Emergency Management Process Research Articles

Aiming for resilience and adaptation in managing environment

PurposeEnvironmental and emergency leaders are important individuals who play a vital role in managing ecological resources. Based on the resilience thinking of Walker and Salt, this study highlights aims to how resilience for adaptive management can be built by incorporating vision formation of environmental and emergency management leaders.Design/methodology/approachThe study addresses two research questions: What constitutes environmental and emergency leadership systems? How are the concepts of vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation relevant to the environmental and emergency management processes? The study employs two case studies and discusses how resilience leadership can be incorporated into environmental management and emergency management systems in organizations.FindingsThis study includes a review that consists of activities in resilience‐building, and the process of vision formation. It explains how resilience thinking influences vision. Investigations of the application of the resilience approach by examining two environmental and emergency leadership organizations in Arizona demonstrate how situations can improve with resilience thinking and leadership in emergency and environmental management systems.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the knowledge body of resilience and leadership by calling importance and incorporation of resilience thinking into the management systems of environment and emergency management.

Winter blues at European airports: The need for airport responsibility and corporate foresight

The chaos at European airports, particularly London Heathrow, in the winter of 2010, wrought by pummelling snowstorms and ice, not only caused cancelled flights and stranded passengers but also resulted in a tremendous cost for the airport authorities. Airports operator BAA has released the figure of £24m (c. US$38m) as the cost incurred by the Spanish-owned firm which operates six airports in Britain. This cost includes a reduction in profit as a result of the decrease in passenger numbers by 11 per cent over a few days. As this paper discusses, the handling of the crisis by BAA drew widespread criticism from both legislators and airlines, the former considering the adoption of legislation against airports and the latter threatening to withhold charges due to the airports. It also asks whether airports should be held responsible for service failure brought about by a natural phenomenon and whether airports should have had what in modern business parlance is called ‘corporate foresight’ to deal with the natural phenomenon. This leads to a discussion on the kind of foresight an airport should have to deal with such situations as well as the obligations of a state to provide functional airport services in its territory. In conclusion, the paper posits that, as regards corporate foresight, an airport has to start with a culture of corporate foresight and adopt a dynamic and comprehensive emergency management process. More importantly, it recommends that airports work jointly and in partnership with airlines and air navigation service providers in developing their corporate foresight.

Design and Implementation of the Emergency Response Platform for Serious Environmental Pollution Accident in Coal Chemical Industry Region

Based on the characteristics of the coal chemical industry region, an emergency response platform for serious environmental pollution accident (ERPSEPA) is designed and implemented in this paper. With the environment and safety technology as the core, the information technology as the support and with the emergency management process as the main line, ERPSEPA do a system design for this emergency platform, an integration for kinds emergency resources, and a construction for the application and database system. It realizes functions as analyzing and identifying environmental risk resources, daily management, monitoring and control, forecast and early warning, dynamic decision-making, comprehensive coordination, assessment of accident, and so on. This work is of great significance on the preventing and responding of environmental events and on the losses reducing that caused by sudden environmental accidents.

Towards an integrated policy of risk management: a critical analysis of Turkey and France

This paper discusses the background and issues surrounding Turkish disaster management policy. It also discusses the French experience and provides a comparative analysis and direction for future policy issues concerning both countries. French hazard risk management policies have evolved as a result of European Union (EU) land use, environmental and industrial safety directives. Consistent with Turkey's efforts to join the EU, Turkish policy makers should consider French hazard risk management procedures and incorporate them to the degree that they apply to Turkey's complex hazard management issues. In free societies, the development of long-term strategies for creating sustainable urban environments requires political will and a buy-in from the citizens. Current and future steps that are being taken towards integrating the Turkish society with the EU should include rehabilitation of the emergency management process. The French system, as presented in this paper, is based on principles of risk management that place as much emphasis on the front end (pre-disaster) as on the back end (post-disaster). Turkey should adopt this philosophy. However, the French system cannot be adopted wholesale without a proper analysis that addresses the underlying societal, economic and cultural context of the Turkish system.

Emergency Response Information System Interoperability: Development of Chemical Incident Response Data Model

Emergency response requires an efficient information supply chain for the smooth operations of intra- and inter-organizational emergency management processes. However, the breakdown of this information supply chain due to the lack of consistent data standards presents a significant problem. In this paper, we adopt a theory- driven novel approach to develop an XML-based data model that prescribes a comprehensive set of data standards (semantics and internal structures) for emergency management to better address the challenges of information interoperability. Actual documents currently being used in mitigating chemical emergencies from a large number of incidents are used in the analysis stage. The data model development is guided by Activity Theory and is validated through a RFC-like process used in standards development. This paper applies the standards to the real case of a chemical incident scenario. Further, it complies with the national leading initiatives in emergency standards (National Information Exchange Model)

NATO and Old Dominion University co-host disaster and incident management symposium

