MITC: AVANZA I+D.
Eureka Itea 2 no10031- SI-020400-2011-55.
In recent years, the world has seen some dramatic disasters, both natural and manmade. Some spectacular examples include the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004, Hurricane Katrina in the same year, the terrorist attacks in Madrid (2004), London (2005), and Mumbai (2007), most recently, the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile (2010).
Disasters such as these are far beyond the ability of a single agency (even one funded by a large, wealthy government) to deal with, and require cooperation between multiple agencies, frequently from multiple countries. Moreover, decision makers dealing with such disasters are frequently swamped with massive amounts of often-conflicting information, on which decisions need to be made in real-time. Adding this to the need to take into account, social, political and economic factors, it is no wonder that many incorrect decisions are made, worsening an already difficult situation. On the other hand effective training of such situations, especially in a multinational setting, requires an enormous effort and thus cannot be used very often.
The goal of the DiCoMa project is to ensure effective management of large disasters and complex emergencies by providing a set of tools that aim to improve the effectiveness of decision makers in dealing with disasters by better training and in situ support in the field. This toolset will include:
• Data Abstraction tools – A Comprehensive set of tools designed to process and correlate information from a large variety of public and private sources, allowing the creation of a unified data set, which can be easily explored and understood by decision makers.
• Simulation and Modelling Tools: - DiCoMa proposes to create a suite of simulation tools that model both human behaviour and natural phenomena (i.e. fires, earthquakes, weather patterns.). The models will be based upon extensive theoretical work and field experience
• Training tools – Using the data-abstraction, simulation and modelling tools, DiCoMa shall create a suite of training tools (including simulation functionality to simplify the physical training setting) with the intent of training decision makers to make better decision in actual disaster situations.
• Decision Support and Training tools – DiCoMa intends to create applications to be used by decision makers during both real and simulated disasters, that presents information to the decision maker in a manner that is easily and quickly understood, proposes alternative actions, indicating the implication of each alternative Using simulation modelling, and disseminates decisions to all personnel, equipment, and agencies involved in the disaster response process.
In order to achieve these objectives, the DiCoMa consortium intends to follow three main principles:
1. People – The DiCoMa consortium believes that effective disaster management requires taking into account people, and the way they react to emergencies. This results in an intense usage of User Centered Design, involving many application partners (as potential users), as well as studying behavior patterns in emergencies and taking these patterns into account, in the design and implementation of DiCoMa.
2. Interoperability – DiCoMa intends to focus on the ability of agencies to cooperate, sharing information and resources, regardless of internal procedures and regardless of language. Furthermore DiCoMa will aim at defining a standardized Process Framework, which will allow the different parties in a disaster scenario to work collaboratively together, but still comply with their own country specific set of processes, rule and regulation.
3. Validation – The DiCoMa consortium intends to prove the feasibility of the developed concepts und prototypes by executing a validation phase, allowing actual users to work with the system, managing simulated multi-national disaster scenarios.
El objetivo principal del proyecto es asegurar una gestión efectiva de emergencias complejas y grandes desastres suministrando un conjunto de herramientas que ayuden a mejorar la toma de decisiones de los responsables por medio de un mejor entrenamiento y de apoyo in situ en el centro de operaciones. Este conjunto de herramientas incluiría:
Ø Herramientas de Abstracción de Datos: Un completo juego de herramientas diseñado para procesar y correlacionar información procedente de una gran variedad de fuentes tanto públicas como privadas, y que permiten la creación de un único conjunto de datos, que puedan ser fácilmente examinados y entendidos por los responsables de la toma de decisiones.
Ø Herramientas de Modelado y Simulación: DiCoMa propone la creación de un conjunto de herramientas de simulación que proporcionen modelos tanto del comportamiento humano como de los fenómenos naturales (ej. incendios, terremotos, patrones climáticos). Los modelos estarán basados en trabajos teóricos extensivos y en la experiencia de campo.
Ø Herramientas de Apoyo a la Toma de Decisiones y Entrenamiento: DiCoMa tiene la intención de crear aplicaciones que sean usadas por los responsables en la toma de decisiones ante desastres tanto simulados como reales, que presenten información al responsable de forma que sea fácil y rápidamente entendida, que proponga acciones alternativas indicando la implicación de cada una de estas opciones usando modelos de simulación, y que reparta las decisiones a todo el personal, el equipo y las organizaciones involucradas en la respuesta al desastre.
Para conseguir estos objetivos el consorcio DiCoMa pretende seguir tres principios principales:
Este proyecto ha sido cofinanciado por el Ministerio de Industria, Energía y Turismo, dentro del Plan Nacional de Investigación Científica, desarrollo e Innovación Tecnológica 2008-2011.
