Government Emergency Management Research Articles

How to Respond? The Impact of Government Response on Emotions in Emergencies from the Perspective of Configuration

Relieving the emotions of the public through government response is an important part of government emergency management. How governments respond in different situations can avoid stimulating negative emotions during emergencies? This paper analyzes the problem from the perspective of configuration; that is, this paper explores the combined effects of multiple factors on emotions. We construct the theoretical framework “Situation-Responder-Content” from situation, responder and response content, and use the government microblogs (n= 1517) from 23 major production accidents in China for the discussion with the use of fuzzy set qualitative comparison analysis (fsQCA). According to the results, the effective response types of different agencies in emergencies are summarized. Local authorities can respond in ways that include “Measures type” and “Measures-Emotion type”. Functional agencies can respond through “Measures type”, “Measures-Emotion type” and “Government feature-Driven” type. This study emphasizes that government response in emergencies is a systematic process. Responsive agencies need to release effective information on the basis of fully considering the situation and other factors. Configuration analysis should also be an important direction in government response research, which is helpful to the practice of government response in emergencies.

Social-media-based crisis communication: Assessing the engagement of local agencies in Twitter during Hurricane Irma

As social media platforms have become vital means of communication, it has become imperative for emergency managers and policy makers to understand how people are interacting with different agencies on these platforms for enhancing community response coordination during disasters. Although many public agencies have already adopted social media platforms for crisis communication purposes, empirical evidence on whether and how these agencies are effectively engaged on these platforms is lacking. This research aims to examine crisis communication activities of a variety of agencies in Twitter (now X) in response to Hurricane Irma in 2017. The study analyzed 13,353 hurricane-related tweets posted by the local agencies from eight counties in East Central Florida as well as federal and state agencies and other nonprofit and private organizations during the hurricane response period. An engagement metric was applied on these tweets to determine which agencies were most active in disseminating information during Hurricane Irma. The results revealed the most engaged local agencies in Twitter during Hurricane Irma for crisis communication and the Emergency Support Functions (ESFs) associated with them in coordinating disaster response activities. The study further investigated Twitter profiles and relevant attributes of these actively engaged agencies, and the contents of the hurricane-related tweets during Hurricane Irma. The study found that local agencies remain active and engaged in Twitter during a disaster compared to other levels of agencies. The ESF representing communication (ESF #2) was one of the most frequent ESFs associated with these active agencies; however, ESF #6 (Mass Care and Sheltering) was also found to be highly utilized. The results also provided insights on crisis communication performance of these agencies in terms of the three dimensions of social media engagement including popularity, commitment, and virality, which are correlated to the counts of like, reply, and retweet of each post, respectively. The study includes recommendations to local government and partner organizations and emergency managers to improve crisis communication in social media and suggests future research directions.

Pets are family, keep them safe: a review of emergency animal management in remote First Nations communities

Planning for and considering animals is a growing area within emergency and disaster planning. As people adapt to the changing risks of disaster events that are increasing in magnitude and frequency, communities, particularly those in regional and remote areas of Australia, face challenges that are very different from other more populated areas. These communities are often home to pets, which pose unique challenges during evacuation, response and recovery phases of emergency management. Australian state and territory government emergency management plans give varied considerations to animal management. In the Northern Territory, the Territory Emergency Plan (Northern Territory Government 2022) serves as a base for animal management in disasters. However, significant reform is required to fill gaps in considerations of animals in remote communities, especially First Nations communities, given the strong socio-cultural connections within family structures and contributions to wellbeing under First Nations health worldviews and the human-animal bond. Such reform requires consultation and collaboration with First Nations Australians to promote ‘right-way’ science, build local capacity and support community resilience. Considerations of the interplay between people and their pets in disaster planning, response and recovery contributes to ongoing advances in the ‘One Health’ and ‘One Welfare’ paradigms.

Analyzing public demands on China's online government inquiry platform: A BERTopic-Based topic modeling study.