The 2008 Azalea Festival Symposium entitled, 'Katrina over Hampton roads: are we ready?' was held 15?16 April at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia and brought together over 250 attendees from 25 nations. Keynotes included Commissioner Jan Franssen, Queen's Commissioner for South Holland; Lieutenant General (Ret) Russel L. Honore, Former Commander, Joint Task Force Katrina; and Professor Eelco H. Dykstra, Professor of Emergency Management at George Washington University. The afternoon panel sessions featured discussions with state emergency management executives, federal officials, industry executives and academic subject matter experts. The panels were titled Emergency Management Policy and Coordination, Critical Infrastructure Resiliency and Evaluation of Human Impacts, and Emergency Management Training and Consequence Management. The symposium and resulting workshops generated a wide range of important observations and actionable recommendations for making the citizens and governments better prepared for dealing with all hazards incidents. Key recommendations were made in the areas of incident preparedness and response management, technology, emergency management policy, plans and processes, and individual and staff training and exercises will be used to inform the NATO countries, local, state and federal representatives and citizenry on actions that can be taken to create the 'culture of preparedness' that is needed.

Decision support in nuclear and radiological emergency situations: Are we too focused on models and technology?

The last 20 years has seen enormous advances in mathematical modelling and computing techniques. In the aftermath of the Chernobyl Accident, many of these have been incorporated in Decision Support Systems (DSS) to aid nuclear emergency management. This paper reviews what has been achieved; but it also reflects on how the tools fit into emergency management processes and discusses whether too much emphasis is being placed on the technological aspects of what is a complex, socio-technical issue.

Reverse Quality Management

The British Columbia Ministry of Health's Framework for Core Functions in Public Health was the catalyst that inspired this review of best practices in health emergency management. The fieldwork was conducted in the fall of 2005 between hurricane Katrina and the South Asia earthquake. These tragedies, shown on 24/7 television news channels, provided an eyewitness account of disaster management, or lack of it, in our global village world. It is not enough to just have best practices in place. There has to be a governance structure that can be held accountable. This review of best practices lists actions in support of an emergency preparedness culture at the management, executive, and corporate/governance levels of the organization. The methodology adopted a future quality management approach of the emergency management process to identify the corresponding performance indictors that correlated with practices or sets of practices. Identifying best practice performance indictors needed to conduct a future quality management audit is described as reverse quality management. Best practices cannot be assessed as stand-alone criteria; they are influenced by organizational culture. The defining of best practices was influenced by doubt about defining a practice it is hoped will never be performed, medical staff involvement, leadership, and an appreciation of the resources required and how they need to be managed. Best practice benchmarks are seen as being related more to "measures" of performance defined locally and agreed on by 2 or more parties rather than to achieving industrial standards. Relating practices to performance indicators and then to benchmarks resulted in the development of a Health Emergency Management Best Practices Matrix that lists specific practice in the different phases of emergency management.

Believe in the Model: Mishandle the Emergency

“You can hardly tell where the computer models finish and the dinosaurs begin.”Laura Dern, on the film Jurassic ParkDuring the past quarter century there have been many developments in scientific models and computer codes to help predict the ongoing consequences in the aftermath of many types of emergency: e.g. storms and flooding, chemical and nuclear accident, epidemics such as SARS and terrorist attack. Some of these models relate to the immediate events and can help in managing the emergency; others predict longer term impacts and thus can help shape the strategy for the return to normality. But there are many pitfalls in the way of using these models effectively. Firstly, non-scientists and, sadly, many scientists believe in the models’ predictions too much. The inherent uncertainties in the models are underestimated; sometimes almost unacknowledged. This means that initial strategies may later need to be revised in ways that unsettle the public, losing their trust in the emergency management process. Secondly, the output from these models form an extremely valuable input to the decision making process; but only one such input. There is a need to draw on much tacit knowledge which by definition cannot reside in a decision support system. Most emergencies are events that have huge social and economic impacts alongside the health and environmental consequences. While we can model the latter passably well, we are not so good at modelling economic impacts and very poor at modelling social impacts. Our knowledge of them is tacit and they lie in the complex space of Snowden’s Cynefin categorisation of decision contexts. Thus we draw upon recent thinking in both decision support and knowledge management systems to suggest that we need a more socio-technical approach to developing crisis response system; and, in particular, we explore how model predictions should be drawn into emergency management processes in more balanced ways than often has occurred in the past.

