at earthquake prone destination.

 if you know any information on this, could you please share with me?

Thank you

does anybody know where i can collect infrastructure systems (power systems) recovery data (after extreme disaster)? such as power systems recovery process after cascading blackout

Am a student pursuing Masters in disaster management and i want to know details regarding how effctivel social media data can be used in context of disasters..

Thanks

Hareesh

Use of MCA analysis for smallholder communities

Dear friends,

I am working on a project for comparing the communication systems before and during flood events and I would like to know what are the flood communication/warning systems are being used nowadays and how we can improve it.

Please provide the detail information or any link to such information if possible.

Thank you.

Terminal equipment should be capable of video/voice/data communications, preferably if it can act as GIS terminal too.

I am searching for literature about the process of monitoring by leaders of a rapid response team during emergency situation (i.e. medical/ military of firefighting). What does a supervisor do when he/she monitor a subordinate? What are do or don’t for leaders in the monitoring process to ensure that his subordinates are fulfilling their expected task conform the roles?

Research Professionals, disaster professionals, disaster research centre.

I am conducting thesis work on hospital disaster preparedness in Addis Ababa city Ethiopia. 

Does anyone have evaluation tools/checklists for it?

Also anyone have articles regarding it in east Africa?

your kindness is really appreciated. 

Managing information in emergencies is critical to effective disaster response. Without effective information management, the ability to plan and organize a response to the emergency is greatly limited. The starting point in the design of any information management system is the identification of the eventual users of the system and their particular needs. The users of information in most disaster situations are numerous. Each is likely to have specific information needs that the designer of the disaster information management system should consider in advance.

I am looking for information regarding encountered issues and a communications overview in mass casualty incidents and disasters responses. This should be addressed by doctors, nurses, paramedics and any other participants. Are there radio communication problems on route and at the scene? If so, what does that encompass and can this be quantified? What about the general overview of the intervention, like amplitude, knowing the incident and route beforehand, patient information transmission to the hospital or on arrival, debriefing.

Hello,

I guess we have all heard about the ongoing tragic and worsening situation in Greece since 2008 for a large fraction of the population there and for refugees from Europe and elsewhere who ended up in Greece.

I am no socio-economic or political  expert but I gather that the number of people living in  precarity has soared there. I have certainly met benevolent social workers  who shared stories of despair that are hard to forget.

Greece is afflicted by a range of natural hazards and risks of disasters. It has a recurrent and documented history of such disasters.

I am wondering to what extent it is still possible for Greek scientists and/or the international community to suitably anticipate and monitor for those potential disasters and to suitably prepare for a disaster response, considering the ongoing and arguably worsening (?) situation in Greece ?

I am thinking about large forest fires (and eg. resulting biodiversity loss and atmospheric pollution), severe thunderstorms, land erosion, flash floods and mud flows on the one hand, and of tectonic earthquake and volcanic eruption hazards that may also lead to a tsunami risk in the Mediterranean on the other hand.

With the situation in Greece, aren't the vulnerabilities and the risks of impacts from such potential disasters much greater in Greece, and for some of these hazards for the European-Mediterranean regions ?

Has anyone studied how vulnerability of the Greece population to such eventualities may have increased since 2008 ?

Has anyone studied how the risks themselves for a given disaster scenario may have increased considering increased vulnerabilities and other changes in the structure of the Greece socio-politico-economic systems ?

Tectonic earthquakes from the Aegean arc submarine faults in Greece could trigger a tsunami affecting the Mediterranean region.

Can the adequate monitoring and disaster preparedness efforts still be pursued at the present time ?

And if not, what may be the wide-ranging impacts ?

The unmonitored active shallow-marine Kolumbos Bank Volcano (6km to NE of Santorini volcano) erupted explosively in 1650 AD. If it erupts again in a similar way, what may be the risk of an impact for international air traffic similar to that which related to the Eyjafjallajokull 2010 eruptions ?

What may be the tsunami risks in the Mediterranean  if the Kolumbos Bank volcano erupted explosively again ?

So to sum up, I am wondering if socio-economic-political changes in Greece since 2008 have affected vulnerability, resilience and risks for a diversity of disaster scenarios ? And also who may have studied aspects of this ?

I am also wondering to what extent scientists in Greece and elsewhere can continue to adequately monitor for, anticipate, research, sensitize for, , and generally prepare for such disasters occurring in Greece ?

And if it is the case that  the Greek scientists have difficulties continuing their work (?), to what extent the European Commission and international negociators on debt alleviation in Greece may have taken such considerations into account ?

Is this not the sort of situation making the ground much more fertile for much-enhanced impacts of geo-disasters ? Including for some that may affect much of Europe or the  Mediterranean Countries ?

