Spectrum management and communications in disaster relief

Bruce Emirali, Radio Frequency Manager, Directorate of CIS Strategy, New Zealand

We have already seen a number of natural disasters in 2007, ranging from floods in Africa to major earthquakes in Peru and Indonesia, typhoons in East Asia and hurricanes in the Caribbean. These events grab the media headlines, dominate the international news and capture the attention of the public.

Large-scale catastrophes create human misery, confusion, chaos and widespread economic harm. They happen all too often and they can happen at any time. When disasters occur it is of critical importance that first responders, from both local and international relief agencies, are on the ground and operational in the disaster area as quickly as possible. Speed of effective response is vital in minimizing the human misery and turmoil that always accompany these events.

The importance of coordination

Communications technology has a vital role in ensuring that relief teams can go about their activities as effectively as possible for the benefit of disaster victims. In particular, these teams are heavily reliant on radiocommunication systems. However, getting the best out of high technology-based systems and infrastructure requires national, regional and international cooperation.

Responses to large-scale events are likely to involve a large number of relief agencies and relief teams, both national and international, from which arises the critical requirement for interoperability and cooperation, including frequency coordination of radiocommunication systems. In many cases, due to the severity of a disaster and its impact on the local infrastructure, international relief agencies will generally be forced to rely on radiocommunication systems that they bring with them, in order for them to meet the immediate needs of victims.

Relief teams coming into a disaster area not only need reliable communications for their own activities to be effective, but also often require the capability of working with personnel from other teams. Harmonized frequency use has been seen as one approach that leads to improved interoperability.

Spectrum management is key

Without proper spectrum management, it is difficult for any organization to use its radio equipment to provide support critical to life, without interfering with local users and any other organization already deployed in the devastated area.

Although the critical importance of telecommunications in support of relief operations is well recognized by the United Nations and its Member States, work still needs to be done to ensure reliable communications in support of disaster relief operations. In particular, methods to achieve improved communications within the first 48 hours of a major disaster need urgent attention.

Much work has been carried out by the United Nations and by many countries on improving early warning systems, such as for tsunami. While these improvements help to reduce the loss of lives when a disaster strikes, they do not prevent the destruction of local infrastructure and the humanitarian impact that results from this.

The immediate requirement for relief operations following disasters generates high demand for reliable communications, which in turn need effective spectrum coordination. The challenge in recent times for ITU, and in particular for world radiocommunication conferences (WRC), has been to put in place regulatory provisions, supported by relevant technical studies, that provide the framework within which the radiocommunication needs of public protection and disaster relief agencies can be satisfied. Following the WRC in 2003, it was strongly recommended that administrations use regionally harmonized radio-frequency bands for public protection and disaster relief to the maximum extent possible, in order to facilitate interoperability between relief agencies.

Response of ITU

ITU’s Radiocommunication Sector (ITU–R), Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU–T) and Telecommunication Development Sector (ITU–D) have all worked on disaster communications and their list of accomplishments speaks for itself. These are just a few of them:

• Handbook on Emergency Telecommunications (ITU–D)
• Follow-up to the Tampere Convention on the Provision of Telecommunication Resources for Disaster Mitigation and Relief Operations;
• Establishment of a Partnership Coordination Panel on Telecommunications for Disaster Relief (ITU–T)
• Q-Series Recommendations (ITU–T)
• ITU–R Special Supplement on Emergency and Disaster Relief
• Resolution 646 (WRC-03) and Recommendations on the global circulation of equipment (ITU–R M.1637, ITU–R M.1579);
• Recommendation ITU–R M.2033 on the needs of future systems for Public Protection and Disaster Relief (PPDR), and Recommendation ITU–R M.1042-2 on disaster communications in the amateur and amateur-satellite services.

In addition, the United Nations Working Group on Emergency Telecommunications (WGET) of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) plays a key role in improving the coordination of emergency telecommunications in support of disaster relief operations. WGET assists in applying the ITU Resolutions and Recommendations related to telecommunications for disaster relief, and is an active facilitator of the promotion and implementation of the Tampere Convention.

Lessons of the tsunami