Decision Support Systems for Disaster Management

Abstract

Throughout our history, humans have had to deal with sudden onset of events-both natural and manmade-that have exacted a high toll in terms of lives and property. Because of their scale and magnitude, governments attempt to manage the impact of these events and prevent, or at least mitigate, their disastrous consequences. Of growing significance in this effort is the role that information technology can play. In this article, we will focus on an increasingly important component of this technology, decision support systems (DSS), and describe its role in disaster management. More specifically, we will (1) differentiate DSS from more traditional management information systems (MIS); (2) discuss the disaster life cycle and its stages in the context of a typology of decisionsstrategic, tactical, and operational-found within those stages; and (3) illustrate the potential of DSS technology with some selected applications in the area of earthquake mitigation, crisis response, toxic chemical spill control, and emergency staff preparedness training. Future technological developments will be reviewed in the concluding remarks.