Supporting Group Decision Making and Coordination in Urban Disasters Relief Efforts
Supporting Group Decision Making When Extreme Events Affect Urban Areas 1
Supporting Group Decision Making and Coordination in Urban Disasters Relief Efforts
Sergio F. Ochoa* — Andrés Neyem* — José A. Pino* — Marcos R.S. Borges**
* Department of Computer Science, Universidad de Chile
Blanco Encalada 2120, Santiago 6511224, Chile
{sochoa, aneyem, jpino}@dcc.uchile.cl
** Graduate Program in Informatics
Núcleo de Computação Eletrônica and Instituto de Matemática
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
ABSTRACT.When extreme events affect urban areas the response process should be fast and effective because the population and civil infrastructure densities potentially increase the impact of such events. These situations have shown the need to improve the group decision-making process and the coordination of relief activities carried out by organizations inside and outside de disaster area. Most research initiatives do not address these challenges considering the first responders working in the disaster area as decision makers. This paper presents a proposal to include first responders as decision makers and it describes a technological platform to support decision making and coordination activities among these first responders and the command post. The supporting platform provides digital communication and information recording, representation and dissemination capabilities among the mobile workers participating in the relief efforts. The platform could also be used to support activities in scenarios similar to this one, such as police and military operations, and security operatives during massive social events.
KEYWORDS: Group Decision Support, Coordination, Emergency Management, Contextual Information, Software Platform.
1. Introduction
At the global level, average number of annual deaths caused by extreme events in the period 1999-2003 was 59,000 people. For the same period, the average number of affected people was 303 million per year (International Federation of Red Cross, 2004). About 97,490 people were killed in disasters globally from January to October 2005 (World Health Organization, 2006). Furthermore, the corresponding economical losses were estimated at $ 159 billion.
More than half the world’s population (3.4 billion people), live in areas where at least one large scale hazard could significantly impact them. Billions of people in more than 100 countries are periodically exposed to at least one event of earthquake, tropical cyclone, flood or drought. As a result of disasters triggered by these natural hazards, more than 184 deaths per day are recorded in different parts of the world (World Health Organization, 2006).
These eXtreme Events (XEs) not only include natural hazards, but also accidental and intentional disasters such as fires and terrorist attacks. However, natural hazards are the most harmful. In 2005, four natural hazard types (earthquake, tropical cyclone, flood and drought) were responsible for 94 percent of deaths due to XEs (World Health Organization, 2006).
When these XEs affect urban areas their potential impact on society increases due to the high population and civil infrastructure densities. In addition, XE responding process becomes more complex and critical. Several researchers have identified the need of reducing the vulnerability of urban areas to XEs (Columbia/Wharton Roundtable, 2002; Godschalk, 2003; Mileti, 1999) and improve the effectiveness of relief team actions in these situations (Mendonça, 2007; National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, 2004; Scalem et al., 2004). The significant human and economical costs emphasize this urgent need.
The relief team actions can be classified according to the three phases of disaster relief processes: (a) the preparedness of first response plans for disasters, (b) the response process to reduce the impact of XEs, and (c) the recovery of the affected areas (Mileti, 1999; National Science and Technology Council, 2003). Mileti (1999) defines these phases as follows: (a) “preparedness involves building an emergency response and management capability before a disaster occurs to facilitate an effective response when needed”; (b) “response refers to the actions taken immediately before, during and after a disaster occurs to save lives, minimize damage to property, and enhance the effectiveness of recovery”; and (c) “recovery involves short-term activities to restore vital support systems and long-term activities to return life to normal”.
Although the three phases involve group decision-making in differing contexts, this paper focuses only on the response phase of urban relief efforts. Response is the most complex and critical phase. Many pitfalls related to group decision-making and coordination activities have been well documented (Comfort, 2001; Mileti, 1999; Moore, 1999; National Research Council, 1999; National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, 2004; Quarantelli, 1996; Stewart et al., 2002). These problems directly influence the quality of decisions made and the effectiveness of the actions taken to mitigate XEs.
Several research projects have been undertaken over the last five years in this area. However, they do not consider the first responders working in the disaster area as decision makers. The main reason is that due to the communication problems inside the affected zone first responders become partially or totally isolated during relief efforts (Manoj et al., 2007). Therefore first responders are mainly reduced to improvisation (Mendonça, 2007; Mendonça et al., 2007; Webb, 2004). This improvisation jeopardizes the collaboration among them and the effectiveness of emergency response (Mendonça, 2007; National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, 2004). Another key issue that affects decision making and collaboration inside the disaster area is the lack of standards that ensure the communication and information interoperability among the first responders and managers belonging to different organizations.