This study aims to enhance governmental decision-making by leveraging advanced topic modeling algorithms to analyze public letters on the "People Call Me" online government inquiry platform in Zhejiang Province, China. Employing advanced web scraping techniques, we collected publicly available letter data from Hangzhou City between June 2022 and May 2023. Initial descriptive statistical analyses and text mining were conducted, followed by topic modeling using the BERTopic algorithm. Our findings indicate that public demands are chiefly focused on livelihood security and rights protection, and these demands exhibit a diversity of characteristics. Furthermore, the public's response to significant emergency events demonstrates both sensitivity and deep concern, underlining its pivotal role in government emergency management. This research not only provides a comprehensive landscape of public demands but also validates the efficacy of the BERTopic algorithm for extracting such demands, thereby offering valuable insights to bolster the government's agility and resilience in emergency responses, enhance public services, and modernize social governance.

Research on cross-city emergency management collaboration mechanism in major emergencies: insights from a knowledge management perspective

Purpose Based on the perspective of knowledge management, this study aims to discuss how to build cross-city emergency management collaboration mechanism in major emergencies and explore the important role of knowledge management in emergency management collaboration. Design/methodology/approach Based on the theoretical analysis of knowledge management and the typical case study of cross-city emergency management collaborative rescue, this study provides an in-depth analysis of how these cities achieve high emergency management performance through multidimensional and multilevel knowledge collaboration, thus revealing the mechanism of knowledge transfer, integration and sharing in achieving high emergency management performance. Findings Through analyzing typical cases, this study finds that building a smooth mechanism for multichannel emergency rescue information can promote the diversification of knowledge transfer methods, building a platform-based integration mechanism for emergency rescue information can enhance knowledge integration capabilities and building a linkage mechanism for emergency rescue materials between cities can promote knowledge-sharing level, thereby improving emergency management performance level. Research limitations/implications This study has great significance for how to build cross-city emergency management collaboration mechanism in the digital era. In the future, the authors need to further discuss the following two aspects in depth: research on the impact of cross-city emergency management collaboration mechanism on improving the knowledge management capabilities of government emergency management departments; and research on the impact mechanism of knowledge management capabilities on city resilience. Originality/value Through case analysis of cross-city emergency management collaborative rescue for major emergencies in China in recent years, this study proposes three specific strategies for cross-city emergency management (smooth, integration and linkage mechanisms) and reveals that these three strategies are essentially aimed at improving the government’s knowledge management level.

Urban multipoint fire disaster emergency simulation based on web information

Simulations can aid in decision making in large-scale emergency response problems limited by insufficient a priori experience. Scenario setting for emergency simulations usually requires complex spatial information, and such issues can lead to a large simulation workload and poor repeatability. Therefore, this study uses a web mapping API to obtain emergency resources and traffic network information and establishes an urban multipoint fire emergency simulation system (UMFESS) for the case of multipoint fire rescue. UMFESS performs traffic network modeling by obtaining real traffic data on a navigation platform, and Arena software is utilized to simulate the process of data collection, information transmission, and department response. The displayed simulation results for firefighting, first aid, transfer and placement can provide the basis for government emergency management. Then, typical cases of single fire and multipoint fires in Beijing are used to verify and validate UMFESS. The simulation results show that the route time and updated information have significant effects on emergency efficiency in the case of concurrent fires with limited resources. Emergency managers should focus on the fairness and stability of resource allocation.

Weakened economic impacts with future intensifying drought in Chinese mainland

Economic loss assessment of drought disaster (ELDA) plays an important supporting role in government emergency management decision-making and the sustainable development of national economy. Previous studies lack projected ELDA for composite drought under the background of global warming, and the evaluation models used have problems such as low calculation efficiency and poor universality. In order to explore the overall economic impact of composite drought disaster in Chinese mainland, an economic loss assessment model of drought disaster (ELDAM) was constructed based on the occurrence process and loss mechanism of drought. Under different global warming levels (GWLs), economic loss of drought disaster (ELD) in Chinese mainland increases with the intensification of drought. When the temperature rise reaches 4 °C, the ELD under the static scenario and the dynamic scenario that considers the future national economic development level can reach 164.00 ± 67.58 and 86.84 ± 38.06 billion USD2015. They only account for 0.014 ± 0.006% and 0.007 ± 0.003% of the projected gross domestic product (GDP), which is much lower than the reference period (2003–2018, 0.12%). The future economic impact of drought in Chinese mainland shows a downward trend against the background of intensifying droughts, but the economic impact of drought cannot be ignored under GWLs. ELDAM can not only be used to estimate ELD from historical drought disasters, but can also be combined with climate predictions to provide advance estimates of ELD, providing a reliable theoretical basis for strengthening regional drought prevention and resistance capabilities.

