DECIDE for a safer future
DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR DISASTER EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
EDITORIAL TEAM Evangelos Mitsakis Iraklis Stamos Georgia Aifantopoulou Sokratis Mamarikas FINAL PUBLICATION • 2016 ISBN: 978-618-80673-5-6
DECIDE for a safer future
DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR DISASTER EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
www.decide-project.eu
PROJECT FACTS ▌Project Title: Decision Support System for Disaster Emergency Management ▌Project Acronym: DECIDE ▌Funding Program: The IPA Cross-Border Program “Greece-the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia 2007-2013” ▌Partners: • Municipality of Amynteo Greece (Overall Lead Partner) • Centre for Development of the Vardar Planning Region, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (Lead Partner 2) • Centre for Research and Technology Hellas - Hellenic Institute of Transport, Greece (Partner 3) • Center for Sustainability and Advanced Education, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (Partner 4) ▌Budget: 507.930,00 € ▌Website: www.decide-project.eu ▌Contact Details: • Anastasia Allilomi Municipality of Amynteo e:
[email protected] | t: +302386350133 • Evangelos Mitsakis Centre for Research and Technology Hellas Hellenic Institute of Transport e:
[email protected] | t: +302310498459
TABLE OF CONTENTS EDITORIAL NOTE 6 THE DECIDE PROJECT 7 ▌Outline 8 ▌Objectives 8 ▌Outputs 9 ▌Results 9 ▌Methodology
10
INTRODUCTION 11 CIVIL PROTECTION STRUCTURES 15 ▌Civil Protection in Greece
17
▌Overall Assessment of the civil protection mechanism in Greece
19
▌Assessment of the situation at the levels of civil protection structures and their responsiveness to the demands of their mission
22
▌European Civil Protection Mechanism
27
▌Civil Protection in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
29
▌Cross-Border Response
30
CIVIL PROTECTION EXERCISE 32 ▌Exercise Methodology
33
● Scenario
33
● Questions stated within the exercise
34
▌Conclusions
34
INTEGRATION TO LOCAL POLICY & USER NEEDS
36
▌Identification of End Users
37
▌Identification of User Needs
41
▌Summary of User Needs
45
▌Preliminary outline of functionalities based on user needs
45
▌Conclusions 47
DECIDE’s INTELLIGENT DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM
48
▌General principles of DSS for Disaster Management
49
● Situational Awareness 49 ● Improvisation
50
● GIS
51
● Easiness of Use
52
● Extendable Architecture, Open Source Code
52
▌Architecture of the DECIDE iDSS
53
▌Final Requirements
57
▌Implementation
66
▌Final Functionalities
69
● User Management
69
● Notify – Event reporting
72
● Manage - Critical Infrastructure & areas
73
● Manage-Machineries & Means
75
● Manage – Human Resources
76
● Information Technology 51
● View – Events 77 ● View – Disasters 78 ● View – Documents
83
● Climate & Weather Data 48 ● Maps & Data
85
● Plan - Actions
85
● Routing
85
● Traffic
86
● Conclusions 87 E-LEARNING PLATFORM AND EDUCATIONAL SEMINARS
88
▌The Moodle platform 89 ▌The DECIDE e-learning platform
90
OVERVIEW OF THE DECIDE FINAL EVENT
94
REFERENCES 99
▌EDITORIAL NOTE “Decision Support System for Disaster Emergency Management” is the final publication of “DECIDE: Decision Support System for Disaster Emergency Management”, a one-and-a-half-year project financed by the “Greece – the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia IPA Cross-Border programme 2007-2013” Crossborder Cooperation Programme co-financed by the European Union under the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA). The DECIDE project has been coordinated by the Municipality of Amyntaio, with the technical expertise provided by the Hellenic Institute of Transport of the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas. DECIDE activities have been carried out during 2015-2016, a period of significant developments in the fields of emergency management, civil protection and use of new technologies for the effective management of natural and manmade disasters. DECIDE aimed to provide significant contributions, by bringing together relevant stakeholders in the Greece – former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia cross-border area, assessing their needs, stimulating cooperation and developing state-of-the-art decision support tools for managing natural and manmade hazards. This publication provides interested readers with information on: • All phases and main aspects of disaster emergency management • Policy setting and framework for civil protection and emergency management operations • Needs of all related stakeholders • The DECIDE Decision Support System • Educational material and information about the DECIDE e-learning platform Further project details, complete technical reports, an e-learning platform for emergency management as well as more information about the DECIDE are freely available on www.decide-project.eu. Enjoy the reading! THE EDITORIAL TEAM 6
THE DECIDE PROJECT
▌Outline Natural and manmade hazards are associated with serious dangers and emergency situations in the crossborder area of Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Powerful tools and processes are needed, to facilitate the optimal management of such events by the responsible local entities, as well as to enhance cooperation mechanisms in both countries. The DECIDE project aimed to reinforce the efficiency and the managerial abilities of authorities for civil protection in the effective response to natural and manmade disasters. The project aimed to achieve this through the design and development of an Intelligent Decision Support System (DECIDE iDSS). The DECIDE iDSS is able to handle a variety of natural and manmade disasters, aiming at achieving maximum effectiveness in taking managerial, organizational and operational decisions and actions. The main activities performed during the project included the assessment of user needs and requirements, the design, development, testing and operational installation of the DECIDE iDSS, coupled with educational and training activities. The added value of DECIDE is the acknowledgement of civil protection activities as the “insurance” of development efforts, 8
underlining its vital role in protecting the environment, human lives and critical infrastructures. DECIDE aimed to achieve local and regional consensus on the priorities, the means and resources for improved emergency management operations in case of disasters.
▌Objectives The main objectives of DECIDE were: ► R einforcing the authorities’ capabilities to effectively and efficiently coordinate not only the prevention process but also the response to natural and manmade disasters, using state-of-the-art technologies in the most innovative way. ► S trengthening the capabilities of local societies, in order to act immediately and effectively during the first critical hours after the appearance of a danger, so as to avoid its turning to a disaster. ► A chieving active participation of both the local authorities and the local societies’ members into the process of planning and response of disasters through the optimization of the information and training of related entities and citizens. ► C ontributing to the economic and social development of local societies in the most reliable, effective and affordable way.
▌Outputs
▌Results
The outputs of the DECIDE project
The envisioned results of DECIDE
include a series of technical and
are:
policy
reports
operational
and
studies,
and
an
open-source
► V iability of project’s outputs after
Intelligent Decision Support System,
the end of the project.
training seminars and workshops,
► Increased
as well as dissemination activities
focused and generic informational
and
activities.
The of
promotional core
technical
DECIDE
include
materials. deliverables User
Needs
awareness
► I ncorporation mapping,
of
through
user
needs
technologies
and
reports related to civil protection
benchmarking methodologies into
structures in Greece, best practices
the regional and municipal entities’
reports related to decision support
plans for civil protection, leading to
systems for emergency and disaster
optimized use of available resources
management, policy reports related
and better planning.
to the integration of innovative
► I mproved planning, preparedness
decision support systems at regional
and management of emergencies
level, requirements and detailed
through the use of the DECIDE
architecture
proposed
Intelligent Decision Support System.
Intelligent Decision Support System
of
the
► I mproved training for related
and guidelines for its use and
entities’
operation.
Furthermore,
training
DECIDE e-learning platform, leading
activities
include
educational
to better preparation, increased
personnel,
utilizing
the
seminars with respective training and
experience and cooperation.
information materials, accompanied
► I mproved emergency management
by an e-learning platform for distant
plans
users. For disseminating the DECIDE
simulation exercises and training
project outputs and results, a series
activities results.
of targeted workshops and a final
► I mproved planning for safer local
event have be organized.
and regional societies.
and
procedures
► C onformity
to
the
due
to
legislative
setting regarding the protection of the environment and the response to emergency situations. 9
▌Methodology The DECIDE project partners have developed a concrete implementation methodology that best fits to the objectives of the project. It contained collaboration and networking between partners, located strategically to the poles of intervention, as well as technological and dissemination activities that will allow the promotion, follow-up and dissemination of the project’s outcomes. The DECIDE project has been implemented in the following technical work packages (WP): ► Identification of Users and Local Societies’ Requirements: Activities in this WP included the identification of the existing civil protection structures in Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the mapping of the state-of-the-art in Decision Support Systems, the simulation of a large scale crossborder disaster and the integration of the Decision Support System in the regional policy level. ► Design and Development of the Intelligent Decision Support System: This WP dealt with the design of the system’s architecture and its functional requirements (including its modules and subsystems), the development of the Intelligent Decision Support System and its functional verification and pilot application. 10
► T raining, Scenarios and organization of simulation Exercises: This WP entailed all activities related to the training and education of entities at various levels of administration and individual users both on the DECIDE iDSS itself, its functionalities and use as well as on issues regarding civil protection and disaster management as a whole.
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, societies, including both citizens as well as the natural and built environment, are increasingly facing the consequences of the occurrence of catastrophic events and the impacts of natural and manmade disasters. Between 1998 and 2009 natural and manmade disasters were responsible for 100.000 deaths in Europe, while a total amount over 11 million people were affected (ΕΕΑ, 2010). In the coming years climate change is expected to increase the frequency and severity of natural hazards, leading to serious consequences and disorders to the society and the environment. Therefore, the challenges that arise in order to reduce the risk or the extent of disasters and to effectively respond when they occur, include, among others, the use of new technologies in the processes of prevention, preparedness and response to catastrophic events. Technological systems and decision support tools targeted to disaster management and civil protection needs are able to enhance the effectiveness of involved bodies and agencies in managing and responding to natural and manmade disasters and thereby mitigating their impacts. Today, the tools that have been developed and used, are mostly based on Geographic Information Systems (GIS), as disasters have a spatial dimension. These systems include and combine functions serving one or more of the following purposes: the risk assessment of a catastrophic event, the exposure of an area to risks because of the occurrence probability of disastrous phenomena, the preparedness to deal with them, the early warning for such events, the coordination of the response of involved entities and the review and identification of the causes of a disaster (Contini et al., 2000; Cutter, 2003; Zerger & Smith, 2003). Therefore, these tools assist the implementation of various measures and actions included in the phases of disaster management, namely prevention, preparedness, response and restoration. Thus, the contribution of the decision support systems can be summarized into three main areas: 1) support the study around the disaster phenomena, effective response and mitigation of their consequences, 2) obtain better and more comprehensive knowledge for involved actors, on the disaster events, and on various parameters associated with them, and 3) assist communication between actors and the dissemination of information and data related to disasters.
12
The design and implementation of such a decision support system requires the adoption of an organized and integrated approach, in order to identify and clarify all issues, which are directly related to the purpose that the system intends to implement. In this context, the aim of the present publication is to present and analyze the process of design, functionality and integration in civil protection processes, of the iDSS that comprises the main output of the DECIDE project. The publication presents and summarizes the steps followed in the system’s design, the preliminary steps that were carried out to identify the civil protection needs and to specify the system’s functionalities, analyse the final functions and the way that these cover the user needs and advances in the analysis on how the system will be integrated and harmonized with the civil protection processes in Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, including the determination of all possible end-users of the system. The system’s design process included literature reviews, questionnaire surveys and civil protection exercises, which were carried out in order to identify the user needs that could be covered by a decision support system. Through these actions, the existing civil protection framework was recorded, including existing structures, roles, and processes followed. In parallel, preliminary system’s functions were outlined and evaluated against their usefulness and their potential benefits to Civil Protection agencies, leading to the specification of the final system’s functions. The results of all actions were used to harmonize the system with the processes of civil protection and related entities. The V-model methodology for software development has been adopted for the development of the DECIDE’s iDSS (Forsberg, K. and Mooz, H., 1991). Aspects of this methodology facilitate the system’s integration in the overall policy framework of civil protection, since the methodology does not only provide a solid input to the further technical implementation of the system, but also enables the identification of the main users and the elaboration of practical scenarios and use cases, in which the potential of the system’s use by actors of civil protection could be revealed. The methodology includes steps in-advance of the software’s development, such as the identification of user needs, the description of use cases and the elaboration of requirements, specifications and the system’s architecture. The methodology also includes the system’s development, as well as the system’s testing and verification after its development. The model is presented in a schematic way in Figure 1. 13
Figure 1. The overall step-wise framework implemented within the DECIDE project for the iDSS software development (source: EcoMove Project) The following chapters provide the results of the above actions, which have been adopted and implemented in the context of the project and which focus both on the development of the DECIDE’s iDSS and the extraction of conclusions regarding the overall disaster management system in Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. In addition, aspects of the possibilities of cross-border cooperation between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia are examined.
14
CIVIL PROTECTION STRUCTURES
CIVIL PROTECTION STRUCTURES The first step of the DECIDE methodological approach for designing and developing the iDSS, was to identify and analyse the structures of civil protection in Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Through mapping of the current situation in civil protection and disaster management in both countries, and the actors and competent bodies involved in related activities, the project focused on the identification of structures, allocation of roles and responsibilities, planning background and processes that are followed in civil protection. The output of this process concluded on the outline of user needs that would be incorporated in the design and development of the DECIDE iDSS. In addition, the European Mechanism of Civil Protection, in the context of which both countries participate and potentially collaborate, was examined through a review on European Decisions, Directives and Institutional texts. The methodological framework followed, in order to approach these issues is depicted in Figure 2.