Authors stated that contextual information disseminated through digital wireless communication could be used as a basis to improve group decision-making and coordination processes during the response phase (Ochoa et al., 2006). This contextual information can be understood as “whatever does not intervene explicitly with the solution to a problem but constrains it” (Brézillon et al., 2004). These may include: number of available first responders, current environmental condition, the features of the disaster area and so on. During the response phase a large amount of contextual information is generated which results from the development of the event, including the relief actions carried out by the teams. The prompt capture and distribution of this information can play an important role in the decisions made and actions carried out by disaster relief teams during that phase (Canós et al., 2005; Turoff, 2002; van de Walle et al., 2007). Currently, this contextual information is poorly considered in group decision-making processes and most response plans. However, “emergency managers have learned and stated that accurate and timely information is as crucial as is rapid and coherent coordination among responding organizations” (van de Walle et al., 2007).
This paper presents a proposal to include first responders as decision makers and it describes a technological platform to record, represent and distribute contextual information during disaster relief efforts. The platform intends to improve the decision-making and coordination processes among first responders and the command post. The platform is composed of a software, hardware and communication system. It runs on mobile computing devices and it allows two information representations. Visual representations support the decision-making during disaster relief efforts, and the digital (internal) representation ensures the information’s interoperability. The communication support enhances the communication and coordination capabilities of participant organizations. The platform also includes the support for information delivery in heterogeneous technological scenarios.
The next section characterizes extreme events and explains the relevance these characteristics have on the decision-making and coordination process. Section 3 describes the extreme collaboration scenario where the group decision-making process should be supported as part of disaster relief efforts. Section 4 presents the related work. Section 5 describes the technological platform that supports the group decision making and coordination processes. Section 6 presents the conclusions and the further work.
2. Characterizing Extreme Events
Prior research has proposed six properties of extreme events that are important mainly for decision making and decision support. These properties are: rarity, uncertainty, high and broad consequences, complexity, time pressure, and multiple decision makers (Stewart et al., 2002). They are commented below.
XEs are rare. Their low frequency of occurrence restricts the opportunities for preparation and learning from them. This rarity creates the need for diverse thinking, solutions and skills. Furthermore, this rarity makes these events difficult to understand, model and predict.
XEs are also uncertain because both their occurrence is unpredictable and their evolution is highly dynamic. The challenges an XE presents and its consequences are the joint product of that event, the affected community, and the organizations involved in preparation and response. Every disaster is different; therefore disasters present varying challenges to decision making, e.g., time availability and geographic scale.
When XEs affect urban areas they usually have high and broad consequences, leading to the need to manage interdependencies among a wide range of physical and social systems (Godschalk, 2003; Rinaldi et al., 2001). The risks and the disaster evolution should be evaluated quickly and accurately so that decisions can be effective and timely. When these processes involve several people and organizations, it may be appropriate to use tools to support interaction among these people and organizations.
Event complexity arises in part due to the severe consequences of XEs (Columbia/Wharton Roundtable, 2002). It may also arise as a result of interdependencies among urban infrastructure systems (Godschalk, 2003; Rinaldi et al., 2001). The complexity of the events requires the participation of experts in several areas (e.g. civil engineers, transportation/electrical engineers and chemical experts) to support decision making. The activities of these persons need to be coordinated.
Time pressure forces a convergence of planning and execution (Moorman et al., 1998), so that opportunities for analysis are few (Stewart et al., 2002). It is therefore vital that accurate and timely information be gathered and delivered among the organizations participating in the disaster relief effort. Information supporting forecasting event impact and propagation is needed. This time pressure also creates a need for convergent thinking in order to generate coordinated mitigation actions in a timely fashion.
Finally, we have to consider that multiple decision makers will be involved in the relief activities given the complexity and diversity of organizations participating. They may compete or negotiate while responding to the event. It may therefore be advisable to consider how decision support systems can assist the management of shared resources and help people to converge soon to joint decisions. These decisions and the actions produced by them need to be coordinated in order to carry out an integral mitigation effort.
All these XE properties add requirements and challenges to the decision making and coordination processes. However, there are several other issues that also add requirements to the disaster relief process, for example the usability of the technological solutions, the commitment level for inter-organizational collaboration, and the features and role of the affected area. The proposal presented in this paper is focused just on providing communication support, information interoperability and delivery inside the disaster area as a way to reduce uncertainty and improvisation space. The information availability and interaction capabilities among first responders inside the affected area would help improve the decision making and coordination process. The usability of this technological solution was carefully considered during the design phase and it is discussed in sections 5.2 and 5.4.
3. Urban Disaster Relief Scenario
Urban areas can be seen as an interconnected system (public utilities, transportation systems, communications, power systems, and homes and office buildings) where a failure can potentially affect many people. When XEs affect urban areas, the key issue is to control the cascading effects on the interconnected systems (Godschalk, 2003; Rinaldi et al., 2001; Stewart et al., 2002).
Typically, the response process involves a disaster relief mission that relies on geographically distributed teams consisting of personnel in several roles, such as field agents, team leaders, coordinators, decision makers and specialists/advisors. The teams are composed of various individuals and organizations with diverse expertise depending on the type of XE to mitigate, the features of the affected area and the available resources. In major disasters, the first response teams are composed of firefighters, police officers, medical personnel, government officers and various specialists (Figure 1).