A study on the internal logic of local government emergency response capacity indicators based on the G-Dematel-Aism model

The local government's handling of emergencies has a bearing on the lives of local people, property safety and a series of rights. Therefore, how to build the emergency response capacity of local governments has become an important topic in the field of public management. In this paper, we study the important indexes of local government's emergency management and combine them with the algorithm of systematics to construct the matrix and topological map, and finally calculate the degree of importance and the logic relationship between the indexes The calculation results provide ideas for the focus and logic of local government's emergency response capacity building.

Disaster Preparedness Resources Management in the Era of Post-COVID 19 in China

This study aims to present the problems and improvement measures in the efficient operation of emergency resources in the event of a disaster in China. We suggested the following improvements. First, increase attention to disaster preparedness resources through local governments and improve the construction of facilities for regional disaster preparedness resource stockpiles. Second, long-term analysis and research on various types of risk factors at home and abroad should be carried out to expand the existing disaster preparedness resource management list and raise awareness of zonal crises. Third, local government emergency management departments should divide and set up small-scale disaster preparedness material stockpiles to improve the ability of cooperation and mutual assistance between residents and residents in emergency situations, and strengthen the community's resistance to disasters and hazards. Fourth, in the management of disaster preparedness materials, we should emphasize the optimization of the resource reserve inspection mechanism. Fifth, improve the professional skills of disaster preparedness resource stockpiling and management personnel to avoid mistakes and work errors in the work process. Sixth, a stockpile accountability system should be established to prevent problems such as poor management of local disaster preparedness resources.

Quantitative evaluation of emergency shelters in mountainous areas among multiple scenarios: Evidence from Biancheng, China

Accurate evaluation of urban emergency shelters is key to improving disaster response capacity and government emergency management ability, especially in mountainous areas where disasters are common. Most existing studies focus on evaluating material aspects, such as the capacity and accessibility of emergency shelters, ignoring the impact of different scenarios in the same area such as topographic, demographic, and population spatial–temporal distribution differences. Considering the multiple scenarios factors influencing emergency shelter practice, this study constructed a validity, efficiency, and security evaluation framework which was tested in Biancheng, Hunan, China. A combination of qualitative multiple scenario analysis and quantitative Network Analysis method were used to portray existing emergency shelters during emergency evacuations. The important conclusions are as follows: (1) there are significant differences in the evaluation of emergency shelters in the different scenarios. Scenario I (considering terrain) and Scenario II (considering demographics) decreased the evaluation results, while Scenario III (considering time–space) increased the evaluation results. (2) All three scenarios could cause variation in the validity indicators (A) and efficiency indicators (B), but A1 were unchanged in Scenario II and B2 remained constant in Scenario III, while none of the security indicators (C) were affected except in Scenario I. (3) While different emergency shelters performed differently in different scenarios, overall ID2 performed best and ID5 performed worst. Consideration of all scenarios was clearly necessary for us to scientifically evaluate the real use of emergency shelters, which can effectively guide emergency shelter planning and thus improve the abilities of urban disaster relief.

Local Government Emergency Management

According to the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), emergency management is “charged with creating the framework within which communities reduce vulnerability to threats/hazards and cope with disasters” (FEMA, n.d.). Local government emergency management involves the efforts of municipalities, cities, counties, and special government entities in responding to threats/hazards and coping with emergencies.

Volunteer Service Participation Emergency Management Information Collection Platform Based on Big Data Technology

In order to fully integrate various emergency management information resources for volunteer service, the author proposes a volunteer service participation in emergency management information collection platform based on big data technology. Taking a municipal government as an example, the current situation of information integration in emergency management is investigated and studied, the needs of various departments are analyzed through interviews and questionnaires, and the problems existing in the government’s information integration are studied. It tries to build a scientific, reasonable, and operational government information integration model based on theories of government information disclosure, government emergency management, and metadata technology. The survey results show the following observation: In the survey results of “the reasons that affect the integration of emergency linkage information of a city government,” the first place is the poor information communication channels between departments, accounting for 22.7%; The second and the third are “administrative system restrictions” and “protection of the interests of the department,” accounting for 21.4% and 19.4%, respectively. It is worth noting that the technical problem of information management is also one of the important factors affecting the government’s emergency response management, accounting for 19.1%. Conclusion. This study analyzes the main shortcomings and reasons of the existing sharing models, so as to construct a reasonable information sharing work model.

