LIRNEasia » Mile Hazard

Natasha at UN workshop to link Disaster Management to Space Technology

Chanuka Wattegama — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 13:32:55 +0000

From 13-15 October, 2008, The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) with support from the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction – Platform for the Promotion of Early Warning (UNISDR-PPEW) and the United Nations University – Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) organized the Second United Nations International UN-SPIDER Workshop on “Disaster Management and Space Technology – Bridging the Gap” in Bonn, Germany. LIRNEasia researcher, Natasha Udu-gama was one of 134 participants representing 49 countries.

The 3-day UN-SPIDER workshop was notable in that it featured a number of German and international presentations on the themes of Session 1: “Space technology in support of risk and disaster management”, Session 2: “Vulnerability and Risk Assessment”, Session 3: “Contributions of space-based technologies to existing and proposed early warning systems”, and Session 4: “Disaster Medicine, Telemedicine and Integrated Vector Management (IVM)”. Natasha Udu-gama presented on “Last Mile Hazard Information Dissemination” during Session 3 highlighting the usage of WorldSpace Addressable Radios for Emergency Alerts (AREA) systems as appropriate for last-mile hazard information dissemination in the LIRNEasia pilot project “Evaluating Last-Mile Hazard Information Dissemination”. The presentation also presented sustainability models for WorldSpace in Bangladesh and Indonesia, while demonstrating the role of last-mile systems with national early warning systems for developing nations and the need for sustainable options for integrating space-based technologies in the last mile.

The workshop included a number of international experts from the remote sensing and GIS fields, as well as NGOs, national donor agencies, national disaster management agencies and health fields. The interest in the last-mile was a significant talking point during the workshop and HazInfo was recognized as a leading best practice in this regard. Moreover, the theme of sustainable funding and continuation of best practices came to the fore with many of the participants calling for UN-SPIDER and other related working groups to become better proponents of ensuring that sustainable options are investigated and invested in.

Natasha’s presentation is available here.

HazInfo Dissemination Workshops wrap up in Jakarta

Udu-gama — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:23:18 +0000

On 5 March 2008, LIRNEasia in partnership with the Indonesian Institute for Disaster Preparedness (IIDP) will hold the third and final “Sharing Knowledge on Disaster Warning: Community-based Last-Mile Warning Systems” workshop at the Hotel Borobodur in Jakarta, Indonesia. Rohan Samarajiva, Natasha Udu-gama and Nuwan Waidyanatha will participate and speak at the event alongside several Indonesian speakers from various governmental, community-based and international NGOs such as BAKORNAS PB, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), KOGAMI Padang and GTZ GITEWS. As in past HazInfo workshops in India and Bangladesh, the Indonesia workshop will not only discuss findings from the “Evaluating Last Mile Hazard Information” pilot project, but also exchange lessons learned from Indonesian counterparts.

HazInfo video positively reviewed

Rohan Samarajiva — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 12:04:18 +0000

humanitarian.info » The Long Last Mile

Courtesy of Nuwan on the humanitarian-ict mailing list, I just watched “The Long Last Mile” on YouTube. Produced by Television for Education – Asia Pacific, it describes the project by LIRNEasia to evaluate Last-Mile Hazard Information Dissemination. Some useful points in an accessible format – redundancy in communication technologies, identification of key responders, community engagement in the process, the importance of simulation exercises for learning, and so on. Only 12 minutes long, it’s definitely worth watching. Plus, YouTube! Web2.0! Etc, etc.

HazInfo Project Featured in DataQuest India

Udu-gama — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 06:57:44 +0000

On December 31, 2007, DataQuest India published an article entitled “Disaster Alert” that featured LIRNEasia‘s “Evaluating Last Mile Hazard Information Dissemination” (HazInfo) project.

