Abstract
Situational awareness (SA) is critical to mobilizing a rapid, efficient, and effective response to disasters. Limited by time and resources, response agencies must make decisions about rapidly evolving situations, which requires the collection, analysis, and sharing of actionable information across a complex landscape. Emerging technologies, if appropriately applied, can enhance SA and enable responders to make quicker, more accurate decisions. The aim of this systematic review is to identify technologies that can improve SA and assist decision-making across the United States Government and the domestic and international agencies they support during disaster response operations. A total of 1459 articles and 36 after-action reports were identified during literature searches. Following the removal of duplicates and application of inclusion/exclusion criteria, 302 articles and after-action reports were included in the review. Our findings suggest SA is constrained primarily due to unreliable and significantly delayed communications, time-intensive data analysis and visualization, and a lack of interoperable sensor networks and other capabilities providing data to shared platforms. Many of these challenges could be addressed by existing technologies. Bridging the divide between research and development efforts and the operational needs of response agencies should be prioritized.
Highlights
Situational awareness (SA) is critical to mobilizing a rapid, efficient, and effective response to disasters
The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA’s) response is governed by the Stafford Act, which contains the legal definition of a “major disaster” and determines FEMA’s ability to provide federal funding and respond to a domestic disaster
Timely, accurate, and complete SA is a key enabler of successful disaster response, where the situation is changing rapidly, resources are limited, and different agencies must coordinate their activities
Summary
Situational awareness (SA) is critical to mobilizing a rapid, efficient, and effective response to disasters. The aim of this systematic review is to identify technologies that can improve SA and assist decision-making across the United States Government and the domestic and international agencies they support during disaster response operations. 55% of the world’s population lives in urban areas, and that number is expected to rise to 68% by 2050.11 Already, 60% of cities with 500,000þ citizens are at a marked risk of a natural disaster, and urban settlements in low- and middle-income countries in Asia, South America, and Africa, the regions with the highest projected rates of urbanization, are located in areas with uniquely high risk to natural disasters.. Between agencies with disparate priorities and objectives, requires emergency managers to have a complete understanding of the situation in the field. This knowledge framework is frequently referred to as situational awareness (SA). Being applied to disaster response or are in development, classify these technologies based on their maturity level for fielding, and determine the SA needs of response agencies relative to the technologies currently available or emerging
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