Re: Draft XG Charter

Hi all,

Finally had some time to look at the draft charter, as I've been on  
the road for a fair amount of the last month and a half. I've  
attached some comments below.

1. We note that Emergency Management is used holistically, but we  
don't include an understood definition of emergency management. We  
need to find and include a suitable definition that includes the four  
main phases mitigation/reduction, preparedness/readiness, response  
and recovery. If we mention capacity, we also have to include  
capability. We should find a well recognised definition of EM. I  
haven't got a good one at hand however. Also, perhaps we need to turn  
the focus around from global to local - after all, all response is  
local. I've included one as a placeholder below until we find a  
suitable formal definition.

2. I'd prefer that we don't talk about EM as a sector, because EM  
cuts across so many sectors - local government, central government,  
NGO's, infrastructure, health, law enforcement, fire and rescue,  
education etc. Perhaps EM is better referred to as a function - a  
simple comparison may be accounting, all organisations need an  
accounting function. In communities, nearly every organisation  
requires an emergency management function - even if it is just for  
ensuring an organisations survival through continuity plans.

I've had a go at tuning the scope below.

"The emergency management community encompasses a broad spectrum of  
local, national and international organisations with a role in  
emergency and disaster management. Comprehensive Emergency Management  
is generally composed of four key components.

  * Reduction - the reduction of hazard impacts and community  
vulnerabilities to natural and man-made events
  * Readiness - increasing the capacity and capability of communities  
to response to events including planning, training, exercising,  
warning systems and public education
  * Response - response to an event focusing on immediate life safety  
and survivals needs (medical, food, water & shelter)
  * Recovery - the restoration of the impacted community to near or  
improved pre-event levels

There are a wide variety of roles in which information systems are  
used by emergency managers:

  * Assessment of natural and manmade hazards, including the  
identification and mapping of impacted communities and community  
infrastructure
  * Facilitate emergency response planning and pre-event sharing of  
information
  * Provision of emergency warning systems
  * Collection, assessment and sharing of disaster impact  
information, including people and infrastructure
  * Co-ordinating the logistics associated with response and recovery

The wide range of organisations involved in emergency management  
requires a collaborative approach to the sharing of information -  
especially for response and recovery. Information systems to support  
a collaborative approach to emergency management can add significant  
value, especially as the scope and scale of an event increases, and  
with it the volume of information that is required to be managed and  
shared.

It is essential that information is stored and communicated in common  
formats to ensure that information can be easily exchanged and  
aggregated to support the decision making process. A key component of  
this process is ensuring that consistent definitions (vocabulary) are  
used to support 'meaningful' sharing of information.

This W3C incubator group aims to assist the international emergency  
management community in the development of a clearly defined  
vocabulary to ensure that meaningful sharing and aggregation of  
information in machine-readable formats can occur."

3. Success Criteria. "promote the development of common standards and  
protocols for coordinating information
gathered in anticipation of potential risks" How about "Promote the  
development of data interoperability standards for co-ordinating  
hazard and community vulnerability information"?

"highlight best practices in simplifying the exchange of information  
across the sector." How about "Highlight best practice in improving  
the interoperability of emergency management information systems."?

4. Dependencies. "This will include existing standards groups (eg  
OASIS, UN), national emergency management groups, and international  
resilience and relief organisations." How about "This will include  
existing standards groups (e.g. OASIS, UN), national and  
international emergency management groups (e.g. IAEM), and  
international resilience and relief organisations." It might almost  
be appropriate to drop national emergency management groups as they  
will give a more parochial view than an international group would.

Cheers Gavin

Received on Monday, 13 August 2007 03:11:20 UTC