________________________________________________________________________
Strengthening
Community Resilience
Disaster information for communities:
needs and means
Examining and
reporting on
the information
requirements of communities
and the current
technology they are using
A report of the
Communities Working Group
to GDIN
Global Disaster
Information Network
Rome June
2002
www.gdin.org
E. B. Joyce
________________________________________________________________________
A report of the
Communities Working Group
Front cover:
Katherine, Northern Territory, Australia
After the Katherine-Daly
Australia Day flood, January 1998, the Katherine Town Council erected a notice
board, now defaced, in the main street with a Natural Disaster Reference Map
showing assembly areas for children and for family pets, and faded instructions
on "What to do when the siren sounds'', where to go, and so on.
Photo by the author 30 July
2001
Rear cover:
Mud volcano eruption
Kuirau Park, Rotorua, NZ
Photo by the author 20th
February 2001
______________________________________________________
Strengthening
Community Resilience
Disaster information for communities:
needs and means
Examining and
reporting on
the information
requirements of communities
and the current
technology they are using
A report of the
Communities Working Group
to GDIN Rome June
2002
E. B. Joyce
University of
Melbourne
Australia
Chair
Communities Working
Group
________________________________________________________________________
Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 5
Introduction to the report: history and background 6
A discussion of community disaster needs 7
Technology tools and disaster information for communities 18
Conclusions 23
The future of this project 24
Acknowledgements 26
References 25
Some useful web sites 27
Appendix 28
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
A number of ideas have been collected together by the Chair
of the Working Group, as author of this report, from discussions both at GDIN
Canberra and since then at other meetings and in personal contacts. Literature
search and web search has provided further ideas. From the data, some general
conclusions are made about information needs of communities on the web. A
review of the rapidly-changing technological aspects of disaster information
provision has been provided. Finally, some suggestions are made for future work
on community disaster information needs, and also for the future of the Working
Group.
Communities vary greatly - from villages on a Pacific island
to a community in New York - and their information needs and the range of
technology tools available to them will also vary greatly.
Disaster information managers have a number of ways to decide
what information they supply to communities - one of these ways must be by
community consultation.
Communities must be consulted, and continue to be consulted
over time, about what information they want.
The published information from community consultation
studies is sparse, and suggests that supplying basic information in simple
formats using a low level of technology to transmit the information may often
be the best approach.
Technology changes must be continually reviewed for new and
better ways to deliver information.
In summary:
Keep
it simple
Use
low technology
Respond
to community feedback
Control
information flow - be systematic and clear
Archive
material.
INTRODUCTION TO THE REPORT: HISTORY AND BACKGROUND
Russell Coile was Chair of the Small Communities Working
Group up to GDIN 2001. His October 2000 Progress Report (Coile 2000) provides a
background to the present Communities Working Group and to this report. He has
also posted other material on the web (at the GDIN web site) on his work for
GDIN, including a report of the local government working group to the GDIN
Mexico City meeting of GDIN in May 1999, and at Ankara, Turkey in April 2000,
and also papers he has presented at Honolulu, Hawaii in October 2000, and
elsewhere.
His discussion on the GDIN web Forum site (search for
"Victim Typology") spells out the details of information needs of
victims of disasters. This is based on work by Riley (1995), who has a typology
of disaster victims - dead; survivors; bereaved; families and friends of the
survivors and bereaved; first-responder rescuers; providers of assistance;
community affected by the disaster; general public. She lists needs of
survivors, often giving very practical but possibly overlooked matters such as
how to claim from the distress fund, how to get counselling, and looking at
archives of media coverage of the disaster, to help with assimilating the
experience. This list was included in the listing prepared by the Working Group
members at GDIN 2001, and is included in the listing posted on the web at:
http://web.earthsci.unimelb.edu.au/Joyce/geology/GDIN_WG.htm
At GDIN in Canberra 2001 the reconstituted Community Working
Group took on the task of reporting on community needs for disaster information
on the web. This report was to provide GDIN and its technical and professional
disaster experts with an accurate indication of the types of information
community members wanted to have available on the web.
Two well-attended meetings were held during GDIN2001 in
Canberra in March 2001, with nearly 40 taking part, including representatives
from the South Pacific - SOPAC, the Cook Islands, PNG and the Solomons - from
the U.S., India, SE Asia, and other regions, and also from a number of NGOs.
The initial discussion centred on Small Communities and the
concepts of "needs and means" - the disaster information needs of
small communities, and the means of providing information to such groups.
A list of likely information needs for small communities in
India was tabled from Dr Bhandari, and Allan Collins provided some related
Australian information using EMA reports; Russell Coile's web reports provided
another list compiled for a conference in England (Riley 1995).
Following discussions of these lists, each person present
was asked to list several major or possibly overlooked needs of communities
they were familiar with. Many interesting and useful suggestions on what
communities want were collected.
