Time and place: Wednesday, 3 October 2018, 09:30 – 12:30 and 14:30 – 15:45 (Room H)
This session on disaster drills and emerging technologies on disaster management will take place at ITU Headquarters (ITU Montbrillant building, Room H) in Geneva, Switzerland on
Wednesday, 3 October 2018, from
09:30 to 12:30 and from 14:30 to 15:45 preceded (on Tuesday, 2 October 2018) and followed by the
ITU-D Study Group 2 Question 5/2 meeting dedicated to “Utilizing telecommunications/ICTs for disaster risk reduction and management”. |
Background information
Disasters continue to strike every region of the world. In 2018 alone, disasters have hit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Myanmar, India, Japan, the USA, and in many other countries. Each event can devastate people’s lives and livelihoods, causing large economic losses which affect a national economy’s ability to rebuild and rebound. Disasters can negatively impact societies, disrupting the normal functioning of social and economic life. The combination of hazards, vulnerability and an inability to mitigate the potential negative consequences of risks increases the impacts of disasters for many countries. Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) play a pivotal role in disaster management. This workshop aims to share experiences and knowledge accumulated over years on effective disaster drills, use of emergency telecommunication systems, and other means to improve preparedness and resiliency with and among ITU-D members. Additionally, information on the availability and usage of emerging technologies in disaster management will be highlighted and shared. The discussions in the workshop sessions will assist in gathering and documenting important information for the preparation of the annual progress report of Study Question Q5/2. The scope of these workshop sessions is focused on the use of ICTs in disaster drills for better preparedness, including (but not limited to):
- Experiments of actual disaster drills by using emergency telecommunication systems for earthquake, landslide, tsunami, flooding and others
- Disaster drills on the national, local government, community, and enterprise levels
- After receiving early warning messages, how to send emergency alerting on several media such as TV and radio broadcasting
- Ways to rescue victims by using ICTs
- Safety confirmation of evacuees
- Capacity building for evacuation guidance, hazard maps, and feeding emergency goods and foods.
- Healthcare systems and services in evacuation shelters
- Use of Earth Observation Systems in planning preparedness exercises,
- Early warning systems, including disaster detection, emergency alerting and safety confirmation
- Emergency telecommunication systems
- Telecommunication network resilience and recovery
- Disaster preparedness, including hazard maps and evacuation guidance
- Use of drones, artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data
- And other important and related topics.
Expected outcomes in this workshop are lessons learned and best practices on emergency communications drills and exercises, and on the use of emerging technologies for disaster management. |