Online Emotional Support Accompany Group Intervention and Emotional Change of the Public During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Multi-Period Data Analysis From China.

COVID-19 has made it difficult to adopt traditional face-to-face psychological intervention under this situation because of the blocked down and social distancing, which brings big psychological crisis to the public among the global. To explore the emotional change of the public in China at the outburst of the pandemic at different phases, to establish an online working platform and create a new model of an online intervention to hold public emotions under pandemic, and test its effectiveness, so to give advisement for government emergency management system. We established an online organization to work for this program ad innovated a model of online group counseling with online emotional support accompany group (OESAG) right after the outburst of a pandemic. We analyzed 53 OESAGs from February 10 to April 9, including 555 application forms, 253 feedback from members, and 139 feedback from group leaders by using NVivo and SPSS to explore the evolution and characteristics of public emotion during COVID-19 and the effectiveness of OESAG. Our results showed that the emotional changes of members ranged from shock to depression to positive. The public's emotions swiftly changed from stress, anxiety, and isolation, to the hope of returning to work or finding a job during the pandemic with the help of OESAG. OESAG has effectively regulated the negative emotions of members by conducting psychological crisis intervention to provide members a space to communicate with each other, especially the female and frontline staff. Policy makers can set up an online systematic psychological crisis intervention system as soon as possible to make up for the lack of psychological assistance in the emergency management system.

A short note on four different emergency management mechanisms in the Chinese government disaster response

AbstractChina's government emergency management has the capacity to stand up an emergency management office, an emergency management headquarters, a joint defence and control command mechanism, and an emergency management joint conference. This short note compares these different mechanisms along several important dimensions. The overall emergency management organization and command system of COVID‐19 is analyzed specifically.

Identifying Roles for Public Administrators to Foster Anticipatory Altruism for Severe Weather Preparedness

Will people choose behaviors that benefit all persons in the community before a severe weather event? Or, will they choose behaviors that benefit themselves only? Knowing the answer to these questions can inform public administrators about the level of anticipatory altruism in their community. With this knowledge, they can design strategic plans that leverage a willingness to coproduce community preparedness. Over four hundred people in six severe weather and tornado prone states answered survey questions inviting them to choose between severe weather preparation options that benefit the community or the individual. Overall, our findings suggest a modest level of support for community preparation options, anticipatory altruism demonstrated by a willingness to pay, and intergenerational equity in their choices. These findings are salient in a time when governments may need to cut funding and rely more and more on foundations, nonprofits, and private efforts to provide a wide range of services. Government planners and emergency managers can use our results to strategically nudge residents into making severe weather preparations as well as to estimate support for co-production efforts with citizens to prepare the community for disasters.

Humanitarian Rescue Scheme Selection under the Covid-19 Crisis in China: Based on Group Decision-Making Method

Humanitarian rescue has become an important part of government emergency management in China. In order to select the optimal humanitarian rescue scheme accurately and in a timely manner in an emergency, reduce the harm of disasters to human life and health, and improve the government’s emergency management ability, a multi-attribute emergency group decision-making method is proposed. First, interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy sets are used to express the preferences of decision-makers, and interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy entropy is used to calculate attribute weights. Then, based on the technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS) method, the weight of the decision-maker is calculated. Then, the relevant interval intuitionistic fuzzy operators are used to summarize the preferences of decision-makers in group decision-making. Finally, we will use the closeness ranking method to choose the optimal scheme, and the feasibility and practicability of the proposed method are demonstrated by an example. The example shows that the model is more scientific, objective, and comprehensive in solving the problem of multi-attribute group decision-making than the traditional scheme selection, which only depends on the subjective discussion of decision-makers.