These lists were collected by Dudley McArdle, acting as
Working Group recorder, and the information was later sorted, and has since
been presented back to Working Group and GDIN members on a web site, with
Working Group and other GDIN members alerted to the site by email.
http://web.earthsci.unimelb.edu.au/Joyce/geology/GDIN_WG.htm
During GDIN 2001 the Small Communities Working Group was
renamed the Communities Working Group, and it was planned that a wide range of
communities, different in size, location, culture and technological level,
would be asked to provide information.
Aims
The proposed compilation on disaster information needed
by communities formed a starting point for the project, which was investigate
what disaster information communities wanted.
As a secondary aim, the report was also to consider the
technology tools required to disseminate disaster information from the
information provider to individual communities.
Further information was to be collected from a number of
sources:
1. Working Group members would be asked by email to
contribute further data. An email address list was compiled, and several
requests were made to members during the latter part of 2001. These failed to
provide any further information. Again, in the GDIN Working Group Chairs Forum
discussion in mid-July 2001 no useful contributions were received.
2. It was agreed that Pacific island nations might provide a
good example of a group of communities to be consulted. Through SOPAC (which
represents 15 Pacific island countries) and with the assistance of Allan
Mearns, it was agreed in June 2001 that the Working Group would share in the
results of a study being planned by SOPAC to survey a number of Pacific island
countries to assess their future access to disaster information over the
internet. This study has now been completed, but has actually provided
information mainly on the technical aspects of data dissemination (Biukoto
2002). However, earlier reports such as Granger (1999) provide useful
discussions of community information needs in Pacific island countries.
3. Information on community web disaster needs was to be
compiled from published sources, including information available on the Internet
itself. This has yielded some ideas and these are discussed later in this
report.
4. Local contacts were to be made where possible by Working
Groups members with communities they were familiar with to find out their
information needs.
In summary, the results of this data collection have not
been highly successful. No specific examples of community disaster information
needs were received from Working Group members. This was in spite of a series
of emails sent to all members since GDIN in Canberra in March 2001 and also
copied to other GDIN members.
A number of ideas have been collected together by the Chair
of the Working Group, as author of this report, from discussions both at GDIN
Canberra and since then at other meetings and in personal contacts. Literature
search and web search has provided further ideas. From the data assembled by
the writer, some general conclusions are made about information needs of
communities on the web. A review of the rapidly-changing technological aspects
of disaster information provision has also been provided in this report.
Finally, some suggestions are made for future work on community disaster
information needs, and also for the future of the Working Group.
In June 2001 several members of the Working Group who were located
in Victoria, Australia met at the Australian Emergency Management Institute at
Macedon, Victoria, and discussed these ideas further. A working plan was
developed, and several useful lists drawn up - three are shown below.
Some ideas
Types of Communities
island
village
town
coastal/port
tourist resort
local government areas e.g.
shire
aboriginal settlement
mining camp/construction camp
refugee and migrant camps
Individuals in Communities
We must deal with individual
members of groups and organisations:
Mayors/Shire Presidents/CEOs
Shire Engineers/planning
staff/safety managers/ disaster officers
Police/SES/CFA/ Search
and Rescue/civil defence/etc.
Local branches of state &
national government departments - e.g. land, survey and environment departments,
national parks, agriculture,
Local staff of NGOs
Staff at Hospital/Bush Nursing Centre/Clinic/Health
and Medical Services
Education : primary and
secondary schools, branches of Tertiary institutes, distance education centres
- school principals/teachers/ parents on School Councils/ students
Youth & sporting groups
Religious - churches, clubs,
child and old people homes
Media
- radio/newspaper/TV/Internet
Transport
- buses & taxis, train, planes - station & airports
Business community - Chamber of Commerce/ market
staff/banks, post office
Travel agents
Volunteer
groups
Farming community e.g. members
of Landcare
Groups of Elders, chiefs
Major employers (especially
in company towns)
Some special considerations
language
groups
illiteracy
disability
groups
women
government censorship &
limits to outside access
telecommunications technology
(here part of "means")
power supply problems
roads and utilities/infrastructure/airports &
helicopter pads/harbours
A DISCUSSION OF COMMUNITY DISASTER NEEDS BASED ON
PUBLISHED AND WEB-BASED INFORMATION
The community
What is a community?
We might compare and contrast a small island community, a
small town or village on the coast, or inland, including an isolated community
such as an aboriginal settlement, a rural region, an unusual community such as
a military camp, mining camp, refugee camp or prison, a holiday resort, a
community forming a part of a larger community e.g. a suburb of a city, a
retirement village or old persons' home, a school or university, a large
hospital, a high-rise housing unit, a high-rise business building, a central
business district. (See Marsh and Buckle, 2001 for a useful discussion of the
concept of a community).
These range from small to large in population and in area,
varying in isolation, varying in possible disasters (e.g. coastal tsunami
contrasted with inland drought), of varying susceptibility e.g. retirement home
in comparison with a primary school) and with members of varying ages, with
varying potential leaders (teachers, nurses, police, and so on).
In the discussions in this report we will specifically
contrast small island communities (such as Savo, a volcanic island in the
Solomons), using the SOPAC report and other published information, and a
community forming part of a city (the community of the World Trade Centre
towers of New York and the extension of that community to include other people
beyond that immediate area).
