Co-designing for Community Resilience Beyond the Local

In this position paper we highlight our strategy for co-creating a platform to support community resilience that goes beyond a situated research. We first engage with a diverse set of stakeholders to conceive the design problem, and then we address the implementation aspects with local communities. We briefly illustrate a number of methods and strategies used to identify and extract the general socio-technical requirements from communities in different contexts

Information Management in Large-scale Disaster Exercises: An Integrated Perspective

Simulation exercises are fundamental for building knowledge, skills and capacities of participants to effectively address challenges in crisis management. A key element in emergency response and exercises are the capacities to work with information to support decision-making processes. However, not only exercise participants are dealing with challenges in information management (IM), but those controlling and directing exercises as well. Dynamic environments of exercises require IM capacities -for participants and directors- to optimize training opportunities. Despite common challenges, IM activities of exercise directors and participants have so far been considered as separate fields. This paper looks at these two perspectives as part of an integrated system and examines the similarities and differences of IM in two large-scale exercises. The parallels between them present options to further explore how alignment and -more importantly- synergy of IM practices between exercise participants and directors could improve the quality of information management training in exercise

Data Management in Emergency Response: Observations from the Field During COVID19 and Storm Ana

During disruptive events, the exchange of information is a key factor in successfully managing the adverse effects. Today, there is a plethora of data and related data-technologies available for emergency response organizations, which can help address the information needs. Data has a great potential to support responders in their operations, especially in complex emergencies with longer lasting and more widespread effects . However, the increasing availability and use of data in emergency response also presents new challenges. The emergence of data in the field of crisis response is not only technical in nature, but also has impacts on the organizational aspects. Drawing on existing literature and best practices in data management and governance activities, we explore this topic in two cases centered around large-scale emergency responses. We examine these challenges in data-management first-hand and identify the implications for responders and key considerations for successfully leveraging the potential of data in the immediate responses to large-scale emergencie

Towards a Model for Building Information Awareness in Crisis Situations

In crisis situations access to information is key to reduce uncertainty and enable effective decision making. With the advent of modern information technologies there is an abundance of possibilities to obtain, process, and share information. The number of actors that can potentially provide information has grown concomitantly. The challenge therefore is no longer the availability of information but rather the ability to find and connect with actors providing information in a volatile and dynamic environment. This requires of organizations to be aware of the actors and their information potential, and actively build informational awareness. In this paper we propose a model for the development of the awareness of organizations of the information landscape during critical events. We validate this model using two case studies and extract key factors that contribute to the challenges and success of leveraging information potential of actors in a crisis

Turning data into action:Supporting humanitarian field workers with open data

In the aftermath of disasters, information is of the essence for humanitarian decision makers in the field. Their concrete information needs is highly context-influenced and often they find themselves unable to access the right information at the right time. We propose a novel ICT-based approach to address these information needs more accurately. First, we select a group of in-field decision makers and collect their concrete information needs in the disaster aftermath. We then review to what extent existing data and tools can already address these needs. We conclude that existing solutions fall short in meeting important information needs of the selected group. We describe the design of an information system prototype to address these gaps more accurately. We combine data of the International Aid Transparency Initiative and the Humanitarian Data Exchange to form the data-backend of our system. We describe our implementation approach and evaluation plan

Hurricane Harvey Report:A Fact-Finding Effort in the Direct Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in the Greater Houston Region