Novel Case-Based Reasoning System for Public Health Emergencies.

PurposeSeveral threatening infectious diseases, including influenza, Ebola, SARS, and COVID-19, have affected human society over the past decades. These disease outbreaks naturally inspire a demand for sustained and advanced safety and suppression measures. To protect public health and safety, further research developments on emergency analysis methods and approaches for effective emergency treatment generation are urgently needed to mitigate the severity of the pandemic and save lives.MethodsTo address these issues, a novel case-based reasoning (CBR) system is proposed using three phases. In the first phase, the similarity between the current case and the historical cases is calculated under a variety of heterogeneous information. In the second phase, a filter approach based on grey clustering analysis is created to retrieve relevant cases. In the third phase, the cases retrieved are taken as initial host nests in a cuckoo search (CS) algorithm, and our system searches an optimal solution through iteration of this algorithm.ResultsThe proposed model is compared with a CBR method improved by particle swarm optimization (PSO) and a CBR method improved by a differential evolution algorithm (DE), to confirm the efficiency of our CS algorithm in adapting solutions for public health emergencies. The results show that the proposed model is better than the existing algorithms.ConclusionThe proposed model improves the speed of case retrieval using grey clustering and increases solution accuracy with CS algorithms. The present research can contribute to government, CDC, and infectious disease emergency management fields with regard to the implementation of fast and accurate public biohazard prevention and control measures based on a variety of heterogeneous information.

Research on Government Emergency Management Strategy Based on Public Health Incidents

It is the government's basic responsibility to ensure public health safety. However, due to the influence of the environment and human beings, some public health incidents are still inevitable, endangering public health and undermining social stability. However, any public health incident is traceable, and there will be a process from latent period to outbreak. Therefore, the government needs to grasp the key points of health incidents, strengthen emergency management, and ensure social stability and public safety.

An Operational Multi-Radar Multi-Sensor QPE System in Taiwan

AbstractOver the last two decades, the Central Weather Bureau of Taiwan and the U.S. National Severe Storms Laboratory have been involved in a research and development collaboration to improve the monitoring and prediction of river flooding, flash floods, debris flows, and severe storms for Taiwan. The collaboration resulted in the Quantitative Precipitation Estimation and Segregation Using Multiple Sensors (QPESUMS) system. The QPESUMS system integrates observations from multiple mixed-band weather radars, rain gauges, and numerical weather prediction model fields to produce high-resolution (1 km) and rapid-update (10 min) rainfall and severe storm monitoring and prediction products. The rainfall products are widely used by government agencies and emergency managers in Taiwan for flood and mudslide warnings as well as for water resource management. The 3D reflectivity mosaic and QPE products are also used in high-resolution radar data assimilation and for the verification of numerical weather prediction model forecasts. The system facilitated collaborations with academic communities for research and development of radar applications, including quantitative precipitation estimation and nowcasting. This paper provides an overview of the operational QPE capabilities in the Taiwan QPESUMS system.

An emergency responding mechanism for cruise epidemic prevention—taking COVID-19 as an example

COVID-19 has severely impacted the global cruise tourism industry. The increasing number of confirmed cases during the quarantine period of ‘Diamond Princess’ questioned the efficiency and science behind the Japanese government's emergency management of the outbreak and led to a debate on the responsibilities of the ship's country of registry and port country. In order to deal with the spread of virus on a cruise ship rationally, the present study analyses why cruise ships are more prone to an emergent epidemic and discusses requirements of international conventions and domestic laws on cruise ship sanitation and epidemic prevention. It also evaluates the rescue responsibility of Flag State and Port State, explores the legal lacunae of international conventions on the rescue obligation of cruise home port, and provides solutions for prevention and control of cruise ship epidemic with short-term response measures and long-term mechanism construction. In terms of a short-term response, it is vital to adopt the quarantine idea of a ‘temporary cabin hospital’ and a disposal procedure of ‘circular disinfection-section repeat testing-batch transfer and quarantine-international collaborative medical treatment’. For a long-term mechanism construction, three aspects need to be considered: the risk emergency management mechanism of cruise lines, health and epidemic prevention supervision mechanisms, and international cooperation mechanisms of infectious disease prevention.