Network Centric Approach to Disaster Management

Network-Centric Approach to Disaster Management

Agencies involved in the preparation for, management of, and response to disasters require an enormous considerable amount of information in risk and emergency management, this kind of information is geographical and more often it does not reach the right people at the right time thus raising a concern on how such information can be organized in a way that it supports risk and emergency management more effectively and efficiently.

To address this concern organizations have to conceptualized the risk and emergency management practices which result in the concept of network-centric approach which means that all stakeholders in disaster management are connected and they have the capability to share and access relevant information. This concept can be made operational through the development of an information system and the exchange of geographical information within the system facilitated by the use of peer-to-peer networking joined with a client network server.

The network centric approach application level is presented by map and text forms to support the exchange of information between actors, thus, in this way of organizing geographical information and technology leads to improved information and communication, creates a better situation awareness and informed quicker decision making (Jeroen M.M. et al., 2010)

On the other hand disasters are predominantly characterized by their contracted time scale, they are unpredictable thus resulting to equally unpredictable political, social and economical consequences. Every disaster in its own sense introduces a more dramatic change in the environment affected, at times there exists a decreased environmental transparency in informational content and the original information that was contained in that particular environment gets disrupted thus increasing the granularity of the environment thus knowledge gained through sharing information through a well connected network helps in mitigating the disaster.

There are several benefits associated with the solutions offered by network-centric operations, in this respect the implementation of this approach provides ground rescue teams such as law enforcement officers, firemen, personnel offering healthcare, civilian authorities with a tactical connectivity among themselves and through this networks there is a free bidirectional flow of information and distribution of action aided knowledge among ground units, control centers and all the agencies participating in the rescue effort.

The network centric approach provides a free uninterrupted flow of information which is accessible to all layers of the network and its components. It also encourages real time operation awareness and reduces the heavy handed influence of distant command centers on the tactical situation on the ground as indicated by von Lubitz et al., (2006).