Disaster Alert_DataQuest Page 2
Disaster Alert_DataQuest Page 3
Disaster Alert_DataQuest Page 4

Making Communities Disaster Resilient at GK3

Udu-gama — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 12:01:00 +0000

The LIRNEasia HazInfo team, Rohan Samarajiva, Nuwan Waidyanatha, Natasha Udu-gama, joined its partners from Sarvodaya, Dialog Telekom and WorldSpace Corporation (India) to present findings from the “Evaluating Last Mile Hazard Information Dissemination” (HazInfo) pilot project at the “Making Communities Disaster Resilient” on December 11, 2007 during the Third Global Knowledge Partnership (GK3) conference in Kuala Lumpur from 11-13 December.

The session, moderated by Prof. Rohan Samarajiva, presented findings and analysis within a 90-minute session divided into two mini-sessions on technology and community. Mr. Michael De Soyza of Dialog Telekom and Mrs. Mala Rao of WorldSpace Corporation (India) presented their respective technologies piloted in the project. In the second mini-session on community, Dr. Vinya Ariyaratne, Executive Director, Sarvodaya discussed the Sarvodaya approach to making communities disaster resilient. Natasha Udu-gama and Nuwan Waidyanatha presented analysis of the findings.

“Making Communities Disaster Resilient” – Rapporteur Report

Second HazInfo Dissemination Workshop held in India

Udu-gama — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 14:44:49 +0000

On Monday, November 19th, Rohan Samarajiva, Nuwan Waidyanatha, and Natasha Udu-gama of LIRNEasia, along with Menake Wijesinghe of Sarvodaya‘s Community Disaster Management Centre went to New Delhi, India for the second in a series of workshops on the “Evaluating Last-Mile Hazard Information Dissemination” (HazInfo) entitled “Sharing Knowledge on Disaster Warning: Community-Based Last-Mile Warning Systems” at the India Habitat Centre in conjunction with the All India Disaster Management Centre (AIDMI).

The workshop included a variety of stakeholders from Indian government, civil society, international organizations, private sector, and NGOs. Mr. Mihir Bhatt, Honorary Director of AIDMI, along with Mr. Mehul Pandya, Risk Reduction Transfer Initiative Coordinator and Ms. Vandana Chauhan, Urban Risk Reduction Coordinator were in attendance from AIDMI’s Ahmedabad, Gujarat headquarters.

New Delhi HazInfo Workshop Report

New Delhi HazInfo Workshop Brochure

Inauguration | Rohan Samarajiva
Session I: Methodology, Preparedness, Training & Community Organization
Session I | P. Prasad
Session I | Menake Wijesinghe
Session II: Transmission of Warning to Local Levels
Session II | Vijay Pratap Singh Aditya
Session II | Natasha Udu-gama
Session III: First Responder Action
Session III | Suresh Mariaselvam
Session III | Natasha Udu-gama
Session IV: Determination of Hazard from National Level
Session IV | Nuwan Waidyanatha
Session V: Next Steps
Session V | Rohan Samarajiva

“The Long Last Mile” Now Available Online

Udu-gama — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 05:56:21 +0000

The “Evaluating Last-Mile Hazard Information Dissemination” (HazInfo) project full-length video documentary, “The Long Last Mile”, is now available on YouTube. TVE Asia Pacific, a HazInfo partner, has also published an article on the premiere of the video in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

More coverage of the Dhaka HazInfo Dissemination Workshop event on 25 October can be found at the Bangladesh Network Office for Urban Safety of BUET.

Dhaka HazInfo Dissemination Workshop | October 25, 2007 at BUET

Udu-gama — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 04:48:58 +0000

On October 25, 2007, LIRNEasia’s Rohan Samarajiva, Nuwan Waidyanatha and Natasha Udu-gama traveled to Dhaka, Bangladesh to present findings from the “Evaluating Last-Mile Hazard Information Dissemination” (HazInfo) pilot project in the first international dissemination workshop for HazInfo entitled “Sharing Knowledge on Disaster Warning: Community-Based Last-Mile Warning Systems” at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) through its Bangladesh Network Office for Urban Safety (BNUS) directed by Dr. Mehedi Ahmed Ansary. The report summarizes the workshop and its sessions. Overall, the workshop was a success in familiarizing the Bangladeshi audience with the HazInfo pilot project and meeting the objectives.

