Learning from past Disasters to Improve Crisis Management

In the event of a disaster the coordinated response of emergency services is crucial for saving lives and protecting critical infrastructure. Efficient communication and access to relevant information are essential elements in the immediate aftermath and all phases of the crisis management cycle to maintain public safety. As part of the European Commission funded FP7 project EPISECC (Establish Pan-European Information Space to Enhance Security of Citizens), an inventory of past disasters and critical events was developed. Information was obtained by systematic interviews with experts active in the field of crisis and disaster management on both national and international level. They represent organisations such as first responders, emergency services and civil protection offices from 15 EU (European Union) countries. The paper will outline several aspects such as the quality of information exchange between crisis managers and the analysis of key recommendations for improvement identified during the management of past disasters

Towards a Pan-European Information Space

ABSTRACT When disasters occur, key factors for minimizing damages and loss of lives are access to necessary information and effective communication between emergency services. In cross-border disaster management, further challenges arise: language barriers, uneven know-how, organisational and technical differences in particular concerning communication and data or information exchange. To address those challenges, the FP7-Project EPISECC (Establish Pan-European Information Space to Enhance Security of Citizens) is working on the concept of a common information space to improve interoperability and efficiency while managing cross-border disasters. This involves researching on a common taxonomy and ontology as well as on interoperability functionalities and tools. A first step on this direction is the analysis of how disasters have been and are being managed. This paper reports on an inventory of disasters designed to consolidate such knowledge and aimed at being the basis for this information space. First gaps identified in communication/information management are also presented

ODIN: Da un progetto europeo ad applicazioni reali

ODIN: Da un progetto europeo ad applicazioni real

ODIN: Da un progetto europeo ad applicazioni reali

ODIN: Da un progetto europeo ad applicazioni real

Towards a Pan-European Information Space

When disasters occur, key factors for minimizing damages and loss of lives are access to necessary information and effective communication between emergency services. In cross-border disaster management, further challenges arise: language barriers, uneven know-how, organisational and technical differences in particular concerning communication and data or information exchange. To address those challenges, the FP7-Project EPISECC (Establish Pan-European Information Space to Enhance Security of Citizens) is working on the concept of a common information space to improve interoperability and efficiency while managing cross-border disasters. This involves researching on a common taxonomy and ontology as well as on interoperability functionalities and tools. A first step on this direction is the analysis of how disasters have been and are being managed. This paper reports on an inventory of disasters designed to consolidate such knowledge and aimed at being the basis for this information space. First gaps identified in communication/information management are also presented

Common information space as enabler for collaboration in disaster management:Demonstration of the validity of the EPISECC CIS concept

Interoperability of all actors involved in crisis and disaster management is an imperative pre-requirement for minimizing damage and losses in case of incidents. In order to enhance the opportunities of improved information exchange between involved stakeholders, the EU Commission funded the FP7 project EPISECC. The main objective of EPISECC is to develop a Common Information Space (CIS) designed to enable seamless information exchange between different practitioners involved in European crisis and disaster management. The concept of the CIS ensures that the organizations participating in the information processes can continue to use their proprietary IT solutions applied for crisis management. Unobstructed information exchange between IT solutions of different origin can be realized by developing an adaptor to the CIS only once. Such an approach reduces complexity in a considerable way. For instance, in case of 5 interacting organizations the CIS concept requests to develop 5 adaptors instead of 20 interfaces in case of interfacing each of the 5 tools on a bilateral way. In addition, with the EPISECC CIS, it is possible to semantically annotate exchanged messages as well as to set up subgroups of participating organizations in order to manage different types of incidents in parallel. This ensures that messages are only shared between the organizations involved in the management of a specific event. Within this paper the main features of the EPISECC CIS are illustrated. In addition, the successful Proof of Concept (PoC) of the project that took place in Palmanova, Italy in May 2017 is described