Figure 2.Schematic representation of the methodology adopted
16
▌Civil Protection in Greece In Greece, Civil Protection is regulated by the Laws 3013/2002 and 4249/2014. The General Plan for Civil Protection Xenokratis, commissioned in 2003, aims at establishing the framework for the development of a system of civil protection structures in Greece that serves the overall goal for efficiently protecting humans’ life, health and property, as well as the natural and the manmade environment. Xenokratis specifies the involved authorities and bodies in the civil protection processes, provides guidelines for the elaboration of strategies and tactics for several actors, sets the main planning requirements, provides the necessary guidelines for logistical and administrative support in case of disasters and sets an information communication flow system between the involved entities in the processes of civil protection (Xenokratis, 2003). Xenokratis mainly focuses on the phases of preparedness, response and recovery and does not follow the holistic approaches including the prevention in the overall disaster management process. It requires the elaboration of General Plans of Response for all types of disaster risks, at a central (country), regional and local level. Xenokratis does not explicitly exclude the prevention from the overall civil protection cycle. Aspects of the prevention phase are contained in the framework for the overall planning needs, as a prediction in the plan for the elaboration of Plans by the different ministries and organizations exists. This gap is partially fulfilled through the induction of prevention measures in the circulars which are elaborated by the General Secretariat of Civil Protection. Nevertheless, the prevention planning is not integrated as a coherent part in the civil protection processes but it remains affiliated in the responsibilities of environmental protection and spatial planning implemented by the state. Regarding the level and extent of civil protection planning in Greece, Xenokratis covers the need of the general civil protection planning. Nevertheless, most of the necessary civil protection plans per disaster have not been elaborated at national level. Consequently, the same goes for the Specific Plans per Ministry, Region and Regional Unit. Here, the existence of the General Plan for Forest Fires’ risk response has to be underlined, in which General Plan for Forest Fires the competences, responsibilities and obligations of all administration and government levels and of all actors are determined in general. The importance of the existence and implementation of the plan is self-evident, considering that Greece regularly suffers by catastrophic wildfires, which have great impacts on the forest wealth and on residents of the surrounding areas. The planning for addressing the seismic risk, which primarily arises from the Ministry of Infrastructure (and supervised by the agency named Organization of Anti-seismic Planning and Protection), must also be noted. The planning regarding large-scale technological accidents, which has not been specialized to the levels of Regions and Regional Units, must be also mentioned. In recent years (since 2013), flood risk management plans for every river basin are in 17
progress, in the context of studies per water district according to the relevant European Directive (2007/60/EC), as it has been transposed in the Greek institutional framework (KYA 31822/1542/Ε103, 2010). With the completion of the study at the end of 2016, the maps that will be produced and the measures that will be established to address the flood risk, are expected to provide the basis for the control of flood events and of course for a planned and organized engagement of all actors involved in civil protection, so as to prevent and mitigate flood risks and reduce their catastrophic impacts. The absence of plans for most disaster events (e.g. floods, earthquakes, snowfalls) has led to the elaboration of circulars that consist of an outline of actions that each stakeholder should undertake in the processes of prevention, preparedness, response and restoration per catastrophic event. Although civil protection actions are in many cases performed mainly through circulars in the absence of general, regional and local plans, the following cannot be ignored: since civil protection, in its general sense, has a multi-sectorial character and its actions are related to studies, activities and interventions of a large number of bodies, there is a particular context of relevant knowledge, technical background and experience in dealing with various catastrophic phenomena. This context allows the state to be efficiently organized according to the specific case. Nevertheless, the finalization of planning and the occasional updating requirements are necessary. The Government is responsible for civil protection planning, which is distinguished into nationwide plans, programs, actions and measures of central agencies, as well as in regional programs, measures and actions. Τhe work of civil protection is mainly performed by the central Civil Protection Agency of the State (General Secretariat of Civil Protection), by the seven (7) Decentralized State Agencies of Civil Protection, by the thirteen (13) Civil Protection Agencies of Regional local government and by the relevance with the subject offices of Municipalities (Organizations of first-level self- government). The operational arm of the General Secretariat of Civil Protection is the Fire Brigade that operates in all country areas. The work of Civil Protection is assisted by all governmental agencies, by the agencies of the self-administration organizations and by utility organizations that are responsible, at an operational level, for individual civil protection actions and mainly for the preparedness and response in disasters (Coast Guard, Police, Army, National Emergency Aid Centre -EKAV, Organization of Anti-seismic Planning and Protection - OASP etc.). The work of civil protection is also assisted by voluntary organizations.
18
▌Overall Assessment mechanism in Greece
of
the
civil
protection
At this point, the description and analysis of civil protection structures in Greece, including the legislative framework, the plans, the actors involved and the processes followed, as well as the conclusions that have already been stated, are complemented by the findings of a questionnaire survey that was filled by civil servants of decentralized civil protection authorities (Decentralized Administrations, Regions, Municipalities). The questionnaire was electronically distributed to the bodies enabled in the processes of civil protection in order to identify user needs. The questionnaire has been filled by the following actors: Decentralized Administrations, Regions, Regional Units and Municipalities The bodies that participated in the survey are located in the geographical and administrative area of Central Macedonia and Thrace. Regarding the general picture of civil protection structures, questionnaire participants consider that the existing civil protection structures in Greece are sufficient (40% of questionnaire participants consider them as adequate and 14% consider them as very adequate). This is in line with the overall understanding that the DECIDE project has gained, considering that the civil protection structure in Greece is organized as a system in all administrative levels (interregional, regional and local), including the presence of the state in parallel with local governments, through the existence of self-evident civil protection agencies, enabling the active contribution of several technical agencies and including the direct operational capacity of the Fire Brigade. Nevertheless, an important part of respondents are standing critical towards structures (43% judge them as limited and 3% as not at all adequate).
Figure 3. Answers on the question “How adequate you judge the existing civil protection structures in Greece?” 19
Furthermore, the majority of the questionnaire participants believe that the allocation of responsibilities is clear, which is a fact reflecting that the legislative framework is sufficiently detailed, while the circulars that have been elaborated by the General Secretariat are sufficiently extended, specifying several aspects and providing a clear description of the role of each actor, in terms of responsibilities and actions undertaken and of the processes that should be followed. The latter conclusion is also enhanced, since the number of questionnaire participants who believe that the guidelines that are provided by the General Secretariat are adequate, consists the majority.
Figure 4. Answers on the question “How clear is the responsibilities’ allocation?” It is underlined that the allocation of civil protection responsibilities to authorities and bodies by the relevant legislative framework largely corresponds to the capabilities, the background and the general mission of these actors. It is noted that the actors that have been asked in the context of the questionnaire, are divided in regard to whether their body and agency should have more responsibilities in the field of civil protection or not (52% consider that they should have not more responsibilities and 48% the opposite). Moving at the level or planning, it is verified that the absence of Specific Plans and Risk Assessment Studies makes the elaboration of plans at regional and local level difficult, since these should be based on the general and specific plan at the national level. Therefore, decentralized civil protection authorities do not prepare reliable plans or do not prepare them at all, while this weakness could be explained to some extent as a result of the lack of relevant plans per disaster at the central level. These bodies and authorities are usually limited to the fragmented elaboration of the Memorandums of Actions for specific disasters or to the completion of Annex i of the General Plan for Fires, which consist a minimum planning action. 20
This elaboration of Plans is a responsibility both of the central civil protection body that has not adopted General Plans for several of disasters and does not prepare the National Planning of Civil Protection and of the Ministries that have not published Specific Plans, as well as risk assessment studies. The flood risk assessment studies, which are currently under formulation, are able to provide important input to the national, regional and local civil protection planning. Questionnaire participants have indicated the importance of risk assessment studies, since they have been referred in many cases in the use of the maps of the preliminary flood risk examination, which have already been prepared. Furthermore, despite the fact that the civil protection planning by the Decentralized Bodies could be performed in collaboration with the General Secretariat and the Civil Protection Agencies of Decentralized Administrations, it seems that the civil protection bodies of self-government (Regions and Municipalities) do not seek this assistance. Another factor influencing the elaboration of plans particularly at the level of Municipalities is the low number of staff in civil protection offices or the non-organization of an autonomous civil protection office with a parallel contracting of civil protection into sections and employees who at the same time manage other issues as well. At this point, another weakness of the civil protection system appears, which is related to the implementation of the measures and actions that are described in Xenokratis and in the circulars, or are decided in the Coordinating Bodies of Civil Protection. As described in the relevant section, the General Secretariat has the overall responsibility of monitoring and control of the overall civil protection planning, as well as the responsibility of implementing measures and actions. The rate of this monitoring seems to be a key factor for the efficient operation of civil protection system. Nevertheless, survey participants have answered, in a relevant question, in a percentage of 77% that no monitoring has not been performed regarding the implementation of measures and civil protection actions. The fact that it has not been established as a standard process by which the central civil protection body would be informed for the decisions of coordinating bodies and for the measures to be implemented and the fact that the monitoring of the implementation of the existing planning is not performed, creates barriers in the implementation of its role and the effective functioning and operation of the civil protection mechanism. At the phase of civil protection response, questionnaire participants have underlined the important role of the Fire Brigade. Several questionnaire participants recognized that they have received civil protection suggestions by the fire service, which through its operational experience (especially in the case of wildfires) is in the position to provide useful guidance to effectively respond to disasters and catastrophic phenomena. As regards the issue of early notification and coordination when events occur, it seems that the by-case peculiarities affect the outcome of the questionnaire. Therefore, the participants are divided regarding to what extent the prescribed 21
information and communication processes are followed in their area, while in a general sense they consider that the information and communication flows are adequate. The following chapter uses the findings of the review on the legislative and planning framework of civil protection in Greece, on the structure and functioning of the civil protection mechanism, as well as it exploits the main points of the questionnaire, so as to present in an integrated way a critic overview of the civil protection in Greece.
▌Assessment of the situation at the levels of civil protection structures and their responsiveness to the demands of their mission The central civil protection body, as was mentioned above, has the responsibility for elaborating national planning, cares and monitors for its specialization at the central level of the relevant ministries and at the regional and local level, with the participation of the Decentralized Administration in the last two levels. At the same time, the General Secretariat has the responsibility of controlling the overall application and implementation of planning, in order an effective civil protection to be achieved in the whole country and in any region. It is a fact that the plan “Xenokratis” constitutes an institutional basis for: a) the determination of involved civil protection bodies and operational forces intervening in cases of disasters b) the determination of procedures and of the bodies managing and coordinating actions c) the provision of data regarding the risk classification, categorization and assessment d) the provision of guidelines for the in-time mobilization of human resources and means. Based on this institutional tool that identifies instruments, rules and functions, the civil protection forces and operational actors ensure their preparedness and implement the actions allocated to them, so as to deal with various disasters. Of course, the rate of preparedness, activation and effectiveness varies from body to body. Under all circumstances though, the institutional basis of the activation is the Xenokratis Plan and the various Circulars that are based on Xenokratis, mainly in terms of developing an organizational part and performing the prescribed actions. The above is a reality which is recognized by all actors involved in civil protection. Especially for bodies who have a consolidated operation, which is based on rules, such as the Fire Brigade the Police and the Army (the latter is called in many cases to provide assistance), the Xenokratis plan is the Regulation that these Bodies seek to implement faithfully. Certainly one cannot ignore the views expressed mainly in various scientific events on the need for change, revision, or update of the Xenokratis Plan and enrich it with new data, which 22
will be based on latest scientific knowledge and analyses. However, given the delays at the level of an integrated multi-level planning, encompassing all types of disasters, referred to the national and the regional and local level and based on the existence of a national policy of reducing disaster risks, the Xenokratis Plan, in conjunction with circulars can adequately perform their role, given that their key provisions are implemented. Accordingly, the bodies that have powers and responsibilities in the field of civil protection, whether directly involved in daily activation as regards the disaster protection, or indirectly, when specific issues related to civil protection arise, they are able to move sufficiently based on the rules of Xenokratis and the provisions of circulars. Their more or less sufficient response is strongly related to the subjective condition of the body, the adequacy of its staff, the economic resources and the availability of means. Their sufficient response is also related (for the bodies of Administration and local-government) to the degree of awareness of the importance of civil protection by the policy makers of each body and thus to their concern in pointing the field of civil protection in a place of high interest. The effective response is also related to the directions given by the General Secretariat and the responsible Minister. Finally, the response of actors depends on the surveillance carried out by General Secretariat; i.e. the monitoring and control carried out, with the participation of Decentralized Administrations, regarding the work of civil protection at regional and local level. All the above are referred to the civil protection planning and the exercise of control as regards its elaboration. Moving at the level of implementation of all defined in the provisions of Xenokratis and in the circulars for the various stages of disaster response cycle, we should note that prevention measures whether having a broader nature and importance (such as large-scale flood defences works), or a narrower character referred to works to be undertaken and actions that need to be made to prevent any disaster ahead of the winter or the summer season (e.g. maintenance works, restoring patency forest roads, vegetation cleaning along the roads in the streets adjacent to vulnerable forested areas, cleaning streams). All the above, but especially those measures of the second category, are discussed at the meetings of the Coordinating Civil Protection Bodies. The control of implementation of all the preventive measures, which have been presented to the coordinating instrument or decided and defined by it, are usually made with many shortcomings, while eventually a complete report presenting the results of implementation or application of the measures and of the prevention projects is not drafted. The General Secretariat does not require or receive reports from the Decentralized Administrations and the Regions, in which the picture of the extent of implementation of preventive measures is shown. In a few words, this process has not been established as a fixed and defined process, in which each body will carry out specific projects, everything performed will be recorded, reported and checked by each competent level, foreseeing the General Secretariat as the final recipient of the general reports 23
for each regional level. Thus, the superior Civil Protection Agency could have a picture of the situation on decision-implementation of prevention measures in each of the thirteen Regions and therefore for the whole country. In addition to the aforementioned basic lack on recognising the existing situation on disaster prevention measures, the same situation is also found in the general preparation of measures to address the dangerous phenomena. Obviously, many of the civil protection bodies have not adopted the logic of reporting their actions and referring to Authorities and Bodies that have or should have controlling or supervising positions (such as government units of Decentralized Administration or the General Secretariat). A typical illustration of the preparation of a carrier occurs partly in the Memorandum of Actions, which are drawn up by certain bodies, but not by all actors, despite the fact that it is their explicit obligation. Many of those memorandums that are prepared, are not distinguished by the required thoroughness of texts (containing plans, tables and lists), intended to prescribe and define the obligations to which they must respond clearly and precisely, so that the actors are prepared at a regular time-frame before the disaster. Usually, existing memorandums are limited to a not always successful recording of obligations and actions of the bodies concerning the response t dangerous situations, and are especially limited on the recording of human resources and available means (and of their drivers or operators). Nevertheless, an important number of bodies meets the latter; i.e. the recording of human resources and means in a list, which is primarily sent to the Fire Brigade. The Fire Brigade asks, as an institutional obligation of bodies, to receive this list, so as to know the responsible person who is activated by the side of each body, as well the resources of each body. In case of wildfires risk, the above list takes the form of so-called Annex I of the General Plan for responding to wildfires. At this point it should be emphasized that the Fire Brigade addresses the requirements of the civil protection planning that are placed on the body. This planning includes the resources of the body, its layout and the whole range of body actions at various stages of activation, and the availability of means (fire trucks, personnel carriers). This planning is updated each year. The Fire Brigade is also one of the bodies, who formulate their position on the current situation in preventive measures in writing, in the context of the general needs in accordance with the cooperation provisions between the involved bodies. The reporting of the Fire Brigade to Forest Agencies before the fire suspension periods, regarding existing problems in forest road infrastructure, which could make the access to forests and the timely and effective suppression of fires difficult, is characteristic. The incomplete mapping of the situation in the above key actions and the absence of supervision and control from the competent state bodies, result 24
in the occurrence of different kinds of problems in the process of responding to the phenomena, either in their manifestation or evolution. The absence, for example, of a sufficient number of mechanical means for transporting vehicles and other necessary machinery in the highly vulnerable areas and the allocation in relatively remote areas, creates great difficulties for the disposal of such means when forest fires affect vulnerable areas and the local means are insufficient. Another misleading case of in taking necessary measures and imposed controls is related to the deficiencies that are often presented in basic materials when an event or a phenomenon occurs (for instance, the required salt quantities for coverage needs of a region in cases of intense snowfall, when the need to maintain open roads to traffic is required). It should also be highlighted that the Fire Brigade makes repeated remarks to the responsible authorities for cleaning the dry vegetation along large roads, which could cause problems of fire transmission to adjacent sensitive forests because of non-cutting of the vegetation during the fire suspension period, after on-field inspections. Of course, it should be not overlook that various kinds of problems and difficulties always exist in the exercise of the work of public bodies. The scarcity of financial resources may lead to shortages in the availability of the necessary means and equipment. Yet, in the field of civil protection, given its crucial and critical importance for ensuring the life, health and property of citizens from disaster risks, appropriate planning must be ensured, the foreseen measures should be taken and the controls of implementation of these measures should be performed in the highest possible extent. The phase of alert for possible emergency events is the phase in which the civil protection system seems to work effectively, at least as regards the first levels of sending and transmitting warnings for expected bad weather phenomena and therefore on the possible causation of dangerous situations. The General Secretariat for Civil Protection performs the mission of early warning to a number of institutions, which have to be informed on the potential deterioration of weather conditions. These organizations are the Decentralized Administration, the Regions of the country, the Fire Brigade, the Police and others. The Decentralized Administration in their turn, inform all the municipalities of the region of its responsibility. The bodies, according to the level of risk of the events expected, activate their mechanism to a corresponding degree of preparedness. Given the above, it should be stressed that there is no process which checks and certifies the mobilization of the mechanism and the activation of human resources and means in a preparedness situation. Of course, for the Fire Brigade and the Police, the mobilization is obvious and granted. Nevertheless, the degree of activation of the mechanism for other bodies is not known. There are cases, in which specific Municipalities are issued immediately written 25
decisions, through which they give command to the specified personnel to be on preparedness with the relevant necessary means and equipment. At this point, concerning the warning and the mobilization of the civil protection mechanism, it is noted that in cases of special notifications, these are related to any kind of severe weather events such as storms, heavy rainfall, very high intensity winds, freezing temperatures, heavy snowfall and frosts and heat waves. The case of the high temperatures is combined with other special weather conditions (e.g. wind intensity) and the extent and vulnerability of forests of an area leads to predicting very high fire hazard event (alert or alarm category) for specific areas of the country. In these cases, other than the daily forest fire risk map, there are published and sent warning signs regarding the level of fire risk forecast. The practice shows that due to the very serious nature of the risk of fire and the possible consequences, especially in suburban forests, in parallel to the Fire Brigade, there is usually a sufficient mobilization of civil protection forces, which contribute together with voluntary organizations. Particular reference should be also made to the planning provided to be implemented in each fire suspension season by Regions and Decentralized Administrations. The Regional Planning for the fire suspension season includes a synthesis of what is decided in the Coordinating Bodies of Regional Units and refers to the entire range of preventive, preparedness and response measures to forest fires. The planning of Decentralized Administration follows the regional plans and includes them, but at the same time it contains all projects planned and the work that has to be carried out by the Forest Agencies of Decentralized Administrations, in terms of maintenance and opening of forest roads, firebreaks and other measures to protect forests. The case of the aforementioned design in a civil protection area (this of forest fires), is a good model of one proficient cooperation between Decentralized Administration and Regional Administrations in the area of responsibility of the Decentralized Administration. Such cooperation, resulting in a composite design, could be found in other types of disasters. Regarding the field of disaster response, a hysteresis is observed, as to those actions that are provided in the relevant circulars, regarding the dispersion of information about the manifestation of a disaster and regarding the information exchange between the competent bodies in general. The result of this delay is that a lot of times the necessary comprehensive assessment of the extent and intensity of the event does not exist and therefore not all the necessary forces are activated in time, at all levels. This ineffectiveness in disaster response varies from one region-, regional unitand sometimes municipality- to another. It also varies depending on the type 26
of disaster faced by the civil protection forces in the event area, as well as the development of the disaster. Based on the above, it is not easy to perform a continuous or even periodical assessment of the effectiveness of the response to disaster events. The present report mainly focuses on the identification of structures and the underlying of specific weaknesses in the functioning of the civil protection agencies and bodies in the different phases of the operations’ cycle. Regarding the issue of the civil protection actor’s efficiency, the fact that there are large and serious disasters, whose treatment is a complex issue that does not primarily depend on the operation of the civil protection mechanisms but on other factors such as the total care and design of the state and the conclusion of international agreements with the neighbouring countries must not be overlooked. Typical examples are the disasters from floods in Evros, Thrace caused by large volumes of water entering from Bulgaria due to the opening of the dams of the Bulgarian side. Civil protection forces cannot manage these volumes of water to the existing capacity of the riverbed of Evros. Therefore, there is a need for the conclusion of appropriate agreements between Greece and Bulgaria and Turkey, as Evros River partially belongs to the Turkish territory.