Dhaka HazInfo Dissemination Workshop Report

Presentations:
Inauguration:
Elements of a Community-Based Warning System | Rohan Samarajiva

Session I: Determination of Hazard at National Level
Determination of Hazard at the National Level: Sri Lanka Experience | Natasha Udu-gama
Determination of Hazard from National Level | Aftab Alam Khan
Simulation of Tsunami inundation by ComMIT Model | Sujit Kumar Debsarma
3D-Perspective Visualization of Storm Surge | Sujit Kumar Debsarma

Session II: Transmission of Warning to Local Levels
Transmission of Warning to Local Level: Bangladesh Experience | Md. Nasir Ullah
Transmission of Warning to Local Level | Nuwan Waidyanatha

Session III: First Responder Action
First Responder Action | Nuwan Waidyanatha
First Responder Action (Bangladesh Experience) | Ashutosh Sutra Dhar

Session IV: Methodology, Preparedness, Training and Community Organization
Early Warning Challenges: Options & Solutions | S. Rangarajan
Methodology, Preparedness, Training & Community Organization | Natasha Udu-gama

Session V: Next Steps
Roles of policymakers, regulators, private sector and civil society | Rohan Samarajiva

HazInfo Dissemination Workshop in Bangladesh on October 25th

Udu-gama — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 05:02:22 +0000

On October 25, 2007, LIRNEasia will hold its first regional dissemination workshop for the “Evaluating Last Mile Hazard Information Dissemination” (HazInfo) pilot project at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) through its Bangladesh Network Office for Urban Safety (BNUS) in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The purpose of the workshop is to gather experts, practitioners and community organizations to discuss the findings of the HazInfo project and determine ways in which the project may be developed to suit community-based hazard information dissemination regionally. The “Sharing Knowledge on Disaster Warning: Community-based Last-Mile Warning Systems” workshop in Dhaka will feature five presenters from government, academia and NGOs. Dr. A.M.M. Safiullah, Vice-Chancellor of BUET, will be Chief Guest during the workshop inauguration. Presenters from LIRNEasia include Dr. Rohan Samarajiva, Mr. Nuwan Waidyanatha and Ms. Natasha Udu-gama. Each will present different aspects of the HazInfo results. For more information on this workshop, the following documents are now available:

Dhaka HazInfo Workshop Agenda
Dhaka HazInfo Workshop Brochure
Dhaka HazInfo Workshop News Release

The Dhaka HazInfo workshop is the first in a series of HazInfo dissemination events in the region. The next workshop will be held in partnership with the All India Disaster Mitigation Institute (AIDMI) at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi, India on November 19, 2007. The third, and final, regional workshop is proposed to be held in Indonesia in January. More details on these upcoming workshops will be available in the months ahead.

HazInfo Paper Accepted for the 1st WRECOM Conference in Rome, Italy

Nuwan Waidyanatha — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 08:39:21 +0000

Paper titled “Community-based Hazard Warnings in Rural Sri Lanka: Performance of a Last-Mile Message Relay”, authors – Gordon Gow (Associate Professor, Faculty of Extensions, University of Alberta, Canada), Peter Anderson (Associate Professor, Department of Telematics, Simon Fraser University, Canada), and Nuwan Waidyanatha (Project Manager, Last-Mile Hazard Warning Systems, LIRNEasia, Sri Lanka), will be presented at the 1^st Wireless Rural Emergency Communication Conference. The WRECOM 2007 Conference is jointly organized by the University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, the IEEE Communications Society and the Vehicular Technology/Communications Society joint Chapter Italy Section. The conference will take place in Rome, October 1-2, 2007.

