Disaster management in the digital age

Disaster management in thedigital ageThe United States is one of the most natural disaster-prone countriesin the world. Since 1980, there have been 246 weather and climatedisasters exceeding $1.6 trillion in remediation. Within the lastdecade, the frequency of disaster events and their costs are on the rise.Complicating the impact of natural disasters is the population shift tocities and coastal areas, which concentrate their effects. The need forgovernments and communities to prepare for, respond to, and recoverfrom disasters is greater than ever before. Disaster management is abig data problem that requires a public private partnership solution.Technology is the connection that can link end-to-end capabilitiesacross multiple organizations for disaster management in the digitalage. But how can technologies like cloud, artificial intelligence (AI),and predictive analytics be leveraged across all aspects of the disastermanagement life cycle? This article briefly addresses these questionsand more. Two case studies and technology spotlights are used toreinforce discussion around traditional and new approaches to themanagement of natural disasters.

J. W. Talley

IntroductionNatural disasters are severe weather events that threaten

human health and the environment. They serve as economic,

social, and political disruptors that pose a critical threat to

the wellbeing of society. Unfortunately, the United States is

one of the most natural disaster-prone countries in the world.

This is in large part due to its geographic size, the diversity of

its landscape, and its varied weather and environmental

patterns. In 2018, there were 14 billion-dollar weather and

climate disasters at a total cost of $91 billion (see Figure 1).

Because of the distribution of the U.S. population and

economy, natural disasters leave an intense lasting impact

in terms of cost, time, effort, and quality of life. Daily life

after a natural disaster results in people being displaced and

traumatized. They may have lost their belongings, homes,

neighborhoods, and livelihoods. Meanwhile, officials at all

levels scramble to organize, to mitigate any resulting health

risks and restore power and utilities, and to protect

communities from a variety of disaster-imposed dangers.

Natural disasters and costs are on the riseFrom 1980 to 2019, the United States had 246 weather and

climate disasters at a cost of over $1.6 trillion [1]. When

comparing the frequency of disaster events and their costs

to the average frequency and costs since 1980, a disturbing

pattern is seen—natural disasters and costs are on the rise

(see Figures 2 and 3).

In addition to natural disasters becomingmore frequent

and severe, disasters may cause a potentially compounding

process, whereby one event precipitates another [2]. Coupled

weather events follow this pattern. For example, in the

United States there has been a substantial increase in

concurrent droughts and heatwaves [3]. These conditions

increase the risk of wildfires. Wildfires leave the soil

exposed, and rain run-off causes landslides. This chain of

adverse events illustrates how natural hazards can cascade to

cause more disasters [4, 5].

Population shift to cities and coastal areasComplicating the impact of natural disasters is the

population shift to cities and coastal areas. Roughly 80% of

Americans live in cities, and about 40% live in coastal areas

[6, 7]. Cities have higher populations in smaller

geographical areas, which concentrate the effects of natural

disasters. Coastal areas are most vulnerable to flooding

from storm events and sea level rise. This increases the

likelihood that they will experience a natural disaster.

Future damages and losses from disasters will be

predominantly in cities [8]. At particular risk will be fast-

growing small and mid-size cities, whose populations willDigital Object Identifier: 10.1147/JRD.2019.2954412

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outpace their capabilities [9]. Building urban resilience that

protects water, sanitation, energy, communication,

transportation, and health infrastructure is critical. Planning

for some redundancy in essential services will be necessary

for disaster response and recovery.

Emphasis should be placed on disaster preparedness,

where every dollar spent will save $5 in disaster response

[10]. Inadequate planning and coordination and a general

lack of secure communication between and across

stakeholders diminish survivors’ quality of life, impair

effective management of complicated, time-sensitive

scenarios, and pose barriers to establishing and building a

culture of resilience.

Disaster management: A complicated processIn the United States, when a national emergency has been

declared by the president, this triggers the use of federal

funds and resources as managed by the Federal Emergency

Management Agency (FEMA). Figure 4 shows the process

flow highlighting the complex coordination required among

various stakeholders, including the Small Business

Administration (SBA). Although the process is continuing to

evolve and improve, many issues still need to be addressed.

Many organizations which provide similar or overlapping

services rush to collaborate, but in the chaos, struggle to

keep pace to provide coordinated, complementary value.

