CRITICALITY OF SUSTAINABLE DISASTER MANAGEMENT THROUGH COMMUNICATION, SITUATIONAL AWARENESS, AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Abstract

The sustainability development process is crucial towards the management of disasters. This study describes the criticality of communication, situational awareness and resource management as part of an effective disaster management process during response and early recovery in minimizing the impact of disasters and their losses. Being part of a larger research, the study utilizes a validated and published checklist to observe lead responding agencies and is validated via three validation approaches involving exercise logs by the exercise controller, lead agency officers at the site, and final emergency exercise reports. Results are also reinforced with a survey questionnaire towards lead responding agency decision-makers during disasters. Both methods allow the researcher to differentiate between the respondent's real-time response and the intended outcome. It is found that the enhancement of institutional capacities of nations' emergency responders can significantly improve and ensure sustainability in managing disasters through effective emergency management elements of communication, situational awareness and resource management. Hence, it is agreed that emergency responders should adopt a system-thinking approach and computer-aided decision support system for the management of emergencies and disasters. Keywords: Emergency Responder, Disaster Management, Situational Awareness, Resource Management, Communication Management DOI： https://doi.org/10.35741/issn.0258-2724.58.2.70