▌European Civil Protection Mechanism In the EU, a Community Civil Protection Mechanism was established in 2001, aiming to provide assistance, under request, to Member States (MS) in case of emergency events (Council Decision 2001/792/EC). Therein, the overall framework for effective collaboration, coordination and assistance provision between MS during emergency situations is set and described. Moreover, the responsibilities of the Commission and MS in the Mechanism, as well as the possibilities of the Mechanism’s use by the States and the processes that should be followed are determined and specified. The need for a holistic approach in emergency and disaster management, including the addition of prevention in the civil protection process (emergency management cycle including prevention, preparedness, response and restore) has been expressed in various decisions of EU such as the “Council Conclusions on Reinforcing the Union’s Disaster Response Capacity – towards an integrated approach to managing disasters” (EU, 2008). The importance of the holistic approach in disaster management with emphasis on prevention and the need for the EU to move in this direction is also recognized in several resolutions of the European Parliament, in which it is highlighted that an effective EU policy should not only consist of a risk-based approach for the preparation for extreme events but also in the elaboration of 27
integrated and coherent strategies targeting at the reduction of vulnerability. The latter is closely connected to the adaptation needs arising from the fact that humanity inevitably faces the consequences of the change of climate. Therefore, the European Parliament sets the directions that should be followed in the field, as in: • The encouragement of the exchange of prevention good practices between MS • The more intensive induction of prevention in EU policy • The provision of support by the EU to MS for the adoption of prevention measures • The active participation and involvement of local and regional authorities in the elaboration of prevention strategies • The reduction of inequalities between regions and MS, regarding their capacity in civil protection considering the most vulnerable areas • The enhancement of the cooperation and coordination between the different involved entities and development of cross-border synergies and networks • The induction of disaster prevention in the Operational Programs of the Union In essence, through the establishment of the European Mechanism and the operation of the relevant departments and communication mechanisms the EU tries to: • Develop coordination and communication channels between MS with the supervision of the Commission • Develop a European response capacity, which will be based on the existing capacities of MS which are provided on a voluntary basis, also without affecting the operational responsibility within each MS • Develop a common understanding in disaster response between MS so as to facilitate and improve the efficiency of joint responsive actions • Record the existing response capacity of MS through the development of a common pool so as to acquire knowledge in relation to the operational capability of each MS and ensure the targeted allocation of resources in case of an event • Apply the requirements so as to ensure a minimum level of operational capacity and enhance the effective and coordinating response • Enhance and consolidate the existing early warning systems so as to ensure the transitional effective preparedness
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▌Civil Protection in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia Civil protection in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is organized in three levels. Level 1 concerns the central level, level 2 the regional- and level 3 the local one. Civil Protection follows the administrative structure of the country and therefore the central state and the Municipalities, as local-goverment bodies have civil protection responsibilities within their territory. In the processes of emergency management, all the actors that compose the Emergency Management System are involved. The two main involved actors in the Emergency Management System are the bodies of Protection and Rescue Directorate and the Crisis Management Centre. The civil protection in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is a state’s responsibility. State, through its Ministries and the central state authorities, is responsible for actions undertaking according to their responsibilities for the implementation of prevention measures and actions. The outline of these measures is included in the National Plan for Protection and Measures. An important responsibility of central state authorities’ responsibility is the preparation of risk assessments that are referred to their area of expertise and responsibility. These risks assessments are communicated to the other bodies involved with the civil protection actors at central, regional and local level. Central State’s Authorities should be in a constant collaboration with the other involved actors (IPA Civil Protection Site). The Municipalities at local level have the responsibility of undertaking prevention measures and organize their local civil protection system. Therefore, they undertake actions and measures for the effective response in case of a disaster and they prepare rescue and protection forces in their territory and ensure their functioning. This preparation is performed according to the needs that are determined at a planning level on an annual basis. Municipalities have operational responsibilities when disasters occur and they mobilize their territorial units so as to clean roads in cases of snowfalls and landslides and suspend fire and rescue people in cases of car and technological accidents. The Mayor proposes the plan for civil protection, monitors the implementation of the abovementioned activates and asks the assistance of the forces that are the responsibility of other bodies when the response need is over its capacity. Moreover the Mayor can establish a civil protection headquarter within its territory. The Protection and Rescue Directorate (PRD) implements rescue and protection activities having the coordinating role between civil protection and fire protection (SEEDRMAP, 2007). PRD is an independent state body. It organizes the rescue and protection units, having the operational responsibility and the 29
direct command. It also mobilizes other protection forces related to disasters. PRD elaborates protection and rescue plans and operational plans in order to ensure the operational preparedness and the effective response and equips the rescue and protection forces with the necessary assets, materials and supplies. The Crisis Management Centre operates as an independent directorate having a decision making role at the strategic level. The activities of actors, such as the Protection and Rescued Directorate, the Ministries, the Municipalities and other public and private actors that are enabled in crisis management are coordinated by the Crisis Management Center, while they should communicate and collaborate continuously in the context of the Crisis Management System.
▌Cross-Border Response Despite the fact that the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is not part of the EU, the country participates in the European Civil Protection Mechanism (32nd Member) since February, 2012, utilizing the opportunity of Candidate countries to join the Mechanism. The participation of the country facilitates the cross-border effective and coordinated response in cases of hazards and disaster events, considering that one of the main targets of the Mechanism is the coherent and coordinated response in disasters and catastrophic events that affect more than one countries. In addition, the participation in the Mechanism is able to ensure a common understanding and the adoption of joint initiatives in the phases of preparedness and response, as well as the rapid aid provision from the neighbouring countries (SEE countries participating in the Mechanism including Greece) when the response capacity of the country is not adequate to confront a disaster. The communication with the Mechanism is achieved through the national focal point that has been set by the country. Moreover, the country is eligible for financial support as regards the transportation assistance and can participate in training programs and exercises organized by ECHO. Recently, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia activated the European Civil Protection Mechanism asking from the assistance of experts regarding flood events. The contact point for the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is the National Protection and Rescue Directorate. Responsibilities also in the field of the transnational cooperation are also found in the National Crisis Management Center regarding the provision and acceptance of humanitarian aid.
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CIVIL PROTECTION EXERCISE
CIVIL PROTECTION EXERCISE Within the DECIDE Project, a workshop entitled “Simulation of the management of a large-scale disaster in order to assess the integration of new technologies and tools in prevention and response to disaster phenomena” was organized. The workshop concerned an horizontal inter-agency civil protection exercise, in which both the decentralized civil protection bodies (Decentralized Administration, Regions and Municipalities), as well as utility bodies (Fire Brigade, Police) had to face two phenomena (earthquake and snowfalls) in a relative tandem. In the context of the exercise, representatives of these bodies were asked to present the main actions that their bodies undertake to ensure an increased level of preparedness, in view of a forthcoming hazard and an efficient response when a disaster event occurs. The main target of the exercise was to identify the potential integration of technological tools in disaster management and civil protection processes and evaluate the possible contribution of the iDSS decision-making functions. Furthermore, the exercise aimed at recording the actions undertaken by each body that ensure its preparedness and effective response, when disaster phenomena occur. The exercise also aimed at clarifying the roles, competences, coordination, communication flows and synergies that are developed between the involved bodies, in the processes of civil protection and during the phases of disaster management.
▌Exercise Methodology The adopted methodology for the execution of the exercise is analysed below: • Development of the scenario. The scenario includes two natural hazards in a relative tandem to each other (almost simultaneous events), in order to provide the possibility to participating bodies to present their actions in regard to more than one event and to examine the possibility of using electronic tools to a greater range of hazards. With reference to the scenario, involved bodies record and present their actions for the case of the catastrophic events that are described in the scenario. First of all, the presentation of bodies’ preparedness actions is chosen, so as to highlight the importance that should be attributed in the preparedness of the bodies. Subsequently, the recording-presentation of the bodies’ actions in the phase of the response on the disasters of the scenario is also performed. • Presenting the outline of functions of a Decision Support System for disaster emergency management, the involved bodies can examine the possibility of using these functions in specific actions that they undertake. At the end of the discussion, conclusions are extracted regarding the usefulness of the functions of the iDSS and their potential integration in the processes 32
of civil protection. Two types of exercises have been chosen, so as to serve the target of the DECIDE exercise. The first chosen type of exercise is the one of workshop, in which participants can present their actions according to a discussion topic and express their opinions regarding the ease of implementation of these actions. The second chosen type is a table-top exercise, so that implemented actions can be presented by participant bodies in a structured way, following the evolution of a disaster scenario. An earthquake and heavy snowfalls are the phenomena, which have been included and described in the scenario. The reference case study area of the scenario was the Municipality of Amyntaio and the wider area of the Western Macedonia. The choice of these two phenomena, i.e. the earthquake and the snowfalls, is associated with the particular intense seismicity in Greece and the harsh winter that the case-study area often faces. Despite the fact that the scenario is addressed to the City of Amyntaio and the wider area, the usefulness of the exercise is wider and not only for the local level, as it is referred to actions of preparedness and response to disaster phenomena that should be undertaken by involved with civil protection bodies in any case (and not only on a case specific basis). Thus, the participation in the exercise of a large number of bodies from the Western and the Central Macedonia should be underlined. The exercise’s scenario is described below: ● Scenario “During autumn, decisions are made and actions are undertaken by stakeholders, in planning and preparedness issues for potential events and catastrophic phenomena for the winter season. In a second phase and after few months, during winter and particularly in January, severe snowfall events have occurred for several days. The snow covered the country side and villages. Municipal services cleared the municipal streets from snow. Regional services cleared the regional streets. The temperature is at 0oC. At 10.30 in the morning of January, 23, a strong earthquake is felt throughout the Region of Western Macedonia. Early information report that the Municipality of Amyntaio with a population of 17.000 people has been particularly affected. Cross-checked information (from the police, municipal services, and citizens) report that extensive damages in buildings have been caused in the city of Amyntaio and in the surrounding settlements. Citizens come out of buildings and run through the streets and public squares. The need for citizens to gather in places of refuge rises, given the current adverse weather conditions. Drop of materials to streets and pavements from destructions of buildings is observed. Therefore, a difficulty in the movement of pedestrians and vehicles exists for some parts of the city. Also, the issue of temporary housing for citizens, whose houses have problems because of the earthquake and are deemed inappropriate by engineers. Finally, the need for rehabilitation of road infrastructure appears. 33
● Questions stated within the exercise “What are the main actions of your agency that ensure the preparedness regarding the responsive handling of emergencies because of extreme weather events and particularly of snow? Indicate briefly the main actions.” “What are your organization’s main actions in the various stages of the disaster (seismic event response)?” The phases of earthquake response are: Initial announcement - earthquake alert, Initial assessment – consequences, Mobilization of forces, Research - Rescue operations, Stay of residents in refuge areas, Post-seismic control of infrastructure and buildings, Temporary housing of residents. As regards the iDSS functionalities’ assessment of the usefulness of functionalities of the Decision Support System based on their experience in civil protection. In detail, participants were asked the following questions: • Evaluate if the outline of applications/functions that have been presented could be helpful for you? • How the implementation of actions discussed in the previous sections could be facilitated by a decision making tool? • Regarding the processes that you follow, as these were described in the previous sections, which of them could be incorporated in the decisionmaking system? • Evaluate if the users that have been predefined by the development team are those that should be included in the system. • Do you have similar tools at your disposal? • Do you believe that other functionalities could be added? • Do you believe that any of the predefined functionalities should be removed?