All entities must rapidly establish identity, estimate

property damage as it evolves, verify ownership and

insurance, plus numerous other facts to claim resources and

deter fraud. Survivors must apply redundantly and often at

times when connectivity may be hindered, and proactively

check statuses on and across many platforms to receive aid.

Manual processing and delays impact decision-making,

accuracy, and resource allocation.

Figure 1

The United States is prone to natural disasters due to its large geographic

size and landscape diversity. There were 14 billion-dollar weather and

climate disasters in 2018 for a total cost of $91 billion (adapted from [1]).

Figure 2

Frequency of disaster events in the United States has significantly

increased in the last decade (adapted from [1]).

Figure 3

Cost of disaster events has rapidly grown in recent years, compared to

average cost since 1980 (adapted from [1]).

Figure 4

Coordination process with FEMA after a national emergency

declaration [11].

1 : 2 J. W. TALLEY IBM J. RES. & DEV. VOL. 64 NO. 1/2 PAPER 1 JANUARY/MARCH 2020


In disaster management, there is a need to track

resources. Inherent to this process is requirement to

integrate multiple systems and provide form management

necessary to plan, distribute, and document assistance.

Equally important is the ability to see or visualize the

disaster as it is unfolding. Being able to have situational

awareness in near-real time is essential to making good

decisions that save lives and property. Technology is

essential in addressing these challenges.

Role of technologyDigitalization of data, data sharing via the cloud, and

management and use of big data through analytics, to include

augmented intelligence, have played a critical role in “making

sense” of critical aspects within the vast amount of

information collected on natural disasters and complex

emergencies.

Currently, analysts gather and analyze relevant data and

produce reports related to their specific area of focus. The

addition of cognitive technologies like text analytics,

descriptive and predictive analytics with machine learning,

visualization, and data pedigree tracking can augment these

reports, allowing analysts to brief decision makers on

proactive solutions for situational awareness and

augmented intelligence instead of reactive reports.

Federal, state, and local agencies continue to struggle

with applying new analytic technologies to extract entities

and key information from historical and current data to

make more informed predictions and decisions. In the

digital age, unstructured data pours in from intranet-of-

things devices, sensors, and open-source data, while

budgets and timelines increasingly grow tighter and

disasters increase in their destruction and severity.

In the digital age, there are enhanced methods for

utilizing advanced analytics and machine learning to pull

data from available authorized sources that agencies,

especially those focused on readiness and disaster

management, can utilize in their descriptive, diagnostic, and

predictive efforts. At its core, disaster management is a big

data problem that requires a public private partnership

(P3) solution [12]. Technology is the connection that can

link end-to-end capabilities across multiple organizations to

prepare for and respond to disasters.

Disaster relief assistance through blockchainBlockchain is a combination of novel digital and

cryptographic features. When combined with smart user

experience and sufficient infrastructure, it can be applied and

leveraged to solve long standing problems in disaster

response and recovery. FEMA and other organizations can

share data without sacrificing control. Rules governing

eligibility, required verifications, and sharing of data can be

governed by decentralized logic or code. Survivor

information and organizational intelligence remain protected.

Blockchain revolutionizes the notion of a business

ledger. Separate organizations that do business together

can keep their own ledgers, yielding inconsistencies

when trying to coordinate and rectify discrepancies.

Blockchain uses smart contracts to programmatically

and automatically execute business rules that govern

transactions between organizations. What results is one

shared immutable ledger on a distributed, permissioned

network. This enables high level of security and privacy

to be imposed and an agreed-upon single source of truth

for all parties.

Blockchain offers benefits to any and all stakeholders

involved in disaster assistance. The survivor is given more

control over their information. Government agencies have

more control over coordinating how stakeholders interact.

Organizations are able to work together better and make

operations more transparent. Improved tracking increases

accuracy and auditability. IBM demonstrated disaster relief

assistance through blockchain in a project called Track

and Trace.

Track and TraceTrack and Trace is an IBM proof-of-concept demonstration

where blockchain was used to process, resource, and track

payments associated with disaster relief assistance [13].