Communities Working Group member Ross Pagram of South
Australia (email 7th June 2002) says "We have isolated but
cohesive communities (in South Australia) many thousands of kms from regional
centres but the bigger issues for us are more often with disconnected urban
communities and how to engage, communicate and succeed at that level."
The web site of Phillip Buckle (see list of web sites after
references) has a report and associated guidelines on assessing personal and
community resilience and vulnerability. Buckle, Marsh and Smale provide some of
the few studies available in which consultation has been carried out with
communities.
Marsh and Buckle (2001) have investigated the concept of
community in the risk and emergency management context. "Community"
is a key element of Victoria's emergency management. "The assumption is
that there was a definable group of peoplewho had something in common."
(p. 5). Marsh and Buckle introduce the idea of a mosaic of communities" to
which people belong. They may share a common characteristic, belonging to a
community defined by access to municipal services, age group, ethnicity,
religion and so on. The local community involves not just domestic residents
but industry, businesses, schools, services, etc. Within a local government
area many potential "communities of interest" may exist, and there
may also be "communities of affection or function" (e.g. ethnicity,
class, gender), "communities of competition" (temporary alliances),
and "communities of status grouping and interest".
What are community disaster information needs?
Here is a list of questions that community members might ask
about a coming or current disaster:
When will it happen?
How to prepare?
When to stay and when to go?
Where to go?
How to travel?
How long will it last?
Who can advise and help?
What help will be given and when?
What to do during the event?
When to return?
What to do afterwards?
How to find out information -
beforehand?
during the event?
afterwards?
Some other questions -
what do alerts levels mean?
what do maps of hazards and hazard zones mean?
A list of needs
Simple text description
Levels of warning e.g. volcanoes - explained; brief
explanation included each time
Simple diagrams - locality maps, DTMs including oblique
views, N point/scale/full key - printable, faxable, black & white rather
than colour
Imagery - photos, air photos, satellite imagery (Sydney
fires)
Interpreted imagery as maps - flows at Niragongo, access
routes at New York
Contacts - email, telephone, fax - for further information
Registering for future automatic information updates -
email, phone, fax
Meteorology data - winds, rain, date/time, changing
conditions
Speed, rates - flood fronts, fire fronts, predictions (as
maps), map sequences to allow extrapolation by users
Web links, addresses/phone/fax saying "Further
Info" - include explanatory notes as to value, info type - is it worth it?
Information on other technology e.g. web site refers to
radio bulletins, & vice versa.
Downloadable, printable, copyable documents e.g. warning
notices, access maps, daily bulletins (for posting up, distribution,
letter-boxing), personal accreditation badges, identity cards.
The community will have questions to ask!!
They will need contacts (names, lists, phone numbers,
meeting dates, etc.) so they can ask about:
how
to obtain income support after the event?
essential
services - when will they be restored?
what
to do with animals, pets (during the Katherine Australia Day January 1998
flood, separate areas were set
aside for pets and for children)
what
about other animals - livestock?
and
so on.
In the final report of the Australian Disaster Conference
1999, distributed post-conference as nine A4 pages) attention was drawn to the
problem of making sure that managers are aware of what community members really
want.
"A fully comprehensive, equitable dialogue is required
between all involved parties to:
raise
the awareness of communities of the risks to which they may be exposed; and
raise
the awareness of emergency managers of the nature of the communities to which
they are responsible - who they area, what are their needs, how they can be
assisted."
"The main challenge is to provide information to
communities in a form that will allow them to make their own decisions.
Emergency managers need the knowledge, skills and attitudes to enable them to
work with communities rather than just for them."
Emergency Management Australia has produced "The Good
Practice Guide, Community Awareness and Education in Emergency
Management". The guide points out that "One great communication
tradition is to make assumptions about what the community (or the audience)
already knows and wants" (p.9). In any project, having defined the target
audience, it is necessary to find out what the target audience wants and needs.
"To collect the required information you may need to telephone a sample of
people across the target audience. You could perhaps use volunteers or local
university or TAFE students to conduct the research." One of the best ways
is to target representative groups such as women's groups, business clubs,
sporting clubs, and so on.
Qualititive research collects ideas and reflects how people
think and feel about the topic, e.g. focus group discussions and one-to-one
discussions with community audiences. Quantitative research provides a
"number picture" of how many people share a particular attitude or
belief, e.g. a questionnaire distributed to 30,000 households chosen at random.
(Emergency Management Australia 2000, p.13).
And nothing can be better than a clear statement from a
member of a community affected by disasters (Dalitz 1976).
Classifying community disaster information needs
Disaster
background information
Weather
information (warnings, updates, end of alert)
Initial
report on a disaster occurrence
Updates
on a continuing disaster (earthquake aftershocks, volcanic eruption)
Further
reports on a disaster (responses, follow-up)
Aid
information
End
of disaster event e.g. eruption
Post-event
information (response and recovery)
Rehabilitation
information (rebuilding e.g. shrines, schools, counselling, etc.)
