Abstract
The tasks of disaster risk monitoring and early warning are an important means of improving the efficiency of disaster response and preparedness. However, although the current works in this area have sought to provide a more accurate and better technological infrastructure of systems to support these tasks, they have failed to examine key features that may affect the decision-making. In light of this, this paper aims to provide an understanding of the decision-making process in control rooms for disaster risk monitoring and early warning. This understanding is underpinned by a conceptual framework, which has been developed in this work and describes factors that influence the decision-making. For doing so, data were collected through a series of semi-structured interviews and participatory observations and later evaluated with members of the control room of the Brazilian Center for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters (Cemaden). The study findings provided a solid basis for designing the conceptual framework of the essential factors required by the decision-makers. These factors are separated into two groups: 1) the “dimensions” of decision-making (i.e., the type of hazard, the phase of the disaster risk, the location, and area of expertise of the operators) and the “pillars” of decision-making (i.e., the tasks, their required information, useful data sources, and the decision rule). Finally, the contributions achieved in this study may help operators to understand and propose proactive measures that could improve their decision-making, overcome uncertainties, standardize the team's decision-making, and put less pressure on operators.
Highlights
Communities from different countries all over the world have been affected by the growing occurrence of disasters, which in 2015, incurred financial losses close to US$100 billion worldwide and caused 23,000 fatalities [38]
Results obtained in this study suggest that the condition of data collection tools implicates decisionmaking in control rooms, as it was mentioned by participants during interviews and focus group sessions
The aim of this paper has been to understand the factors that affect decision-making in the control room for disaster risk monitoring and early warning
Summary
Communities from different countries all over the world have been affected by the growing occurrence of disasters, which in 2015, incurred financial losses close to US$100 billion worldwide and caused 23,000 fatalities [38]. Disaster risk is determined probabilistically as a function of hazard, exposure, vulnerability and capacity It is the potential loss of life, injury, or destroyed or damaged assets which could occur to a system, a society or a community in a specific period [18]. Disaster management presents as an important alternative to achieve this resilience and, as a consequence, avoid or, at least, reduce the impacts caused by natural disasters [5] It follows a continuous process, which consists of activities that are executed before, during and after a disaster. Warning systems (EWS) play a critical role for supporting these tasks, and because of this, enhancing EWS is one of the seven targets of Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction to minimize disaster risks and save lives [52]
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