community-based collaborative disaster management approaches in the new information environment

5th

International Disaster and Risk Conference IDRC 2014

‘Integrative Risk Management - The role of science, technology & practice‘ • 24-28 August 2014 • Davos • Switzerland

www.grforum.org

Towards novel community-based

collaborative disaster management

approaches in the new information

environment

Marc van den Homberg

Martijn Neef

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh

Framework Programme for research, technological development and

demonstration under grant agreement no 313308

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media

Large-scale disasters:

complex process involving many stakeholders

municipalities military

organisations

volunteers

businesses

needs capacities

national

governments

International,

national, local

NGOscivilians

donors and

advocacy groups

social

groups

critical

infrastructures

professional care

organisations

online technical

volunteers

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Many collaboration and information gaps in the

recovery phase

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The new information environment

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The new information environment

• Technical layer

– Information architectures, mobile

platforms and devices, methods of

handling rich, novel data streams

• Social layer

– Social use of new technologies to

create, validate and distribute

information through personal,

local, regional and global networks

• Socio-technical layer

– Combination to develop novel

capabilities for a wide variety of

novel outcomes, including new

crowd effects

Ref Rebecca Goolsby, 2013

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The new information environment:

opportunities and threats

• On-line self-organizing volunteer initiatives > offline action

• Digital volunteers for crisis mapping

• Unbound volunteer initiatives (of not necessarily skilled volunteers) can interfere with professionally-led activities

• Lower entry barriers for new organizations

• More organizations: increasing competition and coordination problems

• Fast information sharing and collecting

• Misinformation gets more easily spread

• Crowd manipulation or hysteria propagation

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The Community Based Comprehensive Recovery

(COBACORE) approach

Match the collaboration issues with the new information

environment opportunities

• Develop a vision on how stakeholders can improve the

recovery process by working better together

• Build a demonstration platform making use of the new

information environment

• Create a network of supporters that can adopt the outcomes

and bring it into practice

http://www.cobacore.eu

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The COBACORE communities

respondingcommunity

respondingprofessionals

affected community

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The COBACORE issues

respondingcommunity

respondingprofessionals

affected community

needs & capacity matching

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FUNCTIONS

ISSUES

• enhance information

exchange

• facilitate collaboration

• improve needs and

capacity matching

information

exchange


collaboration

support

COBACORE functions

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could-have

should-have

must-have

Functions

Issues

Features

information

exchange


collaboration

support

feature

feature

pack

COBACORE features

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Ten core features

• Four facilities to register actors, needs, capacities and activities

• Three overviews of needs and capacities, actors and their activities, the baseline situation

• Basic recovery monitoring views

• Information exchange options

• Matching needs with capacities

– Category: 12 societal domains such as transport, health or education

– Type: service or skill, information and asset (tangible or intangible) (sought for or offered)

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The COBACORE platform

Enhance information

exchange >> shared

understanding

Facilitate collaboration >>

empowering

Facilitate collaboration >>

re-directing and

empowering

Improve

needs and capacity

matching

Effective

Recovery

Current

processes

Operational value

Fits with

procedures

useful & usable for

COBACORE

platform

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The COBACORE platform

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The COBACORE platformThe COBACORE platform

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• Developed in the COBACORE project under the direction of Kenny

Meesters from Tilburg University

• Goal

– evaluate the platform by comparing user groups interacting with the platform

and user groups using state-of-the-art social media (twitter, facebook, skype

and trello)

– improve cooperation and coordination skills of stakeholders by using the

platform in a cooperative development game

• Game design

– table-top turn-based simulation game

– evolving scenario: flood in Belfast area, three stages

– user group profiles, goals for each user group, workflows and actions

– duration about three hours

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Neighbourhood 1

4 p

Neighbourhood 2

4 p

Neighbourhood 3

4 p

Neighbourhood 4

4 p

Neighbourhood 5

4 p

Affected communities

Responding

community 1

3 p

Responding

community 2

2 p

Responding

community 3

2 p

Re

spo

nd

ing

com

mu

nity

Coordinating

Professionals

3 p

Responding

professionals 1

3 p

Professionals

Game

management

2 p

Observers /

instructors

8 p

CO

BA

CO

RE

gro

up

s

IntroductionResponding

professionals 2

2 p

Responding

professionals 3

2 p

Workshops

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The way forward

• Platform development

– Life cycle of needs and capacities

– Overview that indicates the coverage and gaps

– Who is doing what and where (3W) overview

– Hybrid collaborative platform (digital and non-digital)

• Game development

– “Validate for use”: are learning objectives reached?

• Facilitate adoption of both game and platform

– Focus on all three layers: technical, social and socio-technical

– For each user group slightly different, tailor-made interfaces

– Piloting in other contexts

– Use the platform also outside recovery phases for other purposes?

• Let us know if you are interested!

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Adopting the project outcome: COBACORE as a….

A global platform? A national or regional platform?

A thematic-oriented platform?

Platform at end-user level or higher

aggregation level?

A government-led service?

An all-purpose, all-hazard platform?

A community-managed platform?

A first step towards an operational A first step towards an operational

tool, an integrator on top of social

media?

A community-wide platform? A professionals-only platform?

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Added value for the Post 2015 Framework for

Disaster Risk Reduction

• Pre-zero draft priority area:

– Preparedness for response, recovery and reconstruction: promoting regular disaster preparedness exercises

– Understanding disaster risk: promote community-based training initiatives, considering the role of volunteers

• Research: game and platform validated for use

• Education and training: add to disaster preparedness exercises a game on coordination/information management

• Implementation and practice: ensure adoption of the platform and game by developing tailor-made versions

• Policy: stimulate incorporation of coordination/information management processes and exercises into (inter)national policy frameworks and disaster management plans

community-based collaborative disaster management approaches in the new information environment

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