Post-event
assessment of a disaster
Planning
for future disaster events
This list might be divided into the commonly used categories
of Prevention/mitigation, Preparedness, Response, Recovery
Case studies about community disaster information
Jonathan Abrahams stated at GDIN 2001 that we now have a
good understanding of disasters, but a relatively poor understanding of
communities. He pointed to only half-a-dozen risk management studies in
communities currently.
In Australia The Cities Project was established within the
Australian Geological Survey Organisation in 1996 and their first report is on
Community Risk in Cairns, a wet tropics city of 120 000 people (Granger and
others 1999). This was issued as a booklet and with a full report on CD-ROM.
Certain parts of the Cairns city area are assessed as more vulnerable,
including the city centre, several "original" (meaning older?)
suburbs, and the Yarrabah Aboriginal Community. Each of these can be considered
as a separate community with regard to information needs and, probably, technology
access. Earthquake, landslide, flood and cyclone risk are each evaluated. Of
these, tropical cyclones pose the greatest risk to many areas, with the
possibilities of destructive winds in particular, as well as heavy rain and
storm tide inundation. Evacuation will be necessary is some areas, requiring
appropriate warning, planning and community awareness (booklet p.9). The
Australian Bureau of Meteorology provides weather warnings, which are
particularly useful for alerting the community to flood risk. Among the risk
mitigation strategies listed in the report are:
operation
of effective hazard monitoring and warning systems;
creation
and maintenance of a strong level of community awareness through an ongoing
program of risk communication.
The Shire of Yarra Ranges in the high county to the east of
Melbourne, Australia, has assessed the risk of landslip potential, and needed to convey this information to
its community without instilling panic amongst affected property owners. An
information kit containing facts sheets was prepared, and a media campaign
conducted. A "hot line" and the opportunity for private consultations
were provided to landowners, estate agents, insurance companies, government
authorities etc. (Ritchie and Hunt 2001).
Holdsworth and Brichieri-Colombi (2001), working with
communities affected by volcanic risk in the Caribbean, Philippines and Italy,
looked at the methods used to transfer information from "those who
know" to "those who need to know". They noted the dominance of
"top-down" and technical approaches, and the absence of social
consideration. "In order for information to be acted upon by vulnerable
communities, it needs to be accessible and sensitive to beliefs, priorities and
cultures" and "For the most appropriate form of information to be
used, the vulnerable community needs to be understood, just as they need to
understand the hazard".
Leaflets have been prepared to provide advice to Auckland,
New Zealand residents on what to do when a volcano threatens, when a volcano erupts, and after an
eruption e.g. how to prepare, planning where to go, obtaining advice during the
eruption, whether to evacuate or not, hazards from volcanic ash, listing damage
after the eruption (Auckland Regional Council, 2001). The Institute of Geological
and Nuclear Sciences, New Zealand, maintains a web site called "Hazard
Watch", (see reference list) which provides information on any current
disasters. The Auckland volcanic risk site sponsored by the Auckland Regional
Council and the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences provides the
community with information about primary (volcanic) hazards and secondary
hazards such as shock waves, poisonous gases and tsunami, and advice on what to
do in the event of an eruption.
Auckland City Council has surveyed local schools, as part of
community, to assess their planning for emergencies (Mitchell, 2000)
Individuals in the community are asked to prepare to be on their own for up to
three days. Schools may need to do the same for their staff and students. They
may need to be able to locate say food supplies from a local supermarket.
Because of their special emergency role, school in Auckland would not be
designated as emergency meeting places. People are advised to stay in their own
homes, check on neighbours, and if necessary evacuate to a network of community
halls and other centres. School can be important leaders in the move to
community resilience.
Following damaging earthquakes in New Zealand during the
1940s it was found that the majority of property owners had inadequate
insurance. In 1944 an Earthquake and War Damage Commission began collecting a
premium from all holders of fire insurance, with coverage later extended to
include landslip, tsunami, volcanic eruption and hydrothermal activity.
The Taranaki Regional Council in New Zealand has prepared a
Volcanic Contingency Plan (Taranaki Regional Council 2000) to coordinate
response to a volcanic event at Egmont Volcano. Civil defence organisations are
identified and an organisational plan presented. The Scientific Alert levels
are explained. Public information is discussed, with details of preparing and
disseminating statements, and general awareness of the community via radio
media, print media and electronic media. Awareness kits are available, and public
enquiries are directed to specified information centres, such as libraries,
banks, hotels and stores. Signage (for example for evacuation routes) is also
planned, and a volcano watch sound theme and logo applied to all information.
Under the heading "Welfare" the procedures for
registration, accommodation, emergency catering, emergency clothing, personal
services is discussed. A national data base for registration of evacuees will
be used to track people and might be searched on the Internet, with public
access made available to elements of the database. Animal welfare is also
considered. Although detailed and well-thought through, the contingency plan
would seem to have been built from the top-down and whether it will meet all
the information needs of the community before, during and after an event may
still need to be checked.
