Re: Ontology of disaster management

Hi Quentin,

On 20/06/2007, at 15:56, Quentin Halliday wrote:

> I think the reason ontologies for the response phase have  
> flourished, whether formally in the US or more loosely in Sahana or  
> other systems, is that the community of interest in the response  
> phase is relatively localized and/or circumscribed: it's generally  
> relief agencies and their operatives.  This community can thus  
> reach agreement about the elements and attributes of their domain.   
> An expressive ontology of resilience is harder because it involves  
> many different institutions, from local communities to national  
> planning agencies.

> It is questionable whether islands of uniformity exist that could  
> be exploited to derive a normalized description of these domains.   
> I think the US effort is developing a relatively thorough ontology  
> of response phase communications and subsequently resource  
> management, but resilience will be a much bigger ask.

Most of the organisation involved in promoting resilience are also  
involved in response. It is only relief agencies where a community  
has no formal comprehensive emergency management programme in place.

If we aim solely at relief agencies, we won't do that much good. If  
we can develop something that fits across the four R's of  
comprehensive emergency management we will have created something  
very much more valuable.

But yes, it will be harder.

Cheers Gav

Received on Saturday, 23 June 2007 11:01:04 UTC