The HazInfo project realized that early warnings via Information Communication Technology (ICT) must be a point-to-multi-point application and is best accommodate by Wireless ICTs. The HazInfo pilot included outfitting and field-testing an initial 32 villages with various combinations of wireless communication equipment, which could provide features such as: early warning wake-up, addressability and provision of information in three languages (English, Sinhalese and Tamil).

In December 2005, LIRNEasia, an ICT policy and reform research organization, initiated a research project to evaluate the “last-of-the-mile” communication component of an all-hazards warning system for Sri Lanka. The project entitled, “Evaluating Last-Mile Hazard Information Dissemination”, or the “HazInfo Project”, was funded by the International Development Research Center (IDRC) of Canada. Its research design was based on recommendations of a “participatory concept paper” for a national early warning system (NEWS:SL) completed in the months following the 2004 tsunami.

LIRNEasia-Sarvodaya disaster warning forum

Rohan Samarajiva — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 15:42:30 +0000

LIRNEasia in partnership with Sarvodaya, is organizing the concluding events of “Evaluating Last-Mile Hazard Information Dissemination Research Project” in Moratuwa, Sri Lanka on 28-29 March 2007. This “Last-Mile” project reflects Sarvodaya and LIRNEasia’s shared objective of evaluating the suitability of information communication technology (ICT) in the last mile of a national disaster warning system for Sri Lanka and possible extension to other developing countries. A major part of the concluding events is the forum entitled, “Sharing knowledge on disaster warning, with a focus on community-based last-mile warning systems”, which will be held on 28-29 March 2007 at the Sarvodaya Damsak Mandiraya (Sarvodaya Main Campus) in Moratuwa. The conference intends to bring together knowledge from the South Asia Region to Sarvodaya for a forum on practical solutions for communicating risk information to rural communities. The events also include a Media Conference on 30 March 2007.

The program

Hazard Warnings in Sri Lanka: Challenges of Implementing CAP

Nuwan Waidyanatha — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 07:11:59 +0000

There is a growing call for the use of open source content standards for all-hazards, all-media alert and notification systems. Content standards such as Common Alerting Protocol (CAP), Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL) and others promise to improve the interoperatiblity of hazard information systems at both the internetworking and last-mile stages of distribution. Despite the promise that these standards hold for improved disaster management, there is limited understanding of specific implementation issues and challenges associated with the use of content standards for last-mile alert and notification system. This is especially the case in developing countries, such as Sri Lanka, where community-based hazard information systems are being introduced to complement and extend the functionality of national and regional systems.

The Discoveries and Breakthroughs in Science report on “New Disaster Warning Standards” provide the true features of CAP. However, fails to realize that the CAP standard was developed in the English Speaking Countries and has only been tested in those developed countries. The standard does give provision to issue warnings in multiple languages by creating a new “info” section for each language; where the info section is a subelement of the CAP Message. CAP still requires testing over a multiple array of ICT devices that can be used in a last-mile with language localized alerting applications before it is concluded as a “universal standard”.

CAP is being deployed as part of the HazInfo project, which has established last-mile networking capability for 32 tsunami-affected Sarvodaya embeded villages in Sri Lanka in order to study the suitability of various Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) for a standards-based community hazard information system. A major component of the HazInfo Project is the use of the Common Alerting Protocol to enable data interchange between the Hazard Information Hub (HIH) and a range of end-user technologies. CAP is a simple, flexible data interchange format designed for collecting and distributing “all-hazard” safety notifications and emergency warnings over information networks and public alerting systems.

“Evaluating Last-Mile Hazard Information Dissemination: A Research Project”, also referred to as the “HazInfo Project” was launched in December 2005 and is being tested in the Sarvodaya embedded Coastal Districts of Sri Lanka. The research project is funded by the International Development Research Center of Canada (IDRC). The research findings from the simulated tests and exercises of the 5ICTs and Processes will provide a guide to implementing an early warning system for the next 1000 Grama Swaraja villages.
CAP as a content standard is deliberately designed to be transport-neutral. In web-services applications, CAP provides a lightweight standard for exchanging urgent notifications. CAP can also be used in data-broadcast applications and over legacy data networks. CAP provides compatibility with all kinds of information and public alerting systems, including those designed for multilingual and special-needs populations. Further, CAP incorporates geospatial elements to permit flexible but precise geographic targeting of alerts. CAP also provides for associating digital images and other binary information with alerts and supports various mechanisms for ensuring message authenticity, integrity and confidentiality where required.