Pacific island countries studies
Cronin, Petterson and Taylor (2001) have used traditional
knowledge for volcanic risk management on Savo volcano in the Solomon Islands.
At least 3000 people live on Savo, 35 km for the nation's capital, Honiara.
Past eruptions are recorded by Europeans and within oral traditions of local
inhabitants. A six-day workshop in late-1999 brought together a wide
cross-section of people including scientists, government, emergency services,
NGOs, community leaders and local villagers. Small working groups with various
compositions were set-up for discussions in Honiara, and then 3 days were spent
on Savo working with the local community, integrating scientific knowledge and
community knowledge to produce a combined hazard map of the island. Local names
were used for the various types of pyroclastic flows and lahars to be expected,
escape routes were colour-coded red/yellow/green on the map, and separate men's
and women's maps were prepared to allow for cultural factors.
"Informal local community risk management plans were
developed including identification of safe refuge and living areas, evacuation
planning, low-technology monitoring strategies, acceptance of external
monitoring equipment, and local awareness promotion" (Cronin, Petterson
and Taylor 2001). A report just released by SOPAC (Biukoto 2002) has
investigated the development of a regional improvement strategy for
disaster/risk information management in the South Pacific. This report
concentrates on technological communication, and the enhancement of computer
capabilities in Pacific island countries. Most island National Disaster
Management Offices have basic office equipment including telephones and fax
machines, but often only a basic office computer and printer. There is also
little standardisation of facilities between one office and another.
Recommended are being made on the provision of suitable and uniform software.
All countries in the study have online access, and email is an important and
effective forum for communication. Commercial ISPs are used to connect to the
rest of the world, using telephone and a V.90 modem. However subscriptions for
Internet access are costly and not very flexible.
This study provides a salutary view of problems that may
limit the use of advanced data and information technology in small, local and
isolated communities.
GIS platforms are also being planned. Information is made
available by any existing weather and meteorology offices, geological surveys
and land departments, statistic offices and other government departments. An
Emergency Managers Weather Information Network (EMWIN) has been developed to
provide daily updates by satellite. Hazard datasets for five cities in island
countries have been prepared and distributed. A new project integrates both
scientific and technical data with community knowledge and perceptions by
working at the community and national level, and covers the area of Mele on the
outskirts of Port Vila, Vanuatu.
The US Army Pacific has set-up a program with national
stakeholders in selected countries to develop a Disaster Preparedness and
Mitigation Assessment, which provides an overview of a country's disaster plan,
disaster vulnerabilities, an inventory of local resources that may be used for
disaster relief and a detailed list of in-country points of contact. This data
is provided on CD-ROM, and includes imagery, photos and data fields.
Litea Biukoto of SOPAC (personal communication by email 11th
June 2002) says that "The US Army Pacific have also been crucial in
providing a starting block for countries that do not have documented emergency
response or disaster management capabilities. USAPAc has conducted DPMAs in
Samoa, Cook Islands and Niue. In the Cook Islands the data collected included: Airports,
Hospitals, Shelters, Ports, Civil Defence Office, HAZMAT, Fire, Police, Roads,
Railway, Bridges, Power Generation, Power Distribution, Back Up Power, Cities,
Survey Control, Communications, Dams, Wells, Civilian Resources, Hotels,
Industrial Facilities, Water Supply, Districts, Hazard Areas, Sewage System,
Surface Data, Vegetation, Contact Information, Remote Sensing.
This data is collected using GPS and mapped on GIS. The
final product of the exercise is presented to the NDMO. It would be worthwhile
to note here that the data collection process is carried out with incountry
counterparts. The opportunity is given to the NDMOs to participate in the
planning process. This contribution helps shape the outcomes of the project
into something that the country owns."
The information needs of disaster managers in Pacific island
countries are investigated in Granger (1999) and also the infrastructure needed
to deliver that information. Disaster managers were asked to complete a survey
by rating a comprehensive range of topics and their perceived need for
information on these topics. Granger's Appendix F has a summary of the disaster
managers information needs survey. Appendix D of his report provides a useful
list of information needs.
One problem identified by disaster managers was the lack of
communication reaching both down to, and up from, the village level. Managers
need to know what the community understands about the risks of disaster impact
and how they believe those risks might be treated. To quote this report
"It is here that the community consultation process embedded in the
Community Vulnerability Analysis approach really comes into its own. It will
enable the community and the disaster management consultants working with them
to develop the information needed to make decisions about their own
vulnerability and capacity to cope, and to develop prioritised οaction plansΝ.
According to Angelika Planitz of SOPAC (personal communication) the process of
prioritisation (of) the communityΝs treatment options under the CVA methodology
implicitly measures the level of acceptance. It is not clear, however, how the
CVA process deals with risks of which the community is not aware but which the
hazard scientists consider likely. There are very few examples in the
international literature to serve as a guide to what type of questions need to
be answered in this process. One of the few I have encountered is the work
undertaken in Cairns by Linda Berry of James Cook University. Her report
(Berry, 1996?) includes a copy of the questionnaire used to survey some 600
Cairns households regarding their understanding of the risk of storm surge and
their preparedness to cope. Whilst that questionnaire would need to be modified
for use in PICs it provides an excellent starting point. " (Granger
1999 p.34).