Track and Trace utilizes the current coordination process

but integrates data from the broader disaster management

community in real time. The result is an acceleration of

data-sharing and improved decision-making. Working in

support of the Rebuild Texas Taskforce, IBM Corporate

Citizenship focused on scenarios experienced following

Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The proof-of-concept involved

six user types, each with their unique functionality:

survivor, community partner, SBA, FEMA, inspectors

(public and private), and insurers. The blockchain network

offered benefits to each of these six different user types or

personas, but any of these could be easily switched out for

another agency or organization.

Some of the highlights included establishing the

survivor’s application as the single source of truth,

helping to prevent fraud; allowing abinspector’s reports

to be immutable, helping to show comparison and

evolution of evaluation; creating greater visibility for

organizations with respect to flow of aid, which

improves the distribution of resources; improving the

ability for organizations to collaborate and coordinate

securely and in real time; automating the process of

applying to various organizations for aid; helping

government entities visualize and track assistance

distribution to aid in future planning and forecasting

efforts; and most importantly, because of how the

information was distributed, the burden was more

equally shared across parties while still empowering the

survivor to own and govern their information.



Track and Trace allowed for the process to be

streamlined. Survivors only submitted one application for

the whole ecosystem and could access it in one place and

with increased mobility. Stakeholders had visibility into aid

distribution across the entire process. Consistent data were

exchanged between every participant, and the process

moved quickly, as little as one week as opposed to months.

Insurers could submit a dispute directly to FEMA. Finally,

it integrated an extremely complicated broken form

management system.

Disaster management and cognitive C2As already stated, disasters and complex emergencies are big

data problems, so the ability to integrate structured and

unstructured data frommultiple sources in real time or near-

real time is essential in order to create a common operating

picture (COP) or visualize situation awareness. Leaders in an

emergency operations center (EOC) or a command center

must have a clear snapshot of what is occurring so they can

make the necessary decisions that save and protect lives

while responding to the crisis in the best means possible.

This requirement is not unique to disaster management

[14]. The defense and intelligence (D&I) communities

also need to “make sense” of the critical aspects of all the

information collected, in the complete context of specific

problems, thereby providing awareness of otherwise un-

noticed yet valuable and potentially threat-averting

information. To date, and despite the availability of

enormous amounts of collected data, the D&I

communities have been challenged to understand the full

context of this data and how it could be used to anticipate

unfolding events.

To address this challenge, IBM created an enhanced

method for utilizing advanced analytics that consumes all

data from authorized sources and applies machine learning.

The machine learning allows the analyst to enhance reports

with automated documenting sources, methods, entity net

maps, patterns of life, and applicable context for their

management that may assist in warning of emerging

conditions, trends, and threats from multiple large datasets.

This results in more accurate COPs, which allows for better

planning and response, thus creating a new capability—

cognitive command and control (C2) [15].

Although cognitive C2 is increasingly being applied to

D&I requirements, new work is underway to use the same

approach around disaster management. Weather, utility,

and infrastructure data are being integrated to create new

situational awareness for EOCs. IBM recently

demonstrated some of these capabilities in a Grid

Resilience Monitoring project.

Grid resilience monitoringIBM is working with Texas A&M to develop and deliver a

system for monitoring the conditions, impacts, and

emergency operations associated with extreme weather

events, specifically one impacting a Texas-based power

grid. This project reviewed existing industry and user

requirements from the perspective of data and information

necessary for the Texas EOC. Adaptation of situational

awareness tool user interfaces for Texas-focused

geography, infrastructure, and weather monitoring were

developed and tested.

Static data from infrastructure location data, power grid

asset failure, and associated weather condition histories

were collected and integrated. Interactive data input and

output were excluded.

The result was a light, clickable prototype tool for

maintaining a COP within the EOC (see Figure 5).

The demonstration had a run-time duration of about

15 minutes and covered periods before, during, and after

storm events. Although this approach has been used by

some utility companies to improve sustainability and

reliability, it has not been used to connect with

state EOCs.

This demonstration overlaid datasets of interests (e.g.,

weather, infrastructure, and operations) in a unified visual

representation enabling quick interpretation, although as a

proof-of-concept, grid resilience monitoring could be

applied to other critical infrastructure and utilities.