▌Conclusions The outline of the functionalities that has been specified for the DECIDE iDSS is able to be implemented and integrated in the processes of civil protection. The main point that was revealed by the civil protection exercise is that the iDSS should be addressed to different users and its functions should be adjusted to the roles and responsibilities of the civil protection bodies. Therefore, a clear distinction of roles should be contained within the system. Potential users of the system are the General Secretariat of Civil Protection, the decentralized civil protection bodies (Municipalities, Regions, and Decentralized Administrations), as well as bodies with operational capacities, such as the Police and the Fire Brigade. An important element that was highlighted is that the system should contain various data presented on a map (e.g. historic disaster data, critical infrastructures, road network, weather data, population data), since their 34
availability is an important element in decision making at a planning and operational level. Furthermore, the ability of the user to add data which can be stored in the system and be always accessible and customizable are essential for a DSS that aims at enhancing the managerial abilities of authorities. The latter could also enhance the effectiveness of the response, through functionalities of event reporting and affected area mapping. In addition, the provision of protection measures to actors seems to be a functionality of particular importance and the induction in the system of the measures and the guidelines that are included in the circulars in a codified and easy-to-use way could improve the efficiency of authorities in the implementation of these measures, as well to work as a training tool for the phases of response. Furthermore, involved actors are mostly interested on functionalities that enhance their communication with the other involved bodies in an automated way, as well as they interested in applications of early warning in the phase of preparedness. The main findings of the table-top exercise (roles of actors, processes, actions) have been used as an input for the further development of the iDSS and an effort of integrating these elements into the system has been performed.
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INTEGRATION TO LOCAL POLICY & USER NEEDS
INTEGRATION TO LOCAL POLICY & USER NEEDS This section summarizes the findings regarding the identification of the potential users of the system, the integration of the requirements from involved parties and actors/authorities in disaster management and the transformation of user needs into proposed technical, functional and operational requirements for the iDSS development, contributing to the integration of the system to the civil protection structures.
▌Identification of End Users The identification of potential iDSS users has been performed in the context of Action 3.1 of the DECIDE Project, through an extensive literature review of the Greek civil protection legislative and regulatory framework. The review revealed the important role of decentralized bodies (states’ authorities and local government bodies) in prevention, preparedness and coordination of response, as well the contribution of bodies with operational capacities, including the Fire Brigade (the operational arm of the General Secretariat of Civil Protection) and the Police mainly in the phase of response. Thus, bodies, such as the General Secretariat and the Decentralized Administrations at national level, the Regions and the Municipalities, at regional and local level, have been considered as candidate bodies for using the system. The system could also be addressed to the operational bodies, such as the Police and the Fire Brigade, aiming to enhance their operational efficiency in disaster’s response. The review on civil protection structures also revealed the direct or indirect involvement of other bodies, either with a specific contribution in aspects of disaster management (e.g. Ministries and their supervised agencies, organizations such as the one of Anti-seismic Protection and Planning), or bodies with operational capacities and roles who are oriented in the fields of response and relief (e.g. National Emergency Aid Centre-EKAV). For example, Ministries could be potential future users, since their contribution to civil protection planning is related to subjects of their own responsibility (e.g. the Ministry of Environment contributes in the fields of technological risks, flood risks, wildfire risks etc., the Ministry of Infrastructure has crucial contribution in the field of risk from earthquakes, the flood protection etc., the Ministry of Health in cases of risks from dangerous substances). The participation of Ministries is not only related to the risk analysis of disasters that fall within their responsibilities, but also includes the contribution of their agencies and supervised organizations in the civil protection cycle, such as the prevention, response (during the evolution of a disaster) and restoration. In addition, the involvement of other public organizations and bodies (e.g. the Railway Company-OSE, the Public Power Company-DEI) in disaster management is obvious, recognizing that they manage and operate critical infrastructures. These bodies have not been included in the development of the system within 37
the DECIDE project, but are considered for potential extensions. Figure 5 presents the administrative bodies that could be included in the DECIDE iDSS as users, marked with green and the bodies, for which a forecast for future inclusion is considered, marked with blue.
Figure 5. Potential users of the DECIDE iDSS (green fields refer to actors addressed with the current system’s functionalities, blue fields refer to potential stakeholders in a future system’s extension) Therefore, the bodies who are directly involved in the processes of civil protection and have been identified as the system’s users, could be referred to as General Users of the system, in the context of the present report. Each general user should have access to specific functions of the system, according to the role and responsibilities of each organization in the civil protection process. The General users that have been identified are the following: • The General Secretariat of Civil Protection The General Secretariat of Civil Protection acts at national level and has the mission to design, plan, organize, coordinate actions in regard to risk 38
assessments, prevention, preparedness, information, response to natural, technological and other disasters or emergency situations, the coordination of restoration actions, the monitoring of application of the abovementioned and the information of the public. It also organizes the civil protection volunteer system. The General Secretariat operates the Central Operational Centre for Civil Protection. Within the General Secretariat of Civil Protection, the General Secretary and the directorates have key roles in terms of strategic and operational planning, general supervision, coordination and decision making and therefore they defined as users of the system. • Decentralized Administrations Decentralized Administrations have a supervising role at an inter-regional level. They have competencies, the exercise of which is a state’s duty according to the Greek Constitution. The General Secretary of a Decentralized Administration body, the Civil Protection Directorate and Technical Directorates (e.g. Water Directorate, Forest Directorate) can be the specific users of the system. Especially, as regards the Directorate of Civil Protection of the Decentralized Administration, it monitors the planning implementation in the process of responding to various phenomena and disaster events. It coordinates bodies and civil protection agencies in disaster response, when this is required by the size and extent of the disaster (in consultation and cooperation with the General Secretariat and in close collaboration with local authorities). • Regions Regions, with the Autonomous Directorate of Civil Protection as a competent authority are operationally activated, mobilizing human resources and means at the level of Region. The activation concerns not only resources of the agency of civil protection, but also the technical agencies and their means. Regions organize civil protection Directorates at a Regional level and Departments at the level of Regional Units. Therefore as beneficiaries’ specific users could be described the Civil Protection Directorates and the Technical Directorates at Regional Level and the Civil Protection Departments and the Technical Departments at a Regional Unit level. Furthermore specific decision making roles are allocated to the Head of the Region and the vice-heads of the Regional Units; therefore these could be considered as specific users by themselves apart from the directorates and the departments. • Municipalities Municipalities, as a basic structural unit of local government, have major civil protection responsibilities within their territory. Municipalities, through their 39
civil protection office or department, operate both in the field of planning civil protection actions and at an operational level, through their available agencies (technical departments), the human resources and the means that have at their disposal. Responsibilities of Civil Protection are allocated to the Mayor (in terms of decision making), the Vice Mayor who has the overall civil protection overview within the municipality and the technical offices and services. • Fire Brigade The Fire Brigade is the operational arm of the General Secretariat of Civil Protection. The mission of the Fire Brigade runs through its operational action. This action requires an operational planning and includes the following fields: a) the response and in particular the suppression of fires b) the rescue of citizens and of their property and the property of the state from fires c) the response on other natural disasters (earthquakes, floods, etc.) and on the several technological disasters d) the response and mitigation of the impact of various accidents (such as in the field of transportation). The DECIDE iDSS could contribute to the coordination of all firefighting units and therefore the operational centres of fire department has been defined as a potential user, as well as persons and departments involved in the overall management at local and regional level have been defined as potential users of the system. • Police The police has an important role in disaster response because of the broad geographical coverage and response capacity of its units. Police undertakes actions of information, and notification of other bodies, as well information of the public when this is necessary in case of a disaster. In addition it undertakes actions and measures in the area of a disaster and implements traffic management measures in the affected area. Therefore, police’s operational centre, as well as persons and departments involved in the overall management at local and regional level have been defined as potential users of the system. Furthermore, for each general user (i.e. in each body), specific users are defined, who belong to the organizational structure of the bodies. Specific users could be Directorates, Departments and Agencies (e.g. the Civil Protection (CP) Directorates of Regions, and the departments of Regional Units, the Technical Agencies of the Regions, etc.) or persons, such as the General Secretary, the Head of the Region and the Vice-Head of Regional Units, and the Mayor. An overview of the specified general and specific users is presented in Figure 6.
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Figure 6. Users of the iDSS, including bodies with administrative responsibilities (marked with green) and bodies with operational capacities (marked with blue)
▌Identification of User Needs The next step, towards the system’s design and integration to the policy level, is the identification of the needs that arise from the use of a system that could enhance the managerial abilities of authorities, in order to effectively respond to disasters. Therefore, an analytic questionnaire was designed and electronically distributed to the bodies enabled in the processes of civil protection in order to identify user needs. The questionnaire has been filled by the following actors: Decentralized Administrations, Regions, Regional Units and Municipalities The bodies that participated in the survey are located in the geographical and administrative area of Central Macedonia and Thrace. A literature review findings on iDSS best practices contributed to the identification of the main functionalities that are met in the iDSS for disaster management and therefore in the formulation of the questions for the identification of user’s needs and the specification of the DECIDE iDSS functionalities. Therefore, 8 projects were considered to be related to the DECIDE project, the majority of which were funded by the European Commission. Most of these projects shared common characteristics and features – risk assessment, mapping of hazards, collective use of data, analysis, GIS–, found to be of crucial importance for the development of iDSS systems. Figure 7 presents the trends on the general categories included in the examined iDSSs. It should be noted, that although the actual inclusion of a feature in a iDSS for DM does not directly denote its importance, it could be used as an indication of the required features, found in users’ needs studies. Finally, these projects are more often than not research projects that are not used at an operational level or are deprecated given latest 41
advances in computer science.
Figure 7. General categories of features included in the examined iDSSs Table 1 presents the results of the questionnaire part in which participants ranked several functionalities from 1 (not important) to 5 (very important), as regards their usefulness. Table 1. Functionalities of a Decision Support System that could contribute in the phase of response Q1. Do you consider that the functions of an electronic decision support system should be displayed on a map? F1.1 View on a map of historic climatic data (weather, temperature) & disaster phenomena F1.2 Import on a map of the available means (e.g. vehicles, machinery) F1.3 Direct mapping of an event from the user's perspective F1.4 Gathering in an electronic map of all information arriving when a phenomenon or a disaster occurs
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Q2. Do you consider that an electronic decision support tool could help to improve the way you are notified about the event of a phenomenon? F2.1 Message’s sent to mobile phones (sms) F2.2 Perform of auto-recorded calls on mobile phones F2.3 Sent of Emails F2.4 Provision of alerts’ to mobile applications F2.5 Automatic sending/receiving of weather forecasting F2.6 Automatic sending/receiving of emergency announcements regarding hazards and disaster phenomena
Q3. Do you consider that an electronic decision support system could contribute in informing the public about disaster events? F3.1 Massive alerting of citizens when a disaster event occurs F3.2 Provision of massive guidelines to citizens when a disaster event occurs F3.3 Periodic provision of self-protection guidelines to citizens
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Q4. Do you consider that an electronic decision support system could help you during the phases of prevention and preparedness for catastrophic events? F4.1 Suggestion of prevention measures F4.2 Indication of critical and risky areas F4.3 Suggestion of the optimum means’ allocation positions F4.4 Indication of coordination and communication steps among the involved actors F4.5 Legislation search
Q5. Do you consider that an electronic decision support system could help you during the phase of response in catastrophic events? F5.1 Suggestion of measures and actions that should be undertaken F5.2 Indication of routing information at a real-time basis F5.3 Indication of coordination and communication steps among the involved actors F5.4 Monitoring vehicles’ and machineries’ position in real-time F5.5 Monitoring of road traffic conditions in real-time F5.6 Proposal of traffic management measures for emergency situations based on real time traffic data, F5.7 Proposal of evacuation plans F5.8 Assessment of the evolution of a phenomenon (fire direction, flood progress)
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▌Summary of User Needs The outcome of the questionnaire analysis concluded to the main user needs that could be covered by the iDSS functionalities. Therefore, the project aimed at providing a tool that has specific functionalities, covering basic user needs to respective authorities. In addition, it aimed at developing a system with an expandable architecture that could be the basis for future additions of functions that have been recognized in the survey of user needs as important aspects. The main user needs identified are summarized below: • Use of a common GIS between Bodies, through which they, at the several levels of administration and self-administration, would be in a position to insert data which are directly accessible by others • The availability of data is related to either the means and the machineries that they have at their disposal, as well as other data that have a wider importance in the disaster management processes • Improvement of the communication and the common understanding between actors • Facilitation of the early warning and notification • Direct access on a number of data displayed on an electronic map, related to disasters and the overall disaster management, • Enhancement of the planning process, through indication of measures, processes and management of resources • Increase of the level of preparedness, through the provision of access on information regarding weather forecasting and expected hazards • Improvement of the assessment of the current situation in the initial phases of a disaster • Improvement of the response, through rapid mapping capabilities • Improvement of the operational capacity of the response in disasters providing routing indications, resources’ allocation advices and traffic management indications • Data sharing between bodies involved in the processes of civil protection and disaster management. The system mainly focuses on disaster phenomena that are mainly met in the Greece - former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia cross-border area, i.e. floods, wildfires, landslides, earthquakes, snowfalls, intense winds and hailstorms. Thus the various functions of the system are adapted primarily to these phenomena. At the same time, the system can be applied to any spatial scale, enabling the use of the different levels of administration and local government.
▌Preliminary outline of functionalities based on user needs A general outline of the preliminary system’s functionalities, as these have 45
occurred from the user needs analysis, is provided below: • Communications and alerts A very important, but on the same time rather time consuming aspect of disaster management (DM), is the organization and communication of the related authorities and the people that take part in the actual disaster management. The iDSS facilitates a spectrum of functions that allow for quick communication of users using Short Message Service (SMS), automated e-mail service and alerts to users of the system. This functionality, in conjunction to the fact that all authorities have access to the same database for spatial information that describe a hazard, allows for a reduction of the communication overhead and the explanation of the situation in hand. • Resources and personnel specification A key functionally of the DECIDE iDSS is the resource and personnel specification. Its authority has the ability to insert, view, modify and use the resources under the jurisdiction of the authority for analysis. This functionality allows for enhanced situational awareness, communications, and for future facilitation of administrative actions. • GIS Data Viewers GIS Data Viewers allow for the representation of important spatial information in DM. Such information can be previous disasters information, resources, boundaries of jurisdiction, important infrastructures and information that the user can consider as important. Viewers allow for the insertion of data considered as important by users of the iDSS. • Legislation viewers and search Legislation viewers and search allow for the insertion, management and view of the disaster-related legislation and other pertinent documents that govern DM. This functionality provides a powerful tool that gives quick access to the procedures to be followed and actions to be taken during DM. • Protection measures The protection measures functionality of the iDSS allows for the insertion, management and plan of the protection measures that should be taken during the mitigation and preparedness phase of DM. This functionality allows for tabular or timeline view of commonly implemented protection measures per hazard and examined area, assisting decision makers to implement them based on multi-objective decision making. 46
• Routing under emergency conditions In most cases of applied response in DM, routing under emergency conditions takes place based on empirical awareness of the transportation network state. This practice could however be problematic during DM, as the situation in hand is more often than not different to everyday traffic conditions. For this reason, the routing under emergency conditions functionality is provided that could also the incorporation of real-time traffic conditions and traffic demand prediction in the estimation of the shortest path for emergency vehicles allow in future versions. • Event Reporting An important user-need identified from the questionnaires and the review of the state-of-the-art on iDSS for DM is the geo-referenced reporting of events. The users are allowed to upload a picture of the event and include the hazard and the location. Furthermore, the architecture of the system has been designed in a way, so as to be able to support functionalities that could be introduced in future extensions of the system, such as the simulation of the evolution of a phenomenon.