Hospital preparedness for possible nonconventional casualties: an Israeli experience

Since 9/11, hospitals and health authorities have been preparing medical response in case of various mass terror attacks. The experience of Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center in treating suicide-bombing mass casualties served, in the time leading up to the war in Iraq, as a platform for launching a preparedness program for possible attacks with biological and chemical agents of mass destruction. Adapting Quarantelli's criteria on disaster mitigation to the “microinfrastructure” of the hospital, and including human behavior experts, we attempted to foster an interactive emergency management process that would deal with contingencies stemming from the potential hazards of chemical and biological (CB) weapons. The main objective of our work was to encourage an organization-wide communication network that could effectively address the contingent hazards unique to this unprecedented situation. A stratified assessment of needs, identification of unique dangers to first responders, and assignment of team-training sessions paved the way for program development. Empowerment through leadership and resilience training was introduced to emergency team leaders of all disciplines. Focal subject matters included proactive planning, problem-solving, informal horizontal and vertical communication, and coping through stress-management techniques. The outcome of this process was manifested in an “operation and people” orientation supporting a more effective and compatible emergency management. The aim of article is to describe this process and to point toward the need for a broad-spectrum view in such circumstances. Unlike military units, the civilian hospital staff at risk, expected to deal with CB casualties, requires adequate personal consideration to enable effective functioning. Issues remain to be addressed in the future. We believe that collaboration and sharing of knowledge, information, and expertise beyond the medical realm is imperative in assisting hospitals to expedite appropriate preparedness programs.

An Emergency Management Model for Home Health Care Organizations

In June 2002, President George W. Bush signed the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act into law. Local, state, and federal government authorities face the challenge of balancing safeguards to the public safety, anticipating threats in advance, and treating the victims of bioterrorist attacks. The Joint Commission on Accreditation for Healthcare Organizations recently developed new compliance standards for all health care organizations including home health care to advance this effort. The intent of these standards is to change the way health care organizations plan for emergencies to a more comprehensive process of emergency management using an all-hazards approach. Implementation of these standards will result in the mitigation of potential identified threats to patients, employees, and the community and the provision of essential services and business operations. For all federal, state, and local organizations responsible for the realization of this essential and urgent public policy including health care, planning and implementation expenses are a major concern.

Research Needs to Support the Emergency Manager of the Future

Changes in technology have dramatically transformed emergency management operations from interagency communications, to decision support systems, agency hazards analysis, and training. Dramatic advances in technology have and will continue to enhance elements of decision-making by those involved in emergency management. This paper outlines future research needs associated with the application of technology to emergency management and outlines operational issues associated with the application of technology to the emergency management system. Emergency management research will need to support developments in the technology and its impacts on the design and support of emergency management operations. Interdisciplinary research must bring new technology to traditional emergency management agencies and to integrate public, private and non-profit agencies in the emergency management process. Enhancing partnerships with other agencies allows for a broader approach to addressing emergency management issues.

Designing a Spatial Decision Support System for Evacuation Planning

Emergency planning and management profoundly depend on computer aided decision support tools which gather and analyze data on damage assessment, meteorology, demography, geography, etc., and provide decision support for prevention/mitigation, response, and recovery. Various technologies are amalgamated to provide useful functions to aid this decision-making process. Complexities arise when attempting to link two streams of technology to achieve a realistic, usable tool that emergency planners can rely on. This discussion aims to identify and analyze the challenging issues faced in using two technologies, simulation modeling and Geographical Information Systems, to design decision support tools for the evacuation planning process. The issues investigated arise from experiences in designing the prototype decision support system CEMPS. The discussion primarily focuses on issues related to the. behavioral and decision-making processes of the various players in the evacuation system, logistics, generating realistic scenarios for testing out contingency plans, the. validation of such decision support tools, and the future trends in technology and the emergency planning and management processes.

Providing spatial decision support for evacuation planning: a challenge in integrating technologies

Computer‐aided decision‐support tools are part and parcel of the emergency planning and management process today. Much is dependent on using modern technology to gather and analyse data on damage assessment, meteorology, demography, etc. and provide decision support for prevention/mitigation, response and recovery. Diverse technologies are merged to provide useful functions to aid the emergency planner/manager. Complexities arise when attempting to link several streams of technology to achieve a realistic, usable and reliable decision‐support tool. This discussion identifies and analyses the challenging issues faced in linking two technologies: simulation modelling and GIS, to design spatial decision‐support systems for evacuation planing. Experiences in designing CEMPS, a prototype designed for area evacuation planning, are drawn on to discuss relevant managerial, behavioural, processual and technical issues. Focus is placed on modelling evacuee behaviour, generating realistic scenarios, validation, logistics, etc. while also investigating future trends and developments.

Crisis Management Teams: Issues in the Management of Operational Crises

This paper seeks to explore the concept of teams within the process of emergency or crisis management, with a view to assessing the importance of personality-related issues in determining team effectiveness. Organisations use ‘teams’ as a means of organising work. The logic of their use relates to the supposed ability of groups to make ‘better’ decisions than individuals. Of particular importance here will be the decision-making processes that take place within the context of emergency situations. The demands of crisis events—typified by the speed of onset of the event, by the intense confusion that accompanies it and by the resources needed to manage it—create problems for effective decision-making within organisations. The design of crisis management teams needs to take these environmental factors into account, in order to ensure that organisations can continue to function effectively under such conditions of intense threat.