Granger's report is a thorough and informative study of the
information infrastructure needed by small and remote communities, and deserves
close reading. It provides listings of the information he believes is needed by
communities, based on discussions, mainly, with disaster managers, but these
were selected people in close touch with their communities. What may still be
useful, and is still needed are questionnaires, interviews and records of
discussions with individuals and small groups at the community level.
Other studies
The above studies have been so far mostly concerned with
volcanic risk, partly because the author works in this area (Joyce 2001 - see also
"Some useful web sites", this report) and also because much important
work is currently underway in New Zealand and the Pacific. Examples from other
types of disaster can also be found. Some examples of useful recent studies are
Berry and King (1999), Burby (1999) and Buckle (1999).
New settlers to the coastal urban areas of northern
Australia are often unfamiliar with the cyclone hazard. Residents constantly
express surprise at suffering the direct effects of tropical cyclones or
floods. Residents generally express concerns about warnings. By relying on the
media to relay warning messages, communities are constrained by the
availability of power, radio and television transmissions in remote areas, and
by the reliability of the media in urban areas. People have high expectations
of the media, particularly the electronic media, and depend on them for cyclone
warnings, defensive action messages, updated news and information. The
community depends on accurate and timely radio and television warning advice messages
to the extent that the majority of residents do not use cyclone tracking maps
or familiarise themselves with the movement of cyclones in relation to their
residences (Berry and King (1999).
Plans and proposals for hazard mitigation, no matter how technically
proficient, are often dead on delivery or produce minimal effect (Burby 1999).
By making the right choices about citizen involvement in mitigation planning,
emergency managers can build an informed constituency for mitigation. Citizens
must be involved in the planning process, and decisions need to be made about
which citizens to involve, which technical information is to be provided, and
techniques to be employed in securing citizen input. This article (Burby 1999)
provides a useful review of techniques to involve citizens in hazard mitigation
planning.
An alternative approach to vulnerability studies in
Victoria, Australia (Buckle 1999), provides listings of groups at risk, their
needs, special services, management perspectives, services and infrastructure,
networks and community inter-relationships. In doing so it provides an overview
of the range of information that might be requested by communities, but points
to the current rudimentary understanding of what values are relevant to the
community in preparing for and responding to emergencies.
It is perhaps worth pointing out here that the comments gathered from
members of the Communities Working Group, meeting in Canberra at GDIN 2001, and
since listed on the web provides one of the better (if patchy) collections of
ideas on what a range of communities may want from disaster information
providers.
See web URL: http://web.earthsci.unimelb.edu.au/Joyce/geology/GDIN_WG.htm
It now remains for information providers to concentrate on their own
communities and find out as exactly as possible just what the community and it
sub-groups and individual members want from them.
TECHNOLOGY TOOLS AND DISASTER INFORMATION FOR COMMUNITIES
Some means
phone
fax
mobile/cellular/cell phone - voice
phone messages/SMS/WAP
various types of publications
videos
CD-ROMs
the web and the Internet
email
mobile phone to fax/printer
satellite phone e.g Iridium field mobile phones
voicemail
portable email devices (e.g. "pocket email"
palmtop/handheld PCs, such as iPac, Nokia, Palm, and BlackBerry, soon to be
released in Australia, which played a role in the New York World Trade Center
disaster ("91 E-Mails From Ground Zero, November 2, 2001, available on
www.law.com.).
radio - local, shortwave, international
TV
Discussion
Joyce (1996, 1999) discusses disaster information on the
web, and how best to provide an efficient index to current and reliable
information. An experimental web site for Victoria, Australia has now been
running for several years, at www.disasters.au.com. The web site includes
several discussion papers on experience in running the site, which seeks to
index disaster information on publicly-accessible sites such as those of government,
media and universities. Whether this information is what communities want, and
in the form they want, does not form part of the project.
The site may be accessed via:
http://www.disasters.au.com/
Some web needs
simple
quick-loading
printable
text is best (e.g. Volcano listserver)
dated and time given, also author/source, sender, return
address for queries
summary of pre-disaster data included e.g. Niragongo
continuing availability (as archives)
simple URL
easy bookmarking/favourite listing
access by any browser - Netscape, Explorer, without
requiring extra software
pdf as a future standard
In a recent report for Latin America and the Caribbean, Mora (2000)
discusses the comparative use of print media, radio, television and the
Internet in communicating to the population. As in many similar studies,
feedback and evaluation of the success of information communication is
mentioned but not fully spelt-out. It is still left to the information provider
to decide what to provide. However one interesting suggestion is made - a Web
site could "provide a form asking users for their geographical location,
type of dwelling and other details, and produce in seconds a personalised page
describing their risk profile" (p.25).
An important point to consider here is how to control
information flow. Too much information may be as bad as too little information.
