Disaster Management

through IT
GROUP 2 SECTION D

Archit Gupta
1301-029
Sumaiyah Ahmed
1301-227
Narasimha Malepati
1301-371
Mayank Bhardwaj
1301-539
Cecile Durot
13FRN-349
Disaster Management
Disaster management - organisation and management of
resources and responsibilities for dealing with all humanitarian
aspects of emergencies, in particular preparedness, response
and recovery in order to lessen the impact of disasters
-Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies


Planning how to
respond (warning
systems, evacuation
plans etc..)
Preparedness
Activities during a
disaster (search and
rescue operations
etc..)
Response
Activities following
a disaster
(temporary housing,
long term medical
care etc..)
Recovery
Activities that
reduce the effects
of disaster (building
codes, public
education etc..)
Mitigation
Geographical information
Systems (GIS)
Information systems that are capable of integrating, storing,
editing, analysing, sharing, and displaying geographically-
referenced information.



Preparedness

Helps in identification of resources and at risk areas
Helps in determining whether the road infrastructure
and communication systems can withstand the
effects of disaster

Response

Provides the user with information on exact
location of emergency situation


Recovery

GIS provides a synopsis of the persons or
institutions affected and what has been
damaged
Mitigation

GIS helps in representing areas of risk and the
level of risk associated with a particular
hazard, which can be a guide in decision
making
GIS & DM cycle
Google Person Finder
Free service developed by Google engineers in the wake of 2010 Haiti
earthquake
Allows NGOs, governments and individuals to contribute to the database which is
available to everyone
Information dissemination using the embed option
Can be launched in various languages (for example, Google Person Finder
application was launched in Hindi language during 2013 Uttarakhand floods)
In order to protect the privacy, data is removed after the purpose is achieved
Google also launched crisis maps which provides information about roads, relief
camps and medical centres
Issues Low Internet Penetration, availability of internet at the affected
location
Overview of Google Person Finder
Big Data in Disaster Management /
Super Storm Sandy
Hashtags and words in Twitter feeds as well as
Instagram photos related to Sandy

Evacuation rates in specific areas and other keywords
about resources, such as power, food, fuel and water.

Plotted out locations where supplies might be most
needed

FEMA accessed more than 150,000 geo-tagged photos
from Civil Air Patrol

Determine who was exposed and where there were
structural damages

Better job of providing assistance to disaster survivors
faster than ever done before

Big Data could help improve as a major part of
responders preparation activities

Disaster simulations can at times suffer from a lack of
statistical information

Over 20 million tweets posted during Hurricane Sandy

Only 3% of the worlds population are active Twitter
users

Damage captured by this data is real damage


Decisions made by humanitarian professionals
during disasters are not based on any kind of
empirical data

Challenges with Big Data:
Emergency managers need to extract right bits of
information at an early stage during a disaster.
Restrictions on the availability of public data on social
media sites

Google Flu Trends
Uses aggregated search data to estimate activity
in near real time

Flu related search increases in the flu season

Certain search terms are good indicators of
actual flue activity

Collaborated with CDC in US to create Google Flu
trends in the US

Data is produced by an automated formula from
millions of searches done on google over time
Can never be used to identify individual users

Early detection of a disease outbreak enable public
health officials and health professionals to better
respond to seasonal epidemics and pandemics
Looking at popularity of search queries :
identified query that matched with CDC data
CDC indicated the same increase two weeks later
Crowdsourcing / Haiti
Earthquake

In the aftermath of Haiti earthquake, millions of
Haitians lacked food, water and shelter.

Aid workers lacked information about who needed
help, and where

Cell towers up and running immediately following the
quake

Huge call volumes exceeded their capacity and
resulted in service outages

A text message hotline Mission 4636
supported by the U.S. Department of State

In the first month, Haitians sent more than 40,000
texts to 4636.

The messages were in Haitian Creole

Aid workers designated to respond spoke English.

Crowdsourcing provided an answer: to allow
hundreds of thousands of Haitians living outside
the country to translate texts to english in real
time, and f or free, via a public website.

Haitian Diaspora living abroad came ahead for
the help

Mission 4636 cost less than $500,000 to design,
build and deploy

At a fraction of the cost of most relief budgets,
crowdsourcing can solve coordination problems
on the ground

Governments and aid agencies should make it a
central part of future disaster response efforts

Disaster Management Cloud
Computing
A shared model : recovery infrastructure is split among
multiple organizations

Cost-effective

Traditional restoration solutions : complex, require
specialized IT skills and huge expenses

Traditional restoration solutions are thus impractical for
small and mid-sized businesses

Cloud-based disaster recovery solutions are also easily
scalable

Allow organizations to expand or contract recovery
capabilities on demand

Organizations dont have to pay for services they
dont need.

Provide remote access tools: eliminate the need for
physical transfers of tapes, saves transfer cost

Do not require hardware purchases or in-house
specialized recovery knowledge

Give small and medium-sized businesses the
opportunity to adopt the type of robust continuity and
disaster recovery

Same type of recovery times, recovery points and
security levels as large enterprises.




Emerging Technologies for
Disaster Management
Google Glass


Future of emergency : real-
time, hands-free and high-
tech
HUD display : view maps,
blueprints, surveillance video
feeds, and other information
on the display.
Voice commands
Viewing of a street map of homes and businesses
hit with power outages, and downed wires and
trees as a result of a blizzard or ice storms

Disarming bomb with help of live streaming video

Fire-fighters can use real-time blueprints while
operating

Disadvantage : it doesn't work well in a loud
environment
eTriage
Triage deciding the order of
treatment of patients; Not easy
for rescue parties to find the
patients
eTriage Advanced electronic
triage system for sensing physical
condition of injured persons
eTriage helps in tracking
dynamic changes in patients
condition
Different views of the rescue
scene are provided using
wireless communication service
platform



Overview of eTriage
Wide Area
view
Detailed
Area
View
Google Loon
Project developed by Google with a mission of providing
internet access to rural and remote areas
Uses high altitude balloons placed in the stratosphere to create
an aerial wireless network
These blimps can be used to provide internet connectivity in
disaster affected areas
Can be used to capture aerial imagery to assess the damage
caused by disaster





IT based Researches to enhance
Disaster Management
Digital Ubiquitous Mobile
Broadband OLSR (DUMBO)
Emergency network platform developed in the wake of 2004
Tsunami disaster
Designed to provide multimedia communication among field
team members and with a distant command headquarter
The system comprises Mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) and
satellite IP network
Deployed with multimedia
sensor and face recogn-
ition applications

WISECOM Project
WISECOM Wireless Infrastructure over Satellite for
Emergency COMmunications
Ongoing project created by the German Aerospace
Centre
Aims to develop a complete telecommunication system
that can be rapidly deployed after a disaster
Intends to restore local GSM infrastructures and provide
wireless data access using satellite communication
Location based services for locating victims and rescue
teams
WISECOM Project
Wireless local access
points to provide network
access
Wi-Fi hotspots are
deployed around the
vehicles to provide
coverage up to 1km
Wi-Fi hotspots are in turn
connected to the satellite
access point
All the required equipment
can be rapidly transported
to disaster site in a normal
car
Conclusion
Most of the disasters destroy communication infrastructure
and disconnects the affected area
Very important to restore the communication with outside
world at the earliest possible
IT can help in knowing the situation at the disaster area in
real time (Google Glass)
Recovery can be done very faster with the help of IT



THANK YOU