Anyhow, a whole series of inter-related questions there.

I am wondering what colleagues think of all this and if some of you may have elements of answer to some of these questions ?

Many thanks in advance for any insights.

With best wishes and kindest regards,

Gerald

I started working on Twitter responses related to the Nepal earthquake 2015. I'm new to the field of disaster responses on social media. I wonder what sort of main readings I should refer to? 

And also, I would like to discuss further if anyone likes to collaborate on this project.

Thanks,

Chamil 

I am new in research and I want to focus on the factors affecting the number of ambulances required in an earthquake disaster relief operation. Type of construction, Population of effected area, Percentage of earthquake damage and Energy of an earthquake are some factors based on LR which has discussed one by one. Therefore I designed my hypothesis model and based on that, I want to go to the second step of my research. The Problem is that I don’t know with which technique I can come up with this model: if by questionnaire and using Structural equation modeling then I cannot assign proper scale, Since the answer of each questions is just yes or no… do you think I should go through interview or … if yes then with which technique I can prove my model … Thanks for your help (hypothesis model is also attached)  

I've been working for more than three years on natural disaster management, and one of the major gaps I could identify is the lack of comprehensive and powerful software. Sahana Eden is an open source that claims to support disaster management activities. However, the interface is not so friendly and the software itself is essentially oriented for inventory managing. The messaging features are useful but could be highly improved.

In this scope, I've been seeking for a good software without success. It should be a good messenger and should be focused on process management. Does anyone know something that could match my necessities?

I am trying to get a picture on existing programs (voluntary or obligatory) in DM education on medical schools.

Sidoarjo mud flow have been destroyed resettlements in Porong. People have to move away from that area, and there are many options but many of them prefer to resettle in Tanggulangin which is near that disaster area. What do you think the reason is?

I want to implement Hybrid MANET Routing protocol for emergency Group communication as a social innovative project. please share your ideas.

In disasters, often it is the responsible local agencies which appear unprepared to assist; for example, the news media showed rising waters in nursing homes with no means of egress, since boats would be needed for patients in beds. [Newsmedia, Katrina Disaster in New Orleans, onsite footage]

The basic question of where does one turn for assistance, too, has sometimes been passed by where one might expect a central place with water and food storage, and pharmacy linkages in place. The International Red Cross and its chapters has come through, and federal plans (FEMA) seem much better in 2014 (with toolkits available).

Regions of the country (when people move) vary for disasters, and tornado planning and hurricane planning is sometimes warranted. Earthquakes are common in places like California, with my visits already yielding a minor one in Los Angeles and a major one in San Francisco. [Racino, 1991, 1993, first independent living center in the US]

The physicians below have indicated that "their nursing homes" are operated by physicians (often not the case) with early reviews indicating that only a consulting physician might be onsite and mainly a nursing aide level. The new Direct Support Professional (Larson et al, 2014) in my new 2014 book are also in nursing facilities per the University of Minnesota.

Julie Ann Racino, July 2015, amended

See how the South Pacific is doing and learn lessons that can be applied or used to assess disaster response systems in similar contexts.

I'm looking for software that can assist me in analyzing the course of action during an emergency response exercise by investigating communication between those who participated in the exercise.

I have a log (in a spreadsheet table) of 6-700 messages between 20 emergency response agencies during an emergency response exercise. For each of the 6-700 messages, I have information about time that the message was sent, who the sender was, the message content, and the receiver of the message. I have furthermore categorized the messages according to which event the message is about (several hazard events during the exercise) and according to several other criteria (e.g. if a question/request or information is communicated, if the message contains information about location or place names, if the message is about allocation of resources, if it is a situation report etc.).

I picture information visualized in a matrix with time on one axis and different emergency response agencies on the other, and messages containing requests and information moving between the agencies plotted in the matrix in a way that enable identification of different threads and different types of content. An aim is to identify threads that have a satisfactory outcome (e.g. question resolved, decision made, action taken) or unsatisfactory outcome (messages getting lost on the way).

A further aim is to find new ways to evaluate an exercise just after it has been taking place.

All suggestions are welcome.

We are undertaking an update of our assessment tool for public alerting technologies and New Zealand does not have any agencies employing geolocatable mobile broadcast technology (to mobile telephones) for public alerting. Any examples of use and assessment of efficiency and effectiveness of this technology would be most helpful.

Response to an emergency is restricted by one factor or the other, heavy traffic, lack of vehicles (which in developing countries may not be the case), lack of personnel, etc.

see above

For quality improvement and outcome as evaluated by unit head, peer, and client served.

I would like to get involved with a disaster response agency after my graduation from GCU.