Conflicting and confusing data, such as providing a mixture of current,
revised, and out-of-date information, providing undated information, or
unsourced or unattributed information (e.g. no named person) must be avoided.
Email is particularly susceptible to confusion; for example short replies with
no indication of what message is being replied to, long messages containing
many past emails which scroll of the screen, and may have little to do with the
most recent email.
So some suggestions are: avoid ad hoc and off-the-cuff
emails, don't just dump masses of data, take care that everything is numbered,
dated & the time given, authored and authorised, with a return address;
maps and satellite images are scaled and have a north point and a full
key/legend; rumours and certified data are distinguished and tagged as such
e.g. in the discussions over the possibility of the eruption of gases from Lake
Kasi during the Niragongo volcanic eruption of January 2002.
And a suggestion from Graham Marsh (pers. comm. July 2001) -
NGOs may be well-placed to become coordinators of information between the
community and the providers, as they often have their own access to technology
such as satellite phones, the web, and so on. Otherwise the job falls to a
local chief, a teacher, a government officer who may not have the same
technology and ability to use it.
Learning from the World Trade Center disaster
Technology used
Mobile/cell/cellular phones (in buildings, in planes, on the
streets, rescue workers)
but some stopped working as transmitters destroyed
Phone message banks/answering machines (used e.g. for
messages of condolence)
Email (from business to home, from inside the WTC, etc.)
Web (overload & need to log-on to non-US sites, time lag
in posting, rumours, sources e.g. the best list of names after the Okalahoma
bombing was on a student newspaper web site)
Videophones & TV (in reporting for TV; for rescue?)
Role of media
Radio (best for speed, summaries, breaking news, discussion
- talk-back radio)
TV (greatest impact, but often restrained by need to have
appropriate visuals, source of many ideas for community discussion, source of
many errors and rumours? Commercials/ads dropped for a time)
Newspapers (time lag, use of multiple editions, more
considered approach, discussions, reference material, consolidation of ideas,
correction or errors and rumours, possible counselling value?)
The web as a complementary media to radio and TV
Some needs of the local New York community
need to talk (Webchat, email, Yahoo instant messaging spike)
need for a web site to express feelings (therapy -
nycstories.com)
need for continuing discussion (survivors' stories,
rescuers' stories, the future)
need to do something - photo walls, collection centres,
offers to help
need to locate bodies, have funerals
need for technical explanations
need for a museum or shrine
need for religious services
need for registers of survivors (online lists, assistance of
individuals via their own weblogs to provide amateur video, links to news
items, comments)
The need for maps
When the September 11th attack took place at the
WTC complex, the local emergency operating centre was currently located in
building number seven, and had to be evacuated but was quickly re-established
and became a clearing-house for all data. A rapidly assembled team of
specialist began producing and providing data, both to emergency services and
everyone else who needed it. Hard copies of maps were produced, and a web site
provided and also made available to the general public. For the first six weeks
after the attack, the centre operated twenty-four hours a day, seven days a
week. A particular need was for maps - maps showing danger areas during the
rescue and recovery, maps of access routes, of no-go and limited access areas,
of essential services, and of debris (material from web page of presentation by
Jim Hall of Plangraphics, USA, as keynote speaker at AURISA conference in
Melbourne in November 2001).
(The above material on the WTC disaster is sourced from an
unpublished paper by Joyce, 2002)
Some examples of bringing the Internet to communities
Peruvian Scientific Network (RCP)
Now 5 years old, this project provides public Internet
booths, and is the first electronic communications net independent of
government funding in South America
(Mebourne Age p. 13 18th May 2001)
PostNet is a joint
venture between the Indian government and MIT in USA.
In rural areas of India wireless Internet transceivers are
mounted on buses and linked by radio to an Internet Service Provider. Villagers
with access to a laptop with "wi-fi" broadband wireless networks can
then browse the Web and send email whenever a bus is nearby, so at least twice
a day agricultural news and weather information is available.
(New Scientist 8th June 2002 p.21)
The Virtual Colombo Plan
Australian educators and IT specialists will work with the
World Bank to create "an Internet version of the Colombo Plan - a scheme
which flourished in 1951 and brought tens of thousands of Asian students and
professionals to Australia to learn skills critical to their countries'
progress". This global learning network will also mean that "In five
years, we will have Internet connectivity in any village anywhere in the
world".
(Melbourne Age 19 July 2001)
Cape York Digital Network, Northern Australia
"The plan is to wire up the 17 major indigenous Cape
York communities. Many of the community "out-stations"don't yet have
electricity, let alone telephone lines." Communication is difficult
because of the monsoon season. Telemedicine and online banking will be
available and "Ultimately, the aim is to provide each community with a
suite of Internet-capable computers inside a community centre, with
videoconferencing to reunite family members".
E)MAG p.16, October 2001
Pacific island countries
Litea Biukoto of SOPAC (personal communication by email 11th
June 2002) says that "with more National Disaster Management Officers
(NDMOs) getting into IT, it brings up another aspect of receiving information.
