CRISIS-2000: A Decision Support System for Major Disasters

Abstract

Handling of natural and man made disasters, like train and group accidents on motorways, plain crashes, chemical hazards, earthquakes etc., places great demands on management as well as on the resources, i.e. rescue and care functions. Some of these disasters are small and can be effectively handled by local authorities and resources, while other disasters may be larger or spread over large geographical area and therefore require coordination of authorities and resources in many localities, as well as authorities on a higher level, as in the case of large earthquakes, terrorist activities, etc. The recent developments of distributed information systems like the Internet enable decision support and process management systems for handling major disasters that would not have been possible a few years ago. This paper presents such a system. The system is a distributed information and decision support system that supports the decision-makers in handling major disasters. It combines methodologies of Operations Research methods (mathematical optimization, simulation), artificial intelligence (knowledge-based systems, pattern recognition), and information management (network-based, platform independent). The paper concentrates on the concept of the decision support and especially on the structure of the information management subsystem, which is one of its basic components.