▌Conclusions Within this chapter the users of the DECIDE iDSS have been identified, as following: • the General Secretariat of Civil Protection • the Decentralized Civil Protection Bodies (Municipalities, Regions, Decentralized Administrations) • Operational bodies (Fire Brigade, police, etc.) In addition, potential users for future extensions include the following: • Ministries with their Agencies • Other bodies and organizations (Organization of Anti-Seismic ProtectionOASP, National Emergency Aid Centre-EKAV, etc.) User needs, in combination to the results of a review on best practices on DSS, resulted in the identification of the system’s functionalities. In addition, the processes that are followed by several bodies during the preparedness and response phases in various disasters indicate the functionalities that are useful for each body. Finally, the system should be expandable and designed in a way to include the relevant background in order to be able to support further expansions and modifications by the side of the end user and be able to fulfil a wide range of functionalities specified in the user needs’ request. 47
DECIDE’s INTELLIGENT DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM
DECIDE’s INTELLIGENT DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM ▌General principles of DSS for Disaster Management In the field of Decision Support Systems for Disaster Management (DM), the findings provide a clear understanding of what is crucial in order to assist DM practitioners take better decisions. Firstly, situational awareness was considered to be of outmost importance as it allows for reducing the effects of decision makers’ cognitive limitations and perception to the decision process, which is found to be increased during high stress situations. Secondly, training can be assisted by DSS towards increasing organizational and action preparedness for decision makers and inter-organizational cases. Thirdly, DSS for DM can provide a reliable, fast and effective environment that can facilitate communications. Fourthly, DSS for DM enhance improvisation when required as it improves situational awareness, during the recognition phase and also provides room for evaluation of the improvisation results (scenarios). DSS constitute a collection of research fields, which are basically aiming at understanding and providing the context for better decision making. Several aspects should be taken into account when designing such a system with the decision making process and the decision maker characteristics to play a central role. Furthermore, the concept of knowledge is of high importance, as it allows decision makers to make decisions based on facts and limit the effects of cognitive limitations and perception. Naturally, the field of research that emerged as DSS for DM is interdisciplinary, as it combines two independent research fields (DSS and DM), and wide, as several fragments of research areas can be defined (i.e. DSS for specific disasters, DSS for a specific DM phase). • Situational Awareness An important aspect is the implementation of actions based on accurate situational awareness in all phases of DM (Horita & De Albuquerque, 2013). During the mitigation and preparedness phase, situational awareness refers to the knowledge concerning exposure, vulnerability, level of preparedness and mitigation, as well as availability of resources (Lindell et al., 2007, 2001; Paton & Johnston, 2001; Schneider & Schauer, 2006; Weichselgartner, 2001). During disaster response and reconstruction, a vast amount of literature concerning DM suggests that the decision maker should have accurate and well-timed information about the situation in hand (Fagel, 2011; Haddow et al., 2013; Lindell et al., 2007), in order to evaluate and act. It should be noted, that this information, does not necessarily prescribe a set of “correct” actions to be 49
taken and that decision makers have to understand the impact of their decision (Levy, Gopalakrishnan, & Lin, 2005). In this context, situational awareness is enhanced by including indications of what would be the results of complex actions by either real-time evaluation or scenario analysis, based on analytical models or simulations of the situation examined (Wu et al., 2008). Situational awareness allows for reducing the effects of decision makers’ cognitive limitations and perception to the decision process (Marakas, 2003), which is found to be increased during high stress situations (Van de Walle & Turoff, 2008). A key aspect of DM commonly discussed as a negative issue is that decision makers have limited experience in handling disasters due to the (relative) scarcity of such events. Limited experience can be rather risky as under high stress and anxiety, situations individuals tend to rely more on internal hypothesis testing and well-learnt responses (Staw et al., 1981). Furthermore, Van de Walle & Turoff (2008) pointed out that integration and collaboration among different entities require trust and understanding, which is only built when collaborating even in terms of exercises. Training could be in part made possible with the use of a DSS adopting scenarios, which employ models and simulations to understand and allow for evaluating impact of any action. Furthermore, it is widely pointed out that interorganizational training should be taken into account as it is a rather common case during DM (Mendonça, 2007). A central aspect of DM is the provision of reliable, fast and effective actions enhanced by effective communications, which emerge as an issue from past experiences of problematic response due to miscommunications (Rolland et al., 2010). For example, in many disaster cases, the resources allocation (human, machinery, money etcetera) is handled by different organizations, which are required to communicate during allocation. However, due to miscommunications, there are cases of over- and under-demand provision of resources (Meissner et al., 2002; Rolland et al., 2010). Effectiveness of communications is enhanced by clear structures and communication channels. DSS for DM are ideal for providing such environment in which effective actions and communications can be achieved using standardised communication protocols (Rieser et al., 2015). • Improvisation Improvisation is considered to be a vital part of DM for two reasons: a) it allows for flexibility in handling unexpected phenomena and b) it is impossible to examine all the scenarios possible during preparedness (Mendonça, 2007; Kreps, 1991). Mendonça et al. (2001) suggest that there are two stages in 50
emergency improvisation: first, there is the recognition that there is no plan for the situation, and second, there is the decision to take a decision based on improvisation. DSS for DM structure give the opportunity to enhance situational awareness during the recognition phase and also provides room for evaluation of the improvisation results. • Information Technology The development of IT has allowed for advances in the conventional DM process that are being explored. The main areas where IT can contribute in DM both in short-, mid- and long-term, given its capabilities (Schmitt, Eisenberg, & Rao, 2007) are listed below: • • • • • •
more robust and interoperable communications raised situational awareness improved decisional support and resource tracking greater organizational agility for disaster management engagement of the public enhanced infrastructure survivability and continuity of societal functions
However, it should be pointed out that IT cannot be applied as is, as it does not overcome underlying problems and issues of organizational and social nature. IT should always be designed is such a way to correspond to human related dimensions. In this context, the concept of time and more specifically the incident timeline should always be included to cater the needs of different actions related to incidents (Dhanhani, Duncan, & Chester, 2010; Schmitt et al., 2007). • GIS In order to allow for better situational awareness, a wide stream of research supports the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to achieve it by presenting data related to the situation in question, risk assessments, and resources (Contini et al., 2000; Cutter, 2003; Zerger & Smith, 2003). This support emerges from the fact that maps are the tools commonly used in disaster management (Mirfenderesk, 2009) and also allow for mapping and processing of information, as well as representation of modelling and simulation that have lately evolved (Kwan & Lee, 2005; Zerger & Smith, 2003). Research in the field has specified the issues and challenges (Cutter, 2003): • • • •
Data Acquisition and integration Distributed computing Dynamic representation of processes Cognition of geographic information 51
• Interoperability • Scale, spatial analysis and uncertainty • Decision Support Systems • Easiness of Use Another very important issue discussed by researchers is the easiness of use of DSSs in disaster management and especially during disaster response (Cutter, 2003; Levy et al., 2005). This arises from the fact that practitioners in disaster management are mainly used to use paper-maps and rely on information they receive from onsite investigation or reports (Cutter, 2003). Such a tool must be transparent, as for practitioners, it is rather difficult to trust a tool that the methodological foundations of the functions included are not clear (Cutter, 2003). Finally, it should be noted that as it is a tool that people are not using often it should be designed in a way that would allow people to remember and use (Van de Walle & Turoff, 2008). • Extendable Architecture, Open Source Code DSS should adopt architectures that can be highly extendable in order to cater for DM dynamic needs by maintaining its adaptiveness (Asghar et al., 2005). This is derived from the fact that there are many advances in related fields (such as Disaster Management, Computer Science, Communications, Sensors). This challenge can be overcome by extendable and updatable application built upon modularity (Asghar et al., 2005). Another important aspect of design of such systems is the programming environment of its development. An Open Source project indicates that the code used for programming the DSS is non-proprietary and can be distributed to anyone interested, modified, improved, and built upon (Weber, 2000). This allows for systems that are not built from scratch, and it has been found that those projects have been further developed by contributors. Commonly, developers or firms who do not want to allow others to develop upon their work provide only the binary version of a software without the source code (Hippel & Krogh, 2003). This idea should be very appealing in disaster management, especially those funded from governments. After analysing user needs and trying to integrate the system into the disaster management framework of Greece, the systems’ architecture has been elaborated. The following sections present the system’s architecture as well its architectural components in terms of the software parts, describe the final user needs as well as the architectural components that satisfy them and analyse the final system’s functionalities.
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▌Architecture of the DECIDE iDSS DSS have been applied in a wide spectrum of applications, yet they are mainly found when decision making is hard and the decision context is rather complex (Clemen & Reilly, 2013; Marakas, 2003). Among others, DSS involve a decision context under the intention to support decisions without replacing decisionmakers in all phases of the process using data and models in an interactive and user-friendly way, while facilitating learning on the part of the decision maker. DSS generally include different components that can be categorized in five systems (Marakas, 2003): • • • • •
Data Management System (DMS) Model Management System (MMS) Knowledge Engine (KE) User Interface (UI)) User
The DECIDE iDSS Architecture is based on the architectural components suggested by Marakas (2003) and on the user needs that shape the iDSS functionalities. A schematic representation of the architecture able to cater for the DM needs and to incorporate the components above is presented in Figure 8. It should be noted that given the open source character objective, all tools and libraries included in the systems’ architecture are characterised as open source or open in case of data. The Data Management System incorporates all the data related tools and caters for the data related processes. Efficient storage of data is a core function of each web application design, while depending on the required data model, different database systems can be used. The main data model requirements of the DECIDE project software clearly indicate the need of storing a vast amount of geo-referenced data (coordinates and related information) as well as capabilities for storing other data types. A database system that caters the software requirements is PostGIS, which is an open source spatial database based on PostgreSQL (www.postgresql.org). A database subsystem is required for document management. Its design requires the incorporation of Content Management System (CMS) and also document indexing, search and tagging system. The document management requirement is facilitated by the open source version of Alfresco (www.alfresco.com). The Model Management System incorporates all mathematical models to describe phenomena such as hazard propagation and analysis tools to allow for estimation of indicators such as network criticality, shortest path identification, solutions to Facility Allocation Problem and others. All of the above are coded in JAVA runtime in modelling or analysis classes environment. In most cases, open source libraries are used for the incorporation of the required functionalities (see Section 4). Given the transportation oriented development of the iDSS, 53
the Open Source Routing Machine (OSRM) (www.project-osrm.org) and JAVA Optimization libraries (such as JOptimizer - www.joptimizer.com) are employed. The knowledge engine is the link that connects the Data Management System, the Model Management System and the User Interface. In a sense, it is the framework that caters for the definition of the process flows, the rules that apply and the actual interaction between the user (via the user interface) and the Data Management System/ Model Management System. The Play Framework (www.playframework.com) has been selected to work with since it is one of the most modern web & mobile application frameworks. Play is opensource and is also built on the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern (Krasner & Pope, 1988). The choice of the MVC architecture was based on the fact that MVC is a very well defined and widely used architectural pattern for implementing web applications, which could accommodate the goal of open source software development.
Figure 8. Schematic Representation of the DSS Architecture The user needs, functional requirements and research context have been accommodated by the iDSS developed in the framework of the DECIDE project. The main goal of its design was to create an open source, extendable and modular system that would allow actors involved in Disaster Management to take better decisions. To achieve this goal, three main tasks were shaped, the 54
finalization of the definition of the user requirements, review of the state-of-theart available tools (code libraries, platforms etc.) and design of the Architecture. Therefore, the iDSS system architecture is based on the popular and widely used architectural pattern, the MVC (Model View Controller). This pattern has been chosen since it is nicely defined and used in the majority of the web applications all over the word.
Figure 9. The MVC model The idea behind MVC is that the user of the system sends his commands (through browsing on the platform and performing functions) to the controller who is the brain of the pattern. The Controller is responsible for communicating with the Model and passing over data to be processed. The Model is considered as the mapping between the system and its database. After the data is processed by the Model, it is forwarded to the View which is the display component of the MVC triplet. The View eventually renders to the user the screen that he has actually asked for at first place. After analysing user needs, requirements and specifications the final systems’ architecture was elaborated. The architecture includes the components that have been used to compose the system and describes the way these components are connected, so as to implement the specified functionalities. The basic criteria for the selection of the architectural components are the coverage of the following requirements. 55
• Open source • Localization • Security • Extensibility • Support of multiple users • Management of geographical information • Efficiency In the following diagram the components that have been selected for the iDSS system along with their interconnections are depicted.
Figure 10. System design diagram As depicted in Figure 14, the central part of the system architecture is Play Framework. Play Framework is a modern open-source framework built for developing web applications. This framework has been selected because of its popularity, flexibility and easiness in developing web applications. It is actually an MCV framework that is based on Java. Play is the core part of the system architecture, can be called the brain of the platform. It is responsible for interconnecting all the components of the system and following the defined business logic. 56
For the management of all the datatypes included in the system, a single database has been selected, namely the PostGIS database. PostGIS is an opensource spatial database extender for PostgreSQL object-relational database. PostGIS was selected since it adds support for geographical objects allowing location queries. Apart from the geospatial data, the same database is being used for manipulating the rest of the datatypes (String, Integer, etc.) GeoServer is the tool that gives the iDSS system the GIS capabilities that are defined in its requirements. GeoServer is one of the most popular Web Map Servers used in similar geographical applications. It is a Java-based open-source software server that allows users to view and edit geospatial data. In order to display to the user the data imported to the system through GeoServer, Play Framework is making use of a JavaScript library called OpenLayers. OpenLayers is an open-source front-end JavaScript library to load, display and render maps from multiple sources on web pages. OpenLayers provides an API, which is actually used when writing the front-end code. In DECIDE’s application, the WMS and WFS services are mainly used for the communication of OpenLayers with the GeoServer. Alfresco is an open-source java-based software integrated in the iDSS, in order to manage the users and the documents that need to be hosted. For the purposes of the project, the community edition has been incorporated. In the implemented platform, Alfresco is connected to the installed PostGIS database. Some of the most important tasks to be performed by Alfresco in the scope of iDSS are: Document Management, Document Indexing, Document Search, Document tagging, User management and Login authentication Twilio is a service that provides SMS sending at a low cost. In the scope of the DECIDE iDSS, Twilio is used in all the notification functionalities (via SMS) defined in the project requirements. For the needs of the routing functionalities specified in the DECIDE project, OSRM has been integrated. OSRM (Open Source Routing Machine) is a public, open-source routing engine for shortest paths calculation and depiction in road networks. It combines routing algorithms with the open and free road network data of the OpenStreetMap (OSM) project.