What format should it be in? The Vanuatu NDMO brought this up when had asked if
he used info from Government technical and scientific departments. The interpretation
of technical and scientific data is not clear-cut. An understanding between the
NDMOs and these agencies needs to be established to determine what each
requires from the other. The general perception being tech/scientific agencies
provide the information and NDMOs act on them.
The approach to information or data collection may need to
be changed ie. find out first what you want as an output then work towards
developing the database. I've seen comprehensive spatial databases used in the
region however, very little is known in the disaster management community on
how to apply it as a decision making or planning tool. The US Army's Disaster
Preparedness and Mitigation Assessments (DPMA) provides a way in which the
information available can be organised."
A note on feedback for a community disaster information
system
keep
up with changing needs
bring
information back from the field into office
identify
the field recipient - a disaster coordinator, head of volcanological
observatory, local village head
then
arrange an individual contact at head office for each field person
Some new ideas using technology
Kyocera's
QCP 6035 smart phone combines a CDMA phone with a Palm hand-held computer. The
$1299 device runs all normal Palm applications and can be used to browse the
Internet either through HTML Web pages or WAP. It also has a folding full-size
keyboard add-on (item in an IT news report in Australia in early-April 2002);
similar new technology tools, such as BlackBerry, SMS, Iridium
satellite/mobile/cellular/cell phones
new
warning services e.g. automatic transmission of news of tsunamis and
earthquakes to phone or web site
use
of automatic updates e.g. a continuing volcanic eruption
transmitting
warning to a specific place by activating all mobile telephones in that area
transmitting
interpreted satellite imagery e.g. by GDIN to Goma for the Niragongo eruption
of January 2002.
Some useful web sites
Web sites which make disaster information available freely
to the public include ReliefWeb and GDIN.
ReliefWeb provided
excellent Situation Reports on the Niragongo eruptions which affected the city
of Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in January 2002. Each report
was numbered and dated, and summarised the changing situation under headings
including Situation/National and International Response/Immediate Needs/related
documents on the Web, and provided full contact details including names of
officials concerned.
AusDIN in Australia
is a new web site being developed for use by the Australian community,
including disaster managers, researchers, and the general public.
CONCLUSIONS
Communities vary greatly - from villages on a Pacific island
to a community in New York - and their information needs and the range of
technology tools available to them will also vary greatly. A set of
requirements by a community for specific data in a specific format may have no
relationship to another community's needs.
Disaster information managers have a number of ways to
decide what information they supply to communities - one of these ways must be
by community consultation. What a community wants must be sorted out with that
community and its members, as Granger, Cronin and other authors suggest.
Disaster information must be PULLED by the community and not
just PUSHED by the outside provider.
Communities must be consulted, and continue to be consulted
over time, about what information they want.
The published information from community consultation
studies is sparse, and suggests that supplying basic information in simple
formats using a low level of technology to transmit the information may often
be the best approach. A phone and a fax is probably the minimum technology to
be expected, and in some (perhaps many) cases there may be little more than
that at this time.
Technology changes must be continually reviewed for new and
better ways to deliver information.
When provided with information by phone or fax, email and
other two-way communication, the community members must also be provided with
the name of the appropriate person to reply to, and the phone number and email
address of that person.
In turn that person must respond as soon as possible, and as
appropriately as possible. Ideally a 24-hour 7 days a week response is needed.
In summary:
Keep
it simple
Use
low technology
Respond
to community feedback
Control
information flow - be systematic and clear
Archive
material.
THE FUTURE OF THIS PROJECT
This project is by no means concluded. Some suggestions can
be made for future work on the topic of community disaster information needs,
and also for the future of the Working Group.
As this report has shown, further work needs to be done on
what communities need from information providers. The Working Group could
involve itself more closely with several current projects e.g. SOPAC, Marsh and
Buckle (2001), and share in the results of their studies. It could encourage
similar studies of other communities e.g. in India, Madagascar, South America,
Africa.
It could tie this work to the activities of NGOs, and specifically
to any activities by other GDIN Working Groups which involve a range of NGOs,
such as Red Cross.
It will be important to also keep assessing the use of
technology, unless this is to be done by a separate GDIN Working Group. In
particular, attention should be paid to the possible use of small
palmtop/handheld PCs with email and voice capability, such as the BlackBerry,
iPac, Nokia, Palm, and BlackBerry,
Finally, continuing attention
will need to be paid to the web and its future development. Its use is capably
demonstrated by ReliefWeb and some other sites. The GDIN web site should become
an example of how to best use the web to help communities - but this will need
much work.
Some suggestions by Larry Roeder
for future work by the Communities Working Group are given in the Appendix.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Litea Biukoto of SOPAC for early access to
her recently-released report, and for several other useful references she
provided to me.
I also thank Alan Mearns of SOPAC for involving the Working
Group in the use of Litea's SOPAC report, Alan Hodges of GDIN for help and
encouragement (and initially involving me in this project), Dudley McArdle and
Alan Collins of EMA for taking an important part in the local activities of the
Working Group, and several others as active members of the Working Group.
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