A look at how the European Commission’s CRISYS project aims to assist the population, environment and economy by helping achieve better protection and a more rapid return to a reasonable quality of life in the aftermath of a crisis
by Critical Response In SecuritY and Safety Team 7th Framework
The EU regularly suffers from natural and man-made disaster, the social and economic consequences of which may adversely affect its growth and competitiveness. There is evidence of a growing vulnerability to disasters and subsequently an urgent need to improve the operational capabilities of the Member States.
Furthermore, the Lisbon Treaty will enlarge the role of the EU and allow stronger coordinated activities for support to crisis management outside the EU. Though the EU Civil Protection policy is increasingly targeting the prevention of crisis, these cannot always be avoided and they are affecting citizens with greater frequency.
Although the main technologies for crisis management are reasonably available, civil Protection and crisis management are not typical research issues. Key emphasis is therefore given in this project to developing close contacts with local and national administrations and first responders to validate what and how to deploy innovative solutions.
Research and development must continuously innovate as threats evolve but we also believe that in a Phase1 we should concentrate upon providing insight into existing and developing solutions in a common demonstration environment.
The major challenge is to link approaches, technical solutions, procedures, standards etc. for civil protection thus allowing for a faster and more appropriate response to natural and man-made threats in EU countries and if needed abroad. The CRISYS project, (Critical Response In SecuritY and Safety emergencies), covers the role that Europe intends to adopt subsequent to the implementation of the new Lisbon Treaty and also considers a stronger civil-military mutual support (technologies, operations).
Emergency aftermath
Part of the FP7 Research Programme, the CRISYS project has over 15 months studied EU emergency aftermath arrangements, with the aim of developing a strategic roadmap capable of full implementation as an integrated and scalable crisis management system. Uniquely this study has considered response inside and outside Europe from the perspective of the end user to capitalise on existing relevant experience and available assets while forging solid networks and wide awareness with crisis management actors, be they first responders, governments, suppliers or other participants within this field.
It is well recognised that the crisis management business process involves multi-layered interaction between many actors, each having distinctive responsibilities and all operating within challenging circumstances and time frames. One consequence is that those exercising judgment and making decisions in this complex environment require a resilient yet agile framework that can meet their multiple needs at many different emergency events; events that are sometimes not wholly predictable and may extend from hours to years.
Focused upon these demands the CRISYS team determined to concentrate upon the twin issues of capabilities and domains. This was because a solution framework that could meet these twin demands could be universally applied in practice. Initially eight capabilities: communications-situational awareness-command and decision support-logistics and resource planning-deployment in harsh environments-search and rescue-medical care-restoration of basic services; and four domains: operations-assets-education and information technology communications; were identified.
The research has confirmed the relevance of these two foundation principles, adding detail and priority to the domain components. Unