Smart disaster management in the age of climate change
By ANM Muniruzzaman, president of Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies
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Fortunately, the rapid advancement of technology has given us the opportunity to use some powerful tools in the way we respond to disasters. Advanced technology today has far-reaching and deep consequences for many sectors including Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR). If properly integrated into our disaster response strategy, it can save lives, give us the ability for quick response, manage scarce resources, and much more.
The advantages of integrating smart technology are vast. It can give us the capacity for rapid response. It also provides us the ability for crucial and critical risk assessment of the disaster situation in real time. Aerial robotics, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and drones are powerful and effective tools for disaster zone terrain-mapping. It can provide us real-time feedback of the extent of damage and loss of lives, providing the first responders the ability to look where they were unable to see before and plan rapid response. The use of drones in the aftermath of the Nepal earthquake was the only available way to understand the extent of damage and loss of lives in remote and unreachable parts of the country. Robots and other remote gadgets are critically important to reach places which are risky for human responders. Remote-sensing equipment today provides us the vital capacity in case of earthquake disaster management.
Communication is key for disaster management, but it is also most vulnerable to disasters. However, today technology gives us the ability to overcome this inherent weakness of structured communication. For example, Cisco’s Tactical Operations (TacOps) can take advantage of the latest mobile networking technology including cloud-control and Meraki technology to establish connectivity in disaster-hit areas at a speed which was unknown to us before. Even in the worst hit disaster areas, highly skilled internet infrastructure specialists can establish communication within hours. This speed of communication saved lives in Nepal’s 7.8-magnitude earthquake, Puerto Rico’s Hurricane Maria and in the disaster in Philippines. Social media and the digital communities provide us new ways of organising disaster response. It is not necessarily a one-way traffic anymore where disaster responders assess and provide relief. Social media has now brought the affected communities in disaster-hit areas into the loop. Disaster response designs can now be based on interactive feedback from the victims themselves. This provides the responders vital information on the actual needs of the people on the ground. This makes disaster-mapping and assistance analysis more realistic and real-time based.
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