On August 25, 2017, Hurricane Harvey made landfall near Rockport, Texas as a Category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of approximately 200 km/hour. Harvey caused severe damages in coastal Texas due to extreme winds and storm surge, but will go down in history for record-setting rainfall totals and flood-related damages. Across large portions of southeast Texas, rainfall totals during the six-day period between August 25 and 31, 2017 were amongst the highest ever recorded, causing flooding at an unprecedented scale. More than 100,000 residential properties are estimated to have been affected in southeast Texas. It is likely that Harvey will rank among the costliest storms in U.S. history. In the wake of Hurricane Harvey, Delft University of Technology has initiated a Harvey Research Team to undertake a coordinated multidisciplinary investigation of the events with a focus on the greater Houston area. This ‘fact-finding’ research is based on information available from public sources during and in the first weeks after the event. Results are therefore preliminary, but aim to provide insight into lessons that can be learned for both Texas and the Netherlands. As part of the investigations, a hackathon with more than 80 participants was organized to collect and analyze available public information. Houston was especially hard hit by flooding. During the event, all 22 watersheds in the greater Houston area experienced flooding. Many of Houston’s creeks and bayous exceeded their channel capacities, reaching water levels never before recorded. Across large portions of Harris County, rainfall totals exceeded the 1000-year return period. In addition, the water from the two reservoirs protecting downtown Houston (Addicks and Barker) were opened on August 28 to prevent catastrophic damages to the dams and further flooding in upstream communities. The releases exacerbated flooding in the areas downstream of the dams and an estimated 4,000 homes in neighborhoods downstream of the dams were impacted by flooding. The consequences of the event in the greater Houston area have been characterized in terms of economic damages, loss of life and impacts on critical infrastructure, airports and industry. In total, more than 100,000 homes were affected more than 70 fatalities were reported in the greater Houston area. The event highlighted the vulnerability of industrial facilities, as several cascading impacts (releases of toxic materials and explosions) were reported. Emergency response has been assessed. No large-scale mandatory evacuation was ordered before or during Harvey. However, it appeared that several local evacuations were ordered for areas with specific risks and circumstances. During the event, many people were trapped by rising waters necessitating a major rescue operation. In total, more than 10,000 rescues were made by professional and volunteer rescuers. Social media played an important role during the event and recovery, as an additional source of information, to inform emergency managers and as a means to organize community response e.g. for clean-up. Also, messages were conveyed through social media, e.g. a report of a levee breach that appeared to be incorrect afterwards. Major flooding is a problem that has multiple causes from both physical and social origin. Based on the investigations, recommendations for future research and lessons for flood management have been formulated. A better understanding of the issues studied in this report is expected to contribute to a knowledge basis for further in-depth investigations and future directions for flood risk reduction. Data collection and Report production funded by DIMI and DSys Special Case 'Houston Galveston Bay Region, Texas, USA' Project 'Harvey hackathon' and follow-up researc

The reciprocity of data integration in disaster risk analysis

Humanitarian organizations are increasingly challenged by the amount of data available to drive their decisions. Useful data can come from many sources, exists in different formats, and merging it into a basis for analysis and planning often exceeds organizations’ capacities and resources. At the same time, affected communities’ participation in decision making processes is often hindered by a lack of information and data literacy capacities within the communities. We describe a participatory disaster risk analysis project in the central Philippines where the community and a humanitarian NGO worked towards a joint understanding of disaster risks and coping capacities through data integration and IT-supported analysis. We present findings from workshops, focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews, showing the reciprocal effects of the collaborative work. While the community valued the systematically gathered and structured evidence that supported their own risk perceptions and advocacy efforts, the humanitarian NGO revisited established work practices for data collection for analysis and planning

Assessing barriers in information sharing via serious games: A case study of DIMB

The rapid advancement of information and communication technologies have made ever-increasing amounts of information available. Individuals and organizations are gradually familiar with and accustomed to living in an era with overloaded information. The adoption of a wide range of ICT tools and services has indeed reduced the technical barriers for people to access relevant information. Despite the decreased technical limitation, the information exchange between actors involved within the same network is more often confronted with organizational attributes which are often subjective and intangible, such as institutional willingness, group capabilities or cognitive capacity to ingest and share information. What makes this type of research difficult is to collect quality and in-depth data on information sharing activities. Serious games have been widely adopted as an approach in analyzing and designing complex systems with an explicit touch on the social context of the research domain. The immersive environment created by the games is not only for the participants but also serves as a great source for data collection. In this paper, the authors present a case study on using an augmented reality game, Disaster in My Backyard (DIMB), to explore and examine the institutional barriers in information sharing. It presents the experiment of playing this game with professionals in crisis response. In this paper we discuss the implications of how the design of numerous game elements creates the communication environment and help to facilitate the identification and assessment of barriers in information sharing. With the insights obtained from the case study, the effectiveness of gamebased learning in the context of information sharing is also well reflected and discussed in this paper

Assessing barriers in information sharing via serious games: A case study of DIMB

The rapid advancement of information and communication technologies have made ever-increasing amounts of information available. Individuals and organizations are gradually familiar with and accustomed to living in an era with overloaded information. The adoption of a wide range of ICT tools and services has indeed reduced the technical barriers for people to access relevant information. Despite the decreased technical limitation, the information exchange between actors involved within the same network is more often confronted with organizational attributes which are often subjective and intangible, such as institutional willingness, group capabilities or cognitive capacity to ingest and share information. What makes this type of research difficult is to collect quality and in-depth data on information sharing activities. Serious games have been widely adopted as an approach in analyzing and designing complex systems with an explicit touch on the social context of the research domain. The immersive environment created by the games is not only for the participants but also serves as a great source for data collection. In this paper, the authors present a case study on using an augmented reality game, Disaster in My Backyard (DIMB), to explore and examine the institutional barriers in information sharing. It presents the experiment of playing this game with professionals in crisis response. In this paper we discuss the implications of how the design of numerous game elements creates the communication environment and help to facilitate the identification and assessment of barriers in information sharing. With the insights obtained from the case study, the effectiveness of gamebased learning in the context of information sharing is also well reflected and discussed in this paper