Additionally, by including some of the architecture from

cognitive C2, it is possible to create real-time situational

awareness and apply predictive analysis. By enhancing

EOCs in this way, the ability to respond and recover from

disasters would improve exponentially.

ConclusionNatural disasters will occur more frequently. Population

shifts to cities will continue, fueled by technological

developments. Building urban resiliency will become the

new normal. Disaster management will grow in complexity

and remain a big data problem requiring a P3 solution.

Technology will connect organizations with capabilities

and revolutionize disaster management.

Figure 5

Simulated COP shows the significant value of such systems to emer-

gency decision-making andmanagement [16].

1 : 4 J. W. TALLEY IBM J. RES. & DEV. VOL. 64 NO. 1/2 PAPER 1 JANUARY/MARCH 2020


Real-time tracking of all disaster management resources

for improved efficiency and auditability will become the

new standard. The visualization of situational awareness

and cognitive C2 will usher in a new era of EOCs. Despite

the increased challenges, disaster management in the digital

age has a bright future.

AcknowledgmentI would like to thank C. Delaney, Design Lead, Blockchain

Services, IBM Global Business Services; S. M. Stennett,

U.S. Federal Solutions Manager, National Security, IBM

Global Markets; and S. Fox, Cyber & Biometrics

Consultant, IBM Global Business Services, for their advice

and help on this article.

References1. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)

U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters, 2019,Accessed: Jun. 25, 2019. [Online]. Available: www _.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/

2. M. Liu and M. C. Huang, “Compound disasters and compoundingprocesses: Implication for disaster management,” UNISDR,Geneva, Switzerland, Input Paper, 2014.

3. O. Mazdiyasni and A. AghaKouchak, “Substantial increase inconcurrent droughts and heatwaves in the United States,” Proc.Nat. Acad. Sci., vol. 112, pp. 11484–11489, 2015.

4. A. AghaKouchak, L. S. Huning, F. Chiang, et al., “How do naturalhazards cascade to cause disasters?,” Nature, vol. 561,pp. 458–460, 2018.

5. S. L. Cutter, “Compound, cascading, or complex disasters: What’sin a name,” Environ., Sci. Policy Sustain. Develop., vol. 60, no. 6,pp. 16–25, 2018.

6. Center for Sustainable Systems, University of Michigan, AnnArbor, MI, USA, U.S. Cities Factsheet, Pub. No. CSS09-06,2018.

7. NOAA & U.S. Census Bureau, “National coastal populationreport, population trends from 1970-2020,” 2013. [Online].Available: www_.stateofthecoast.noaa.gov. Accessed on: Jun. 25,2019.

8. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),Managingthe Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance ClimateChange Adaptation. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univ. Press,2012.

9. A. K. Jha, T. W. Miner, and Z. Stanton-Geddes, Es., BuildingUrban Resilience: Principles, Tools, and Practice. Washington,DC, USA: World Bank, 2013.

10. Zurich Insurance Company, Ltd, “Extreme weather events—Howhard lessons strengthen resilience against the next big event,” RiskInsights, Jun. 2018.

11. D. P. Coppola, Introduction to International DisasterManagement, 3rd ed. Oxford, U.K.: Butterworth-Heinemann,2015.

12. IBM Corporate Citizenship, Resiliency and Recovery Support toTexas, Track and Trace, 2019.

13. C. Delaney, Personal Communication, IBM Trace and TraceProject, 2019.

14. IBM, Armonk, NY, USA, Intelligence at the Speed of Conflict,Apr. 2018.

15. S. M. Stennett, Personal Communication, IBM S4 Project, 2019.16. IBM Corporate Citizenship, Resiliency and Recovery Support to

Texas, Smart Grid Demonstration, 2019.

Received December 15, 2018; accepted for publication

October 1, 2019

JeffreyW. Talley IBMCorporation, Phoenix, AZ 85012 USA([email protected]). Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Talley received a Ph.D. degree inengineering from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, in2000, and an ExecutiveMBA degree from the University of Oxford,Oxford, U.K., in 2011. He is a Senior Executive with IBM and aProfessor of the Practice with USC. He is a registered ProfessionalEngineer (P.E.), a Board-Certified Environmental Engineer (BCEE) inSustainability, and a Diplomate, Water Resources Engineer (D.WRE).



Disaster management in the digital age

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