▌Final Requirements The final requirements that have been specified as the output of all actions performed within the project are summarized in Table 2, which also presents the way these requirements are covered by the selected architectural components. 57
Table 2. Final Requirements
Requirement
Architecture element(s)
Machinery/Resources Management The user should be able to enter his agency machineries in the system.
Play Framework, PostGIS
The system should include common types of machineries as default types.
Play Framework, PostGIS
The user should be able to see icons of the machineries included by default in the system.
Play Framework, PostGIS
The user should be able to enter the spatial position of machineries in a map.
Play Framework, PostGIS, OpenLayers
The user should be able to add the attributes of the machinery that he has entered in the map (e.g. plate number, horsepower, disaster phenomenon that the machinery could be used for – e.g. a grader is used in cases of snowfalls, a bus is used in cases of fires and floods for citizen’s evacuation).
Play Framework, PostGIS
The user should be able to allocate personnel to each machinery type (e.g. who is the driver of the machinery?).
Play Framework, PostGIS
The user should be able to check the maintenance condition and the tires condition of each machinery type.
Play Framework, PostGIS
The user should be able to create a new machinery type that is not contained in the system by default.
Play Framework, PostGIS
The user should be able to add data, including a photo, for every new machinery type that he adds in the system.
Play Framework, PostGIS
The system should be able to display all the machineries in a map (view function).
Play Framework, PostGIS, OpenLayers
The user should be able to see all the information that has been entered (e.g. the position in a map, information regarding the type of the machinery).
Play Framework, PostGIS, OpenLayers
The user should be able to use the machinery in other system functions.
Play Framework, PostGIS
The user should be able to allocate his machinery
Play Framework, PostGIS
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Sign up – Log in Users should be able to create a personal account in the system.
Play Framework, Alfresco
The user should be able to specify the agency that he/she belongs to.
Play Framework, Alfresco
The system should “remember” the user and the agency that he belongs to.
Play Framework, Alfresco
The user should be able to be given administrator access to the system.
Play Framework, Alfresco
The administrator should represent a “Body” (e.g. the Municipality of Amynteo). For example: the Director of Civil Protection of the Region of Western Macedonia is the administrator of the account of the agency “Region of Western Macedonia” For example: the Mayor of Amynteo is the administrator of the account that represents the agency “Municipality of Amynteo”.
Play Framework, Alfresco
The user should be able to fill-in information regarding himself in the system (e.g. name, surname, position in the agency, agency that he belongs to, telephone, e-mail).
Play Framework, Alfresco
The administrator should be able to add other users in the system.
Play Framework, Alfresco
These users, who have been added by the administrator, should not be able to be registered again when they try to sign up to the system, since their agency account has already been created by another user. For example these users could be the employees of a body-agency (e.g. employees of the Municipality of Amynteo).
Play Framework, Alfresco
The log-in user interface should be easy to use.
Play Framework, Bootstrap
All users should be able to modify their personal data
Play Framework, Alfresco
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Personnel Management Administrator (representative of a ‘Body”) should be able to add additional personnel of the agency he/she belongs to, in the system.
Play Framework, Alfresco
The user should be able to retrieve characteristics to its personnel. For example the position of each user – director, employee, technical staff, the expertise of each user – higher education engineer, lyceum administrative staff etc.
Play Framework, Alfresco
The user should be able to add contact details (e-mail, phone number for the personnel).
Play Framework, PostGIS
The system should be able to display all the information that the user has added to the system about its personnel.
Play Framework, PostGIS
The user should be able to notify all the contacts or some of them when a disaster phenomenon occurs.
Play Framework, Twilio
The user should be able to send messages in a free form when a disaster occurs.
Play Framework, Twilio
The user should be able to use the personnel management data in other system’s functions.
Play Framework, PostGIS
Resources Management related to civil protection The user should be able to add data that are useful in the processes of disaster management for civil protection authorities. These data should be entered in a map.
OpenLayers, GeoServer
All these types of data could have different geospatial dimensions (point, area, line).
OpenLayers, GeoServer
The user should be able to add information for each type of data that he enters in the system.
Play Framework, OpenLayers, GeoServer
The user should be able to see all the data that have been added.
Play Framework, OpenLayers, GeoServer
The user should be able to view all information accompanying the imported data.
Play Framework, OpenLayers, GeoServer
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All agency users should have the ability to modify all these data and the relevant information when changes occur to its resources.
Play Framework, OpenLayers, GeoServer
User-“Body” should have the ability to see the data that other users-agencies have added to the system.
Play Framework, OpenLayers, GeoServer
The user-agency should not have the ability to modify the data that other users-“Bodies” have entered to the system.
Play Framework
The user should have the ability to see other data that are stored in the system, in parallel to these types of data.
Play Framework, PostGIS
Legislation and document viewer The user should have access to documents related to the legislation of civil protection, plans and circulars of disaster management.
Play Framework, Alfresco
Each document should be accompanied by several types of information (e.g. the type of the document, the number of the document, the date of elaboration, the disaster phenomenon that the document is useful for).
Play Framework, Alfresco
The user should be able to easily search these documents.
Play Framework, Alfresco
The user should be able to easily read these documents.
Play Framework, Alfresco
The user should be able to add more documents.
Play Framework ,Alfresco
All users that belong to an agency should have (read & write) access to the documents that are submitted by the other users of the agency.
Play Framework ,Alfresco
Maps Data / Disaster Viewer The system should include by default geospatial data related to disasters.
GeoServer
These data should be displayed on a map.
Play Framework, OpenLayers, GeoServer
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The user should be able to see these types of data related to disasters e.g. related to floods (for example risk flood areas), as well as data that are of wider interest e.g. the jurisdiction limits of Regions, the road network of an area, the land uses etc.
Play Framework, OpenLayers, GeoServer
All these data should be able to see data that are accompanied to the default geospatial data (e.g. the data that accompany the default dataset of the hydrographic network should be displayed as well, the names of the rivers, the length of the rivers, the basin they belong to).
Play Framework, OpenLayers
The default data should be grouped according to the disaster phenomenon that they are related to (as an example, for the category of floods the user should be able to see data such as the hydrographic network, the lake, the basins of Greece etc.)
Play Framework, OpenLayers
The user should be able to see an overlay of more than one data included in the same group.
Play Framework, OpenLayers
The user should be able to see overlays of data belonging to different groups (e.g. the dataset of rivers for the group of floods and the dataset of the SEVESO installations for the group of technological accidents).
Play Framework, OpenLayers
The user should be able to see various types of historic data on events (e.g. historic data on floods, wildfires, earthquakes and technological accidents).
Play Framework, GeoServer
The user should be able to see information related to these historical data (e.g. the type of the flood, the area affected by a flood, the basin that the flood occurred, the area affected by the flood, the source of the flood).
Play Framework, OpenLayers, GeoServer
The user should be able to enter into the system a “new” disaster when it has occurred, wherever on the map.
Play Framework, OpenLayers, GeoServer
The user should be able to add data that are related to this disaster (for a flood the user should be able to describe this flood such as the type of the flood (e.g. flash flood) the area that was affected by the flood, the coordinates of the area affected, the economic consequences etc.).
Play Framework, OpenLayers, GeoServer
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The user should be able to choose between predefined options when he enters data for the disaster or he should be able to add information in a free textual form.
Play Framework
The user should be able to modify these data when additional information has occurred (for example after several days the estimation of the flood’s consequences has changed).
Play Framework
The user should be able to see data that are entered by other users-administrators.
Play Framework
The user should not be able to modify these types of data.
Play Framework
The user should be able to see historic weather data (e.g. the temperature of the previous day, week month, and year).
Play Framework
The user should be able to see in a map the positions of the meteorological stations, from which these data are obtained.
Play Framework, OpenLayers
The user should be able to see forecasted meteorological data (e.g. the precipitation in three hours, the temperature in three hours, the cloud coverage in three hours) in the form of text and graph.
Play Framework, OpenLayers
The user should be able to see these data in a graphical way.
Play Framework
Measures & Actions The user should be able to see a list of the actions that civil protection bodies have to undertake in the disaster management cycle (1st function).
Play Framework
Each action will be displayed in a textual form.
Play Framework
These actions should be grouped according to the disaster they are addressed to (e.g. actions to address floods, actions to address wildfires, actions to address consequences from earthquakes).
Play Framework
These actions should be allocated to the disaster management cycle (Prevention, Preparedness, Response, and Restoration).
Play Framework
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The user should be able to see the agency that is responsible for the action’s implementation (e.g. Responsibility for traffic measures in case of a building collapse. The actions undertaken by the police, e.g. The declaration of an area in an emergency situation. The actions undertaken by the General Secretariat of Civil Protection, or for specific cases by the Decentralized Administration and the Regions)
Play Framework
The user should be able to see the agencies that are responsible for the action’s implementation (e.g. the Technical agency of the Region is responsible for the inspection of damaged buddings after an earthquake).
Play Framework
The user should be able to add more actions in the system.
Play Framework
The user should be able to modify the actions that are provided by default by the system.
Play Framework
The user should have access to measures that are related to the transportation sector (2nd function).
Play Framework
The user should be able see an appropriate measure based on several criteria (e.g. the budget of the measure, the time threshold, the nature of the measure, the disaster event that the measure is addressed to.
Play Framework
The user should be able to see the measure(s) that match the chosen criteria.
Play Framework
The user should be able to see the duration of the measure’s implementation.
Play Framework
The user should be able to add a new measure, submitting accompanying information to those of the existing measures.
Play Framework
Routing The user should enter all information about his origin and his destination.
OSRM, OpenLayers
The system should calculate the optimal route.
OSRM
The user should see the route calculated by the system on a map.
OSRM, OpenLayers
The user should see step by step directions for the route that he has to follow.
OSRM, OpenLayers, Play Framework
The user should see the distance and the travel time.
OSRM
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The user should be able to add a new route, indicate new origin and destination.
OSRM, OpenLayers, Play Framework
Event Reporting The user should be able to report an event and communicate this event to other users.
Play Framework, OpenLayers, Twilio
The user should be able to report several types of disaster events (such as floods, wildfires, extreme weather events, technological accidents).
Play Framework, OpenLayers, Twilio
The user should be able to indicate the geospatial position of the event.
Play Framework, OpenLayers, GeoServer
The user should be able to inform a list of contacts for the occurrence of the event.
Play Framework, Twilio
The user should be able to inform its contacts for the event through an e-mail or an SMS.
Play Framework, Twilio
The user should be able to add a photo for the event.
Play Framework
The user should be able to see the reports coming from other users (reported from any user)
Play Framework, OpenLayers
The user should be able to understand who made the report.
Play Framework, OpenLayers
The user should be able to see gathered all reports coming from various sources.
Play Framework, PostGIS
The user should be able to see all the reports in a map.
Play Framework, OpenLayers
The user should be able to see all the relevant data from a disaster report (e.g. the photo).
Play Framework, OpenLayers
The users belonging to one agency should see the reports made by users belong to other bodies.
Play Framework, Alfresco
The users should have access to an event for several days after the report.
Play Framework
The report of an event should be connected to functions that are related to the addition of historic disasters.
Play Framework
Traffic The user should be able to see critical links of road network.
Play Framework, OpenLayers
The user should be able to see real traffic conditions when real traffic data is available.
Play Framework, OpenLayers
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▌Implementation This section provides a brief description on how the architectural components have been connected and on how the system has finally been implemented, in terms of software’s development terms. The selected programming language in which the iDSS is implemented is Java. This choice was based on the fact that Java is a programming language widely used in various applications, with a wide range of open source libraries to be available that could be useful in the development of the iDSS. Furthermore, many of the abovementioned architectural components (i.e. Geoserver) are also written in Java, supporting the use of Java in most of the architectural components and allowing for clean and efficient programming. It is important to mention that building a web application in plain Java is not simple. This is why Web Frameworks have been created. Most web application frameworks are based on a model-view-controller (MVC) pattern. This makes it easier to divide the code in distinct modules and build it in a more organized manner. In this project, Play Framework has been selected to work with since it is one of the most modern web & mobile application frameworks. Play is open-source and is also built on the MVC pattern. The basic characteristics of Play are: fast, stateless, secure, scalable, easily maintainable, and easy to debug, develop and test and has IDE support for Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA. Play framework works smoothly with the Bootstrap library that has been used for the development of mobile friendly interfaces. Play Framework supports languages specification. User can externalize messages in messages.xxx files (where xxx is a valid ISO Language Code, such as fr or el). In the designed system, support has been provided for English and Greek (en, el). However more languages could be added if desired. The messages that have been localized are those of the interface. The user-entered data though are available in the entered language. One of the main processes of the iDSS is depicting GIS data on the application. Such data are: • Climate data • Jurisdiction areas • Road and rail network data • Amyntaio OSM (OpenStreetMap) data (highways, hospitals, police stations etc.) In order to represent these data, the development team has worked with the combination of two systems, GeoServer & OpenLayers. GeoServer, which is a Java based open-source software installed on the server (under Tomcat) that works independently. GeoServer has been used for hosting most of the geospatial data related to iDSS. For this purpose, it has 66
been connected with the installed PostGIS database. There are various ways to import data to GeoServer. The most basic functionality is importing data directly to the database (this is done when importing the OpenStreetMap data with the osm2pgsql script). Import data through QGIS: this is an advanced desktop application where the user can draw geospatial data and publish them to the GeoServer. Import data directly through GeoServer: this can be done when the user needs to import a Shapefile. In that case the user has to use the GeoServer installation and its interface to manage and publish the data. When the GeoServer has all necessary information (usually in the form of Layers) published, it is ready to be used for displaying in the web application. As shown in the following diagram (Figure 11), Play connects to the GeoServer installation to retrieve the required layer and send that information to OpenLayers in order to render it on the web page.
