============================================================================== ISOC Document 94-326 Title: Report on Disaster Relief Programme Author(s): Peter Anderson Date: 1994.12.05 Body: Board of Trustees Document: 94-326 Revision: basic Supersedes: - Status: Draft Maintainer: Peter Anderson Access: unrestricted ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Building Emergency Lanes on the Information Highways Associate Director Centre for Policy Research on Science and Technology Simon Fraser University- Harbour Centre Campus 515 West Hastings Street Vancouver, B.C. Canada V6B 5K3 anderson@sfu.ca 1944 has been an extraordinary year for growth of Internet-based services in support of emergency management activities. Many organizations, from local to international levels, are now experimenting on the Internet to find better ways to integrate their activities. The following report uses our own activities to illustrate how some of these applications are emerging. Concept of Integrated Emergency Management Successful implementation of disaster reduction initiatives rests heavily upon the abilities of countries and their agencies to acquire and assimilate scientific and technical knowledge about hazards and their consequences. However, given the nature of hazards, their effects often spread across social as well as physical boundaries, requiring the resources of many professions and disciplines, frequently operating in different jurisdictions nationally and internationally. Consequently, the effectiveness of mitigation efforts is greatly influenced by the degree to which organizations and individuals can collectively develop and implement solutions to commonly recognized problems and associated actions. The communication and information revolution of the 1990s opens enormous opportunities for improving the integration and collection of information across disciplinary and jurisdictional boundaries. The convergence and expansion of computer and telecommunications technologies enable local information to be gathered at an unprecedented rate and instantly distributed around the world - and through its analysis and application, to create new products, services and organizations. Development of EPIX In an attempt to identify and assess the potential role and impact of new communication and information technologies in disaster management, the Centre for Policy Research on Science and Technology at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, in collaboration with other organizations nationally and internationally, has been engaged for the past two years in a series of new initiatives in disaster communication research and application. Current projects involve collaborating with network developers and emergency planners, managers, trainers and researchers in the design, testing, evaluation and implementation of new electronic messaging, file and computing resource sharing systems, as well as investigating means to ensure that such systems themselves are not vulnerable to hazard occurrences. The first prototype service to be placed on-line for public use was entitled the "Emergency Preparedness Information Exchange" or "EPIX". EPIX is a gopher/WWW server established to facilitate the regular exchange of ideas and information in support of integrated disaster mitigation practices. It places members of the emergency management community in contact with each other and with relevant organizations and programs, providing them with background and operational disaster related information on both a domestic and international basis. EPIX also serves as an international experimental platform for the development and testing of new emergency communication and information management applications and as the UN International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction Secretariat's Internet server for promoting Decade activities and collaboration. Efforts in 1983 and early 1994 focused on developing a menu interface to consolidate existing Internet gopher applications serving emergency/disaster management interests, as well as building specialized databases and information services. In this way, through a single gopher point, EPIX became (and remains) an inventory of emergency management Internet resources. EPIX also became an electronic archive site for storing and facilitating access to information on behalf of other organizations. Services currently available include information about: emergency and disaster management organizations; topics such as emergency communications, training and research programs, specialized information services, natural and technological hazards; upcoming conferences and events; on-line discussion groups, libraries, newsletters and databases (including weather forecasts and recent seismic reports); disaster situation reports. Gopher access: disaster.cprost.sfu.ca 5555 WWW: http://disaster.cprost.sfu.ca/~anderson/ Operational Use of EPIX While the original intention of the project was to enhance disaster research and planning practices, in the past year, EPIX has been used in several disaster situations, including assisting the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services in disseminating information internationally about wildfires and Northridge (Los Angeles) Earthquake relief and recovery operations. Similarly, on behalf of the United Nations Department of Humanitarian Affairs, Geneva, EPIX is being used to distribute its international disaster situation reports via the Internet. The May, 1994 Yokohama World Disaster Reduction Conference also proved to be a very important venue for demonstrating the usefulness of EPIX as a tool for promoting and enabling international exchange and collaboration, and for stimulating new project work. An outgrowth of the conference is the planned use of EPIX to provide technical and networking support to the Joint Assistance Centre in India, focal point for a new Global Forum of NGOs For Disaster Response which was formed at the Yokohama Conference. New Developments In mid-1994, a group of interested emergency management network developers met at the University of Colorado to discuss plans for initiating a new International Emergency Reduction and Readiness/Response Information System (IERRIS). Initiated under the guidance of the UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs, IERRIS is intended to provide a framework for inter-actor emergency/disaster information needs and problem analysis, evaluation, resource assessment, procedures and system design, operation, maintenance and enhancement. The Project is to enable the actors concerned to: adopt information management procedures that are of common benefit; work with common and/or compatible information management standards and technologies; collaborate in the development of new information systems and procedures so as to meet information needs that are not met by existing systems and procedures; and to share and exchange suitable emergency-related information collected for respective institutional needs. This concerted effort will result in major improvements in the quality, specificity and timeliness of information available internationally for early warning, monitoring, reporting, resource mobilization and co-ordination, evaluation, disaster reduction, and the information exchange, reference and referral services related to all these concerns. A series of demonstration projects are being planned to draw together organizations and individuals who can contribute resources and expertise in system design, development, management and evaluation. Initial focus is on improving early warning systems through integration of appropriate information services, including weather and other natural hazard forecasting and warning/reporting services, geographic, demographic and health information services, etc. Some progress has been made in this regard with a test WWW established under the name of IERRISNet. The URL for IERRISNet is: http://hoshi.cic.sfu.cic.ca/~ierris/ Participants presently include UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs, Simon Fraser University, NOAA-National Weather Service and the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services, while many others are expected to join the project in 1995. Potential Role of Internet Society The Internet Society could be a very important contributor to these efforts. Some of the ways in which it could assist include: * promoting the use of the Internet as an essential tool and global resource for disaster prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery; * providing technical, policy and network administrative advice and support to help developers and users maintain a global view of Internet evolution; * assisting the emergency management community in locating the resources it needs to equitably develop and provide services. Most of the work, to date, has occurred through voluntary efforts of those involved. We desperately need the support of network providers, equipment vendors, and software specialists; * sponsoring and/or co-sponsoring workshops and training sessions; * ensuring that the Internet is reliable and robust so that essential services can be delivered in times of crisis; * operationalizing its Committee on Disaster Assistance to coordinate ISOC support. ==============================================================================