Re: Ontology of disaster management

Hi Quentin,

One comment from your conclusion.

> It is also debatable whether any ontological effort will extend  
> beyond the Response Phase.

I would argue that any ontological effort will fail unless it  
accommodates all phases of comprehensive emergency management. I came  
across this issue in some research I did with the Ministry of Civil  
Defence and Emergency Management in New Zealand last year. We were  
looking at issues surrounding the management of disaster impact  
assessment (DIA) information.

In summary, there are a number of assessment methodologies (and I'm  
sure I only discovered a subset as there are probably many more  
contained behind closed doors). But there were different structures  
used to represent DIA information, meaning that said information  
could not be easily shared or aggregated using IT.

Any ontology must support all four phases.

1. Hazard research that occur during Reduction (mitigation/prevention  
in US lingo) produces estimates of damages for hazards. These  
research estimates need a methodology so that the damage estimates  
can be transferred to Readiness to assist with planning and to  
Response for initial estimates before actual assessment information  
becomes available.

2. During Readiness (preparedness) the DIA estimates from Reduction  
research will be used to drive Response and Recovery planning. This  
will include using the research DIA estimates as quick reference  
information for initial response before actual assessment occurs  
during and after an event.

3. Response is of course where the most obvious need for a DIA  
methodology kicks in, and probably needs little explanation.

4. Recovery is perhaps on of the most critical phases as this is  
where you are using the DIA information to identify the most impacted  
communities to target additional recovery resources and meet needs  
(following on from the post-disaster needs assessments). Most of the  
information used for Recovery will be gathered during the Response  
and early-Recovery phases.

5. The feedback loop - DIA figures from an actual event (3&4) will be  
feed back into future research that occurs as part of Reduction (1).

Therefore, the interconnectedness of disaster impact assessment  
information suggests that an ontology developed solely for Response,  
will fail to meet the needs of comprehensive emergency management as  
it won't allow DIA information to be captured from events, and  
transferred to future research and planning. Any ontology must work  
for Response and Recovery - this is non-negotiable. From there, it  
makes sense then to apply it across all four phases.

This diagram from the report highlights some of the information flow  
between phases.

<http://www.civildefence.govt.nz/memwebsite.nsf/Files/ 
Disaster_Impact_Assessment/$file/Unified%20Diagram%2020060501.png>

My research highlighted this failure in two government guidelines in  
New Zealand. During Reduction - the HESIG model was used for hazard  
impact assessment based around top tier categories of Human,  
Economic, Social, Infrastructure and Geography. Yet a later guideline  
produced for Recovery utilised a SEBN top level classification of  
impact assessment information - Social, Economic, Built environment  
and Natural environment. Whilst very similar, they are not exactly  
the same, and we were not able completely map all elements from one  
to another in our discussions.

This diagram from within the report was my attempt to indicate  
approximately where the different assessment feel under the  
comprehensive emergency management framework.

<http://www.civildefence.govt.nz/memwebsite.nsf/Files/ 
Disaster_Impact_Assessment/$file/Assessment%20Timeline%20Pg1% 
2020060501.png>

The research report is available from this page - it is the Kestrel  
report. There is also a draft framework that was developed by MCDEM,  
but it unfortunately died a natural death and was never advanced much  
beyond a couple of meetings.

<http://www.civildefence.govt.nz/memwebsite.nsf/wpg_URL/For-the-CDEM- 
Sector-Publications-Disaster-Impact-Assessment?OpenDocument>

Developing a subset for a specific application such as disaster  
impact assessment might be a great way to get start in EM ontologies  
as there is a real problem around the representation of assessment  
information, and a standard is required so that everyone is using the  
same definitions and terms when representing this information and  
sharing it - otherwise it cannot be easily aggregated by information  
systems.

> The construction of ontologies that determine disaster mitigation  
> and disaster recovery may be too politically threatening since they  
> would normatively prescribe our standards of living, what is  
> desirable in the planning of human communities and what is  
> acceptable in their reconstruction.

This is a good thing. Aspects of emergency management SHOULD be  
reaching out to day-to-day aspects, because decisions we make on a  
day-to-day basis have impacts on our overall resilience, such as  
investment in community infrastructure - should we just build  
something cheap and ignore this hazard? Likewise the decisions made  
during recovery with regards to redevelopment and reconstruction will  
have implications on community life once it returns to routine  
operation. For these reasons - far greater linkages between many  
community aspects including infrastructure planning, emergency  
management, hazard management, risk management, urban design and  
planning and sustainability are all inherently linked and cannot and  
should not be separated.

> At present, however, the field of emergency management is  
> concentrating on developing a description of the Response Phase, an  
> ontology of chaos as it were,  however ironic that might be.

I don't quite follow this statement?

Cheers Gav

-- 
Gavin Treadgold - Director
gt@kestrel.co.nz - M 021 679 335
Christchurch Office - P 03 343 6169 - F 03 343 6161
Kestrel Group - Risk and Emergency Management - www.kestrel.co.nz

On 19/06/2007, at 15:55, Quentin Halliday wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I've just written a paper about the development of ontologies in  
> disaster management from an Information Studies (and outside  
> looking in)point of view: http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/qhallida/ 
> DisasterManagementFinal.html
>
> Please feel free to comment, if interested.
>
>
> Quentin Halliday, Graduate Student, Information Studies, UCLA

Received on Tuesday, 19 June 2007 10:43:31 UTC