Figure 11: Connection of GeoServer, Play framework and OpenLayers OpenLayers is an open-source front-end JavaScript library to load, display and render maps from multiple sources on web pages. OpenLayers provides an API which is used when writing the front-end code. It supports several map data formats such as KML, GML, GeoJSON, WMS, WFS. Therefore, OpenLayers is called in order to render the data imported/published in GeoServer. It is a library which evolves quickly (currently OpenLayers 3 is released) and works towards the direction of fast and mobile friendly support. Figure 15 shows the use of OpenLayers JavaScript functions when calling a GeoServer WMS Layer. The Legislation Document Management subsystem of iDSS is facilitated by Alfresco. This is an open-source Java-based software that needs to be installed in the server. It works under Tomcat and comes with an extensive REST API that contains plentiful functionalities for getting and posting data. Apart from the provided API, Alfresco has its own CMS (Content Management System) that can be accessed for document and user management. In the iDSS, Alfresco has been connected to the installed PostGIS database. Some of the more important tasks performed by Alfresco in the scope of iDSS are: 67
• • • • • •
Document Management Document Indexing Document Search Document tagging User management Login authentication
Alfresco communicates with Play framework in two ways, either with the REST API or through CMIS. CMIS is a query language used by alfresco for performing queries over the content of it. In the iDSS it is used for getting properties like cmis:document or cmis:name. For these queries the Apache Chemistry OpenCMIS which is a collection of Java libraries, frameworks and tools around the CMIS specification has been used. CMIS is mainly used for document management. On the other hand REST API is more convenient for the user management part. Play Framework is communicating with the REST API in order to manage the users and groups defined for the project. This is done through HTTP GET/POST requests. For the needs of the Protection Measures interface the development team utilized DataTables. DataTables is a plug-in for the jQuery JavaScript library. A numerous set of features are provided, such that a richly interactive table is presented to the end users. Basic features are: bAutoWidth, bFilter, bPaginate, bSort etc. In iDSS a table in the PostGIS database has been created where all the protection measures are stored. With the provided form, the user can add new measures. With a query over the table, Play Framework retrieves all the stored measures and loads them on the created DataTable. After that, the user can perform search queries on all the measures loaded on the browser. Apart from the table view, a JavaScript library has been used called Timesheet, that visualizes the measures in a Gantt view. As regards the need for routing function, the OSRM has been used. OSRM (Open Source Routing Machine) is a public, open-source routing engine for shortest paths in road networks. It combines sophisticated routing algorithms with the open and free road network data of the OpenStreetMap (OSM) project. A clean version of the OSRM engine has been installed on a separate server in order to have access to all the resources for future customization and performance optimization. The Server API serves queries much like normal servers do. The available services are viaroute, nearest, locate, table and match. Each service is implemented as a plugin for OSRM. In this project OSRM is being used in routing. During the routing process of iDSS the utilized service is viaroute. This service provides shortest path queries with multiple via locations. It supports the computation of alternative paths as well as giving turn instructions. An Ajax call is made to the OSRM instance and the result is a table (called “route instructions”) which is being parsed for decoding the routing instructions. 68
▌Final Functionalities The combination of all the above steps led to the determination of the system’s final functionalities. Therefore, the main user needs during the project’s implementation have been transformed to the final system’s functionalities. The functionalities are grouped in five thematic groups plus the overall user management of the system that consists a framework-functionality for all other users. The five thematic groups are: Notify, Manage, View, Plan, and Act. Table 3 summarizes the system’s functionalities and the way these are grouped. Table 3. Outline of systems’ final functionalities Groups
Notify
Manage
View
Plan
Act
Event reporting
Critical infrastructure & areas
Documents
Actions
Routing
Machineries & means
Weather & Climate data
Protection Measures
Traffic
Human resources
Events
Functionalities
User management
Disasters
Based on the actions, findings and outputs, which have been described in the previous sections, the final system’s functionalities have been identified. The remainder of this publication focuses on describing these functionalities. • User Management The primary logic embedded in the iDSS platform is the way users are organized and managed. Based on the identified requirements, every user of the system should belong to a “Body” (group). A “Body” might be the municipality of an area 69
or the police department. The idea of the “Body” is crucial for the whole system management, considering the way that civil protection bodies are organized and interact. According to the “Body” logic, a user who belongs to a Body of the administration and local-government, can perform different actions and view different things in the context of the system. Each “Body” has its own administrator, who manages the members – users of it.
Figure 12. Introducing a new Body to the system According to the logic adopted for the user management system, a primary user is entered into the system and introduces the “Body” that he/she represents (creates namely the “Body” account at the system). Automatically, this user becomes the Body’s account administrator (e.g. the Head of the Civil Protection Agency of a Region creates into the system the Region’s account and automatically becomes the administrator of the Region’s account). This primary user determines other users integrated into the same “Body” and users who belong to Directorates, Departments and Agencies (e.g. administrator identifies as users the Director of the Department of Technical Services of the Region, the heads of Civil Protection departments of the Regional Units and employees of these agencies).
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Figure 13. User management profile menu Figure 14 schematically presents the logic of Bodies and Users belonging to “Bodies”. Between “Bodies”, interactions are developed, such as data and information sharing, related to disasters.
Figure 14. User Management logic 71
• Notify – Event reporting The iDSS provides a spectrum of functions that allow for fast communication of users through SMS, automated e-mail services and alerts on the web application. The fact that the system consists a web-GIS platform allows the easy dissemination of the disaster-related event and of additional information. Through the event reporting and notification function, the user can mark on a digital map the location of an event, add information about it (text associated with the event, photo from incident location), and through the report communicate and disperse this information to other registered users of the system who belong to the same “Body”, to other Bodies and users who are registered to the system, as well as to other contacts who are not registered in the system. Screenshots depicting the functionality of event reporting are presented in Figure 15 and Figure 16.
Figure 15. Event reporting functionality
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Figure 16. Event reporting functionality • Manage - Critical Infrastructure & areas Two of the key issues identified in the study of the civil protection mechanism are those of the limited availability and poor accessibility to data that are important for the implementation of actions in the various phases of disaster management. The fact that the DECIDE iDSS is a Web-GIS platform provides the ability to easily import, map and share spatial data between users. Consequently, through the system, users are allowed to create data. For this reason specific types of data that can be introduced by civil protection bodies have been prescribed, ensuring the direct access to users belonging to the Body that introduces them into the system and to the users of other Bodies who are registered to the system. Indicatively, the data types that can be mapped include the locations of shelters and camps, the locations of dikes in rivers, firebreak zones etc. as well as critical points and areas such as those that are usually flooded and those areas that face landslide risks. The selection of these data categories is related to the fact that these data are not available and readily accessible through other sources, while their availability presents a particular benefit in the implementation of disaster management processes. In parallel, the user has the ability to insert additional data (attributes) that are related to the abovementioned categories of data in order to describe each type inserted by the user. Table 4 presents the data types as well as the additional attributes that can be inserted by users.
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Table 4. Categories of data
Critical infrastructures & areas Types of data inserted by the user
Additional Information inserted by the user
Shelters areas
Location, Area (in m2), Number of people able to accept
Camp areas
Location, Area (in m2), Number of people able to accept
Wastewater treatment plants
Location, Installation Name, Type of wastewater (Residential Industrial), Number of served inhabitants, Daily wastewater volume (m3)
Illegal landfills
Location, Municipal area
Landfills
Location, Settlements Population
High nuisance installations
Location, Installation type
Installations exposed to Domino effect
Location, Installation type
Irish crossings
Location, Stream crossing, Street name
Rivers embankments
Location, River name, Embankment length (in km), Embankment height (in m)
Vulnerable spots of embankments
Location, River name
Artificial break points of embankments
Location, River name
Dams-Reservoirs
Location, Name, Reservoir volume (in m3), Dam height, Type of dam (concrete; soil), Electricity generation (Yes; No)
Sluices
Location, River/Lake name
Usually flooded areas
Location, Area type (urban, intercity road, rural area)
Water tanks
Location, Water quantity (m3)
Suburban forests where curfew is imposed
Location, Area (in ha), Tree Species
Fire guardhouses
Location,
Fire hydrants
Location
Firebreaks
Location. Length (in m)
Areas prone to landslides
Location
Tunnels
Location, Road/Highway
Public buildings under seismic control
Location, Agency housed in the building, Seismic control (Yes, No, In progress)
Aqueducts
Location
Salt storage areas
Location, Salt quantity
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serving,
Serviced
For the purpose of creating spatial data, a web-GIS editor has been developed, in order to allow users to add/edit the relevant data. Figure 17 shows an example of a shelter’s area mapping, as well as the way additional data can be inserted, filling in the relevant pop-up form.
Figure 17. Critical infrastructures and areas functionality • Manage-Machineries & Means Trying to cover the basic need of gathering the types, the number, the spatial position and the characteristics of the machineries and means, which are in the disposal of civil protection authorities, a functionality for machineries’ management has been developed. The functionality is based on web-GIS editing, allowing users that belong to bodies and agencies to specify the spatial position of the machineries belonging to their agency and to insert data that characterize these machineries. The system includes default types of machineries, providing capabilities to insert additional types if needed. Through this functionality, the user can also view the machineries that belong to other bodies and agencies. Figure 18 presents the process of inserting the geospatial position of machineries and the filling process of the related characteristics, while Figure 19 presents the tabular form in which the machineries of the Body and their characteristics are included, as well as the tabular form in which the machineries of other Bodies are presented.
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Figure 18. Machineries-means functionality
Figure 19. Machineries-means in a tabular form • Manage – Human Resources Covering the need of accumulating details regarding the personnel that belongs to a Body that has been registered in the system, in the Human Resources functionality, the user of the system is able to manage/edit his/her contacts 76
(e.g. employees of the Body that have been registered in the system) or other members of his Body. Furthermore, contact details of person’s belonging to other civil protection Bodies could be inserted in the system. All these contacts can be grouped and notified through SMS and email, via the event reporting functionality. • View – Events The notification of the events within the system is carried out through the collection and display of all the events and their relevant information into a common map, and by sending emails and sms-text on mobile phones, in which also the related information is contained. Event’s monitoring within the system is performed in the events’ (View-Events) functionality, where all reports are gathered and displayed in a common map. Figure 20 presents the outcome of several reports. Through the functionality, the user can search events based on the date they have been reported. The map also displays the reports that have been performed by other “Bodies”, which are registered in the system.
Figure 20. Accumulation of reported events on a map Furthermore, the user can see all the additional information for each event that has been included in the report, as well as to store the report as a disaster in case that an event has acquired disaster’s characteristics according to the user.
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Figure 21. Reported event’s attributes • View – Disasters For those events which are considered as serious, having received disaster characteristics, the user can store them in a disasters database through the View-Events functionality. Afterwards, these events are displayed in a separate menu entitled “Disasters”. Figure 22 presents the outcome of characterizing the reported technological accident of Figure 21, as a disaster.
Figure 22. Events that have been characterized as a disaster. 78
In addition, the user can fill-in a form with relevant fields to describe the cause of the phenomenon, the characteristics that it has received, the consequences, the actions that have been undertaken by involved actors, in order to respond to the disaster, as well as to describe the overall effectiveness of the response. These fields have been specified in accordance to the “Xenokratis” plan and this accumulation of information contributes to the development of the disaster folder that has to be completed by civil protection agencies. At the same time, in order to assist the user in filling in these fields, additional information about possible options are provided, guiding the user about the possible content of each field. Table 5 and Table 6 contain the information provided for the completion of fields per disaster phenomenon. Table 5. Fields that are included in the disasters’ functionality
Disasters Fields
Floods
Wildfires
Landslides
Earthquakes
Regional Unit, Location
Date Time Duration
Fire suppression duration
Disaster area
Water District, Basin, Regional Unit, Flooded Area, River/ Stream/Lake Name
Regional Unit, Location, Forest Agency area
Regional Unit, Location, Elevation
Disaster cause
Flood Mechanism (Natural overflow Dikes’ excess, Failure of dikes or infrastructure, Flow obstruction, Other)
Physical cause, Arson by negligence, Arson with intent, Unknown cause
Geological structure, Aquifer, Disintegration Action of flora and fauna, Charging slope, Slope support, Other
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Disasters Disaster characteristics
Flood Characteristics (Flash flood, Other flash flood, Mean evolution flood, Slow evolution flood, Sludge transfer, High speed flow Deep flood, Other) Τotal rain height (in mm), Max water flow rate (in m3/s), Flooded Area (in ha.)
Wildfire Type (Ground, Surface or creeping, Crown , Other) Total burnt area (in ha.), Land uses of burnt areas (Forest, Wooded area Agricultural area, Grassland)
Number of affected buildings, Affected Infrastructure (Road network, Railway network, Utility networks
Number of affected buildings, Affected infrastructure
Epicenter, Magnitude
Injuries
Deaths Impacts on infrastructures
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Number of affected buildings, Affected Infrastructure (Road network, Railway network, Dams, Tunnels, Bridges, Utility networks)
Number of affected buildings, Affected Infrastructure Transport network, Bridges Tunnels, Transmission and distribution electricity networks, Water/ wastewater networks, Dams Sewage treatment plants. Facilities of hazardous substances storage, Cultural monuments, Other
Disasters Other impacts
Area of flooded crops (in ha.)
Area of burned tree crops (in ha.), Impacts on the environment (Flora Fauna, Protected areas)
Allocated means-forces List of actions undertaken Remarks Propositions for response’s improvement
Table 6. Fields that are included in the disasters’ functionality Disasters Fields
Technological Accidents
Snowfalls-Frost
Strong winds
Hailstorms
Regional Unit, Area, Event Site (Industrial installation, Road network, Railway network, Sealine network, Energy distribution network Station/Νode), Installation name
Regional Unit, Location, Elevation
Regional Unit, Location, Elevation
Regional Unit, Location
Date
Time
Duration Disaster area
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Disasters Disaster cause
Accident Cause (Natural phenomenon Failure of machinery / equipment, Human mistake, Organizational malfunction, Result of Domino effect, Deliberate act, Other)
Disaster characteristics
Accident Type (Leak - Liquid in the groundLiquid in waterGas heavier than the air - Gas lighter than air/ steamSolid substance in the air- Solid substance in water - Solid matter in the ground, Fire – Ignition- Fire - lake - Rapid fire - Fireball- Jet fire, Explosion - Gas/ vapor cloudDust explosion Burst pressureBLEVE - Rapid phase change - Explosive decompositionRapid reaction Accident Result (Shock wave, Heat release, Substances release) Substances
Injuries Deaths
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Snow Ηeight (in cm), Equivalent precipitation height (in mm)
Max wind speed (in km/h), Wind Direction
Average hail diameter (in cm
Disasters Impacts on infrastructures
Damages in the installation
Main Impacts (Road closures, Railway network closure, Blocking of settlements, Road accidents, Damages to crops, Damages to infrastructure)
Impacts (Damages to buildings, Damages to the electricity network, Road accidents)
Other impacts
Impacts on the environment (Air pollution, Water pollution, Pollution of soil, Impact on flora
Damages on crops
Tree falls
Allocated means-forces
Impacts on fauna)
Area of affected crops (in ha.)
List of actions undertaken Remarks Propositions for response’s improvement
Necessary information for completing these fields have been obtained from existing disaster databases and forms such as the EMARS, the European Severe Weather Database (ESWD) and the floods’ listing form of YPEKA. • View – Documents The system provides the ability to import and share documents related to civil protection and disaster management. These documents can be stored in a common repository accessible by all registered users in the system or in a repository that collects only the documents of each Organization- Body. Through the common repository the direct exchange of documents such as plans, circulars, memoranda of actions, and any other valuable documents in the context of disaster management can be exchanged between registered Bodies. In parallel, the common repository includes by default documents that constitute the civil protection base in Greece (e.g. Legislation texts, plans, circulars), as these have been elaborated by the General Secretariat of Civil Protection.
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Figure 23. Documents functionality • Climate & Weather Data Recognizing the importance of access to weather and climate data, weather forecasts for various cities in Western Macedonia, Central Macedonia and East Macedonia and Thrace provided by the system, issued by EMY, with a 72-hour term.