Typically, firefighters are mainly focused on fire fighting, evacuation of civilians, search and rescue activities and evaluation of the affected area. Police officers are mainly in charge of isolating the disaster area, supporting the evacuation process and protecting the civil property. Medical personnel provide first-aid and transportation of victims to health centers. The government officers are usually in charge of making the macro-decisions and coordinating the activities of the participating organizations. The role of the specialists is to support managers in the decision making process. For example they analyze possible consequences of a decision and provide advice to make the response process more effective/safe. Usually, when XEs affect urban areas, civil engineers are involved to carry out structural analysis of civil infrastructure (Aldunate et al., 2006;Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2002).
Figure 1. Composition of an urban disaster relief mission
Several constraints exist in an urban relief mission: (1) one of the main issues is the mission needs to be launched in a short period of time; (2) cultural, age and discipline differences may exist since a disaster relief mission is performed by participants from various organizations and it could involve more than one country; (3) on-site information should be easily understandable and deliverable for all organizations; and (4) the communication availability in the disaster area should be provided in order to deliver information, communicate decisions and coordinate activities. Currently, most communication support inside a disaster area is based on 2 or 3 radio channels; and information delivery is based on physical maps disseminated among first responders (Aldunate et al., 2006). Considering that in large urban disasters there may be hundreds or thousands of first responders, these communication support and information delivery systems are clearly insufficient (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, 2004).
3.1. Decision Making Scenario
Decision makers have to consider that several activities such as searching for and rescuing survivors, and repairing buildings temporarily to support rescue missions, must be carried out in a short time period (Turoff, 2002). Typically the first 12-24 hours are the most critical. Therefore, the decisions triggering these tasks should also be made as soon as possible. Searching and rescuing survivors should be performed immediately after a disaster occurs.
For that reason, the availability and understandability of the contextual information that supports the decision process should be high. Compiled information with a graphical representation (e.g. teams’ location, task assignments and resource allocation presented on a map) can be used to be easy to understand by persons making decisions in different organizations. However, if such information needs to be delivered among the participants, it will require the support of interoperable information and communication systems. Since the type and amount of contextual information that could be used to make decisions is diverse and comes from several sources, the processes of capturing, representing and delivering such information play a key role in getting accurate and on-time decisions.
Other aspects to consider are the decision dissemination and implementation. Not all persons have to know every decision made; therefore decisions have to be communicated to the right persons and delivered in the appropriate way (e.g. visual/sound alarms or on-demand notifications). Reported experiences show that organizations participating in relief efforts keep inter-organization interactions among themselves to a minimum, and follow their own protocols and procedures (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, 2004; Stewart et al., 2002). This jeopardizes the implementation of decisions. Government agencies are usually in charge of the emergency management process, and their major challenge is to make the macro-decisions and coordinate efforts from other organizations (Dykstra, 2003; Jackson et al., 2002; National Research Council, 2002). However, people only obey executives from their own organization (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, 2004; Smith, 2003). Thus, the decisions made by government managers might not have the expected effect.
The problems related to decision delivery and implementation are based on the lack of an inter-organizational structure able to establish responsibilities and decision making levels. Although proposals for this structure could be stated in some national response plan (Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2002), in practice it is the result of a self-organizing negotiation and even discussion process (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, 2004).
Regardless of the way this structure is generated - by a self-organizing process or established by a national plan - two types of decision making processes are conducted during the response process: organizational decision making and improvisation. Organizational decision making is the process of making decisions following the protocols, rules and conventions defined by an organization. This process is usually done in a common command post or in the command post of each organization. The implementation of these decisions is carried out mainly using the organization’s own resources (e.g. equipment, human resources and materials). These decisions have an effect on the relief effort and also on the activities of other first response organizations. Since the rules and protocols of an organization are not usually designed to be used in inter-organizational activities, a decision made by an organization could imply negative effects on other ones (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, 2004; Stewart et al., 2002).
Improvisations used to be a consequence of the communication problems in the disaster area. Members of first response teams usually communicate among themselves using radio systems, because the fixed communication infrastructure is frequently collapsed, unreliable or overloaded. They share two or three radio channels to carry out the communication process, which are insufficient and inappropriate for large relief efforts (Aldunate et al., 2006; National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, 2004). The lack of control on the transmission channels and the poor information transmission capabilities may leave several response teams isolated or uninformed. In such situations, the only choice for such persons is improvisation. Improvisation is typical of large relief efforts and it is mainly carried out in the field (Mendonça, 2007). The decisions made during improvisation are based on the experience of the decision maker or the group. Little or no information supports such decisions and their implementation involves just local group resources. Improvisations usually involve small scope activities; however, all these activities happening in parallel have important consequences on the global results of the relief effort.