CAP was integrated into the project because of the following perceived benefits and advantages:

Since it is an open source, XML-based protocol with clearly defined elements, CAP should be capable of supporting data interchange across multiple dissemination channels.
With CAP, one input at the central information hub can be translated into multiple outputs for downstream alerting.
CAP provides a standardized template for submitting observations to the central hub (upstream) and thereby supports situational awareness to improve overall management of a critical incident.
A CAP-enabled system will more easily integrate with other national and international information systems.

Results to date suggest that the basic internetworking arrangement at lower technical layers has proven to be reasonably robust and reliable but that a key challenge remains in the upper layers of application software and content provision. This is evident in the apparent difficulties faced when implementing CAP messaging over multiple last-mile systems that include commercial satellite and terrestrial network technologies .

Lessons learned from silent-tests and live-exercises points to several key bottlenecks in the system where the integrity of CAP messages is compromised due to problems associated with software interoperability or direct human intervention. The wider implication of this finding is that content standards by themselves are not sufficient to support appropriate and timely emergency response activities. Those working with content standards for hazard information systems must consider closely the interoperability issues at various layers of interconnectivity.

Designers: Botrel et al of CAP have given the message recipients full autonomy to take action based on the information they receive. It is expected that the community has an Emergency Response Plan (ERP) that is executed on the basis of the content in the CAP message. Therefore, it is important to avoid ambiguity in the alerts; example: if the message indicates that the particular community is absolutely at no threat then the community ERP will be to record/acknowledge message only and do not relay any further (i.e. terminate event).

Global Organizations such as United States Geological Survey (USGS) that issue CAP messages, to this day, use the OASIS CAP version 1.0 and not version 1.1, which was released by OASIS in October 2005. HazInfo Project has been testing with the latest version 1.1 and has difficulty automatically importing the USGS Messages in to the CAP readers used in the project because of the mismatch in the Document Object Model (DOM).

Last-Mile Hazard Information Project is On

Divakar Goswami — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 05:44:33 +0000

LIRNEasia is undertaking a project to provide disaster mitigation training and last-mile connectivity to tsunami-affected villages along the coast of Sri Lanka. The effectiveness of training and five different ICT technologies that will be deployed will be assessed with a view of rolling out the most successful strategies and technologies in 226 tsunami-affected Sarvodaya villages. This IDRC funded project is partnered with Sarvodaya, Vanguard Foundation, Dr. Gordon Gow, LSE, UK, TVE Asia Pacific, Sri Lanka and the Community Tsunami Early-Warning Center (CTEC) at Peraliya.

In the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004, it was evident that if Sri Lanka along with the other affected countries had an effective disaster warning system in place, many lives could have been saved. The lack of a national disaster warning system compounded by a non-existent local warning communication system and public training makes it unlikely to this day that hazard information will reach individual households at the “last mile” even if an ocean-based tsunami detection system is deployed. The current project, driven by civil society organizations, has extraordinary potential for saving lives and restoring a sense of security to the affected people in Sri Lanka and hopefully around the Bay of Bengal.

An experimental research design is being adopted to evaluate the role played by a number of factors that contribute to the design of an effective last mile hazard information dissemination system. The specific objectives of this research project are to evaluate the following factors:
1) Reliability of ICTs as warning technologies;
2) Effectiveness of ICTs as warning technologies;
3) Contribution of training to an effective warning response;
4) Contribution of the level of organizational development of a village to an effective warning response;
6) Gender-specific response to hazard mitigating action;
5) Degree of integration of ICTs in the daily life of villages.
The project proposal is available as a PDF document .