Figure 24. Climatic and weather data 84
• Maps & Data The iDSS can visualize spatial data, which have been collected from various sources (e.g. Geodata, YPEKA) and were classified into categories based on their relevance to the various catastrophic phenomena.
Figure 25. Spatial Data viewer • Plan - Actions With a view to improving the planning and preparedness level of actors involved in disaster management, civil protection actions described in the circulars issued by the General Secretariat have been codified and the results of this coding is visualized through the system, after the appropriate search operations and actions, based on predetermined criteria. • Routing Though the routing functionality, the system indicates on a map the route that can be followed by civil protection vehicles and means in case of disaster. The user specifies the Origin (O) and the Destination (D) and the functionality indicates the optimal, least-cost route (in terms of travel time). It also indicates additional information regarding directions for the road links that should be followed, as well as the time and the distance for the respective route.
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Figure 26. Routing functionality • Traffic The system provides the ability to connect with third-party traffic information services. Within the framework of the project, a connection with the open traffic data portal opendata.imet.gr has been established and integrated into the iDSS, through which real time traffic data are made available. Therefore, for cities and areas where traffic data are available and are provided through the open data portal, Bodies that have operational capacity (e.g. the Police, the Fire Brigade) and mobilize their means in case of a disaster can be informed about real time traffic conditions, considering the importance of road network’s condition knowledge during the disaster response.
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Figure 27. Traffic conditions’ visualization functionality • Conclusions The inclusion of a decision support system in civil protection processes implies the recognition of the roles of actors in the planning process, the realization of broader needs, the recognition and study of best practices and corresponding systems, the identification of bodies’ roles and the final system design based on synergies and processes developed in disaster management. Using a common integrated GIS-based system by all involved bodies at different levels of administration is a necessity in order to meet various civil protection and disaster management requirements, as it allows the easy exchange of geospatial data between involved actors, the provision of early warning in case of emergencies and disasters and the effective dissemination of information related to catastrophic events. As necessary steps to the further development of the existing system are the collection and digitalization of various kinds and volumes of geospatial data, which requires intensive effort, and their integration into existing operations with a view of jointly processing and managing such data by all involved actors. Another important parameter is the harmonization of the system with historical disaster databases officially used at European level, as well as the collaboration platform with early warning systems (e.g. severe weather), as well as assessment-evaluation functions risk.
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E-LEARNING PLATFORM AND EDUCATIONAL SEMINARS
E-LEARNING PLATFORM AND EDUCATIONAL SEMINARS An e-learning platform has been developed during the course of the DECIDE project in order to address a series of weaknesses in regard to civil protection and disaster management applications that have been identified prior to the implementation of the DECIDE project. These regard among others the inability of local communities to promptly and effectively deal with dangers’ appearance before they turn to disasters due to lack of sufficient training, the difficulties for public authorities to confront and manage difficult situations due to lack of experience and the overall lack of population’s and authorities’ education and training regarding dangers’ prevention and response. To this end, the e-learning platform has been developed in an effort to create a knowledge portal in the fields of civil protection and disaster management and facilitate distant learning, education and training of individual users and authorities in these issues. This section describes the platform that has been set-up and brief guidelines for using it; the educational content itself has been derived from the several activities and reports produced in DECIDE as discussed in previous sections. In detail the platform content includes all educational and training material produced during the three educational seminars that have been conducted during the project, both in text and video format.
▌The Moodle platform The DECIDE e-learning platform is based on Moodle (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment). Moodle was originally developed in 2002 to help educators create online courses with a focus on interaction and collaborative construction of content. Since then, it is in continual evolution. It is translated into over 100 different languages and is accessible in many countries worldwide. Moodle is provided as a free, open source software that can be used, modified and freely distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. Moodle is certified Learning Tool Interoperability (LTI) v2.0 compliant. The LTI™ certification is a global technical standard of integrating learning applications. Users can integrate and present externally hosted applications and content within a single Moodle platform without having to develop and maintain custom integrations. Its development is based on pedagogical principles and used for blended learning, distance education, flipped classroom and other e-learning projects in schools, universities, workplaces and other sectors. The stated philosophy of Moodle includes a constructivist and social constructionist approach to 89
education, emphasizing that learners (and not just teachers) can contribute to the educational experience. Using these pedagogical principles, Moodle provides an environment for learning communities. It has customizable management features and is mostly used to create private websites with online courses for educators and trainers to achieve learning goals. Moodle as a learning platform can enhance existing learning environments. As an E-learning tool, Moodle has a wide range of standard and innovative features such as calendar and Gradebook, although not all of its features are utilized in DECIDE. The heart of Moodle is courses that contain activities and resources. There are about 20 different types of activities available (forums, glossaries, wikis, assignments, quizzes, choices (polls), SCORM players, databases etc) and each can be customized. The main power of this activity-based model comes in combining the activities into sequences and groups, which can help users guide participants through learning paths. Thus, each activity can build on the outcomes of previous ones. Moodle allows for extending and tailoring learning environments using community sourced plugins. Plugins are a flexible tool set, allowing Moodle users to extend the features of the site. As of April 2015, there are over 1,000 plugins available for Moodle. Moodle runs without modification on Unix, Linux, FreeBSD, Windows, OS X, NetWare and any other systems that support PHP and a database, including webhost providers. It also has import features for use with other specific systems, such as importing quizzes or entire courses from Blackboard or WebCT. It is addressed to a variety of institutions and individuals, including: • Universities • High schools • Primary schools • Government departments • Healthcare organisations • Military organisations • Airlines • Home schoolers • Independent educators
▌The DECIDE e-learning platform Figure 28 depicts the front-page of the DECIDE e-learning platform. This page is the first page reached from the user’s browser and includes information about 90
the establishment itself.
Figure 28: Front-page of the DECIDE e-learning platform On the left of the screen, the user is presented with a navigation guide of the platform, while on the right there is calendar depicting current date or scheduled events. In the middle of the screen, the content of the platform is made visible to the user and regards the DECIDE education material. On the upper right corner there exists the possibility for the user to log in the e-learning platform. In general, the way users join a Moodle site depends on the establishment: they might be given logins; they might be allowed to make accounts themselves, or they might be signed in automatically from another system. In DECIDE, they can access the content of the platform by logging in as guests, without a need to enrol. (Figure 29).
Figure 29: Log in to the DECIDE e-learning platform 91
The DECIDE e-learning platform basic structure is organized around courses. These are pages or areas within the platform where trainers can present their learning resources and activities to participants. They can have different layouts but they usually include a number of central sections, where materials are displayed and side blocks offering extra features or information. Courses are then organized into categories. Educational material, exercises, manual of use might come under the DECIDE DSS for instance (Figure 30).
Figure 30: Inside the DECIDE e-learning platform: Introductory courses, training courses and use of the intelligent Decision Support System The ‘current course’ of the DECIDE e-learning platform includes the following content, which will be enriched after the project’s end: • • • • •
General Introduction 1st Educational Seminar on Geographic Information Systems 2nd Educational Seminar on Geographic Information Systems 3rd Education Seminar on the use DECIDE intelligent Decision Support System
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• Manual of use DECIDE intelligent Decision Support System • Exercises on civil protection • Video material of educational seminars Courses can contain content for studies with given duration or focus (e.g. civil protection exercises for periods within a calendar year), single session (e.g. educational material) or any other variants depending on the trainer or establishment. All courses can be used by one trainer/teacher or shared by a group of them. As observed, the ‘current course’ mainly includes GIS oriented exercises, which are structured in a step-by step form, in order to introduce users to the basic GIS principles, as well as provide an introduction to GIS use in disaster management processes. Furthermore, a special section of civil protection exercises has been formed, in which the platform provides to users specific disasters’ scenarios that have been developed within the DECIDE project. Civil protection agencies and authorities can get advantage of these scenarios, by using them (as such or by extending them) to the simulations exercises (table-top or field) that they organize. The way participants enroll and attend these courses generally depends on the Moodle establishment; for example they can self-enroll, be enrolled manually by their trainer or automatically by the admin. The latter is the case for the DECIDE e-learning platform.
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OVERVIEW OF THE DECIDE FINAL EVENT
On June 30, 2016, the final event of the DECIDE project was conducted in the city of Amintaio. Several representatives of bodies, authorities and administrations responsible for civil protection and disaster management were invited to participate. The final event included speeches and presentations on behalf of the project partners regarding the findings and contributions of the DECIDE project and the presentation of the intelligent Decision Support System to all participants. In addition, invited keynote speakers provided among other their input and expertise on current prevention and response management of civil protection events at various levels of administrations. Figure 35 depicts the agenda of the final event of the DECIDE project and the respective presentations given by project partners and external experts.
Figure 31: Agenda of the final event of the DECIDE project 95
In detail, Mrs Maria Kotoula, representing the subcontractor of the Lead Partner, Municipality of Amintaio, for the DECIDE project, welcomed all the participants in the Cultural Centre of Amintaio and thanked Μr. Konstantinos Theodoridis, the mayor, the staff of the Municipality and the researchers of the Hellenic Institute of Transport of the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH-HIT), which is Partner in the programme. She also referred to the experts from the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia that did not manage to participate in the Final Event. Finally, she underlined the importance of the output of DECIDE project, the iDSS, in the context of civil protection. Mr Avramidis Avraam, vice mayor of Municipality of Amintaio, took the floor and welcomed all the participants on behalf of the Mayor. Mr Avramidis spoke for the role of Municipalities in the civil protection and highlighted the significance of such projects for the Municipalities and all the involved bodies. Mr Ilias Katanas, Consultant for Civil Protection from the Region of Western Macedonia, took the floor and had a short speech for the civil protection of Western Macedonia. He also referred to the significance of new technologies in civil protection services and mentioned the related “SAFE EVROS” Conference that took place in Alexandroupolis Greece on 22-25 June 2016. Afterwards, Mr Stergios Kianas, from the project team of Lead Partner, started with the initial presentantion for the “The importance of civil protection in the management of disastrous phenomena in the local authorities. Mr Stergios Kianas started with general facts and impacts of disaster phenomena, he referred to the Legislative Framework related to civil protection, and the involved bodies and he underlined the role of Municipalities both in the field of planning civil protection actions and at an operational level. He concluded that the role of local authorities for Civil Protection is fundamental, as they are closer to the needs of citizens and the first to react in case of a disaster. The session continued with Mr Nikos Mosxovidis, representative from the Civil Protection Directorate of Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace, who gave a detailed presentation for “Prevention and Response Management of civil protection emergency events at decentralized level”. The next session was related to the DECIDE Project. Dr. Evangelos Mitsakis, associate researcher at CERTH-HIT, took the floor and presented the contribution of the Decide Project in disaster management. Initially, he stressed the necessity for dealing with natural and manmade hazards associated with serious damages and emergency situations in the cross-border area of Greece and FYROM and for developing powerful tools and processes that will facilitate 96
the optimal management of dangers and emergency situations, as well as for creating cooperation mechanisms between involved bodies. He stated that DECIDE main target is the reinforcement of the local authorities’ capabilities to effectively and efficiently coordinate the prevention and response to natural and manmade hazards, while its main tool is the development of the intelligent DECIDE Decision Support System (DSS). He then outlined that the contribution of the DECIDE project was implemented through defining the functionality and the operation of the civil protection mechanism that defined the user needs that have been incorporated in the design and development of the Decision Support System of the DECIDE project. At this point, Dr. Evangelos Mitsakis mentioned some conclusions, regarding the situation of civil protection, including gaps in structures, operational weaknesses of the mechanism, inefficiencies in coordination and collaboration and decision making difficulties. He also proposed some measures of improvement. Afterwards, he referred to the contribution of Decision Support Systems in civil protection and presented a basic approach for the architecture of the DSS and its functional requirements. He continued with a reference to the seminars, that were conducted in the context of DECIDE Project, and to the outputs of the Project and he closed with suggestions for the further use and effectiveness of the DECIDE DSS. On the side of CERTH-HIT, Mr Sokratis Mamarikas gave a detailed presentation regarding the “The use of new technologies in the management of disastrous phenomena – The Intelligent Decision Support System DECIDE DSS”, where provided information about the design and the development of the DECIDE DSS, followed by a demonstration of the DECIDE DSS functionalities. Afterwards, Mrs Basiliki Koutalou, representing the subcontractor of the study of the Lead Partner, took the floor and gave a “Presentation of the results of the study on natural disasters in the region of Amyntaio”. She mentioned that in the area of Amintaio the disasters that may occur are earthquakes, landslides, flooding, fire and landslides due to mining activities. She described each phenomenon and concluded that the area of Amintaio is vulnerable mainly to flooding. She closed the presentation with a reference to flood prevention measures. After her presentation a discussion was held, regarding the flooding mechanisms of the complicated water system of the area. Mr Iosif Papadopoulos, representing the Regional Unit of Pella, expressed opinions and facts about the system of the four lakes. The last presentation was given from Mr Evangelos Katsaros, Researcher of Western Macedonia University, and was about the “European initiatives and 97
results capitalization prospects in the field of Civil Protection”. He stated that more initiatives are necessary to joint cross border interregional activities for effective and efficient disasters prevention, preparedness and management policies. In this context, he suggested the reinforcement of information and communication activities to citizens, the creation of common platform, including language and visual/audio signs, that will enable the development of common standards, and the improvement of the competencies and skills of civil protection professionals. Moreover, he underlined the elements for an extensive European cooperation in civil protection systems and the role of media while he stressed the need for more joint exercises along with the creation of an interregional network among agents to contribute in civil protection field. Finally, Dr. Evangelos Mitsakis discussed with the representatives from the public bodies about the possibilities of actual operational deployment application of the Intelligent Decision Support System DECIDE DSS by relevant authorities. and they It was concluded that, initially, CERTH – HIT will need to explore both a top-down approach, have to involving the inform the General Secretariat of Civil Protection about the platform, as it is responsible for the Planning of National Policy for Disaster Risk Reduction as well as a bottom-up approach, involving municipal and regional civil protection agencies.
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▌FINAL PUBLICATION
Published in Greece • 2016 ISBN: 978-618-80673-5-6
▌ EDITORIAL TEAM
Evangelos Mitsakis Iraklis Stamos Georgia Aifantopoulou Sokratis Mamarikas CERTH Center for Research and Technology Hellas HIT Hellenic Institute of Transport 6th km Charilaou-Thermi Rd., 57001 Thermi, Thessaloniki, Greece Website: www.hit.certh.gr
▌ WEBSITE ADDRESS FOR DECIDE PROJECT www.decide-project.eu
▌DISCLAIMER The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union, the participating countries and the Managing Authority.
▌IPA-CBC PROGRAMME INFORMATION Greece – the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia IPA Cross-Border programme» 2007-2013 is a cross-border cooperation Programme co-financed by the European Union under the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA). The Programme focuses on promoting sustainable economic and social development in the border areas and assisting co-operation for addressing common challenges in fields such as the environment, natural and cultural heritage and public health. The Global Objective of the Programme is “to enhance convergence in the programme area by promoting sustainable local development”. The total budget of the Programme for the period 2007-2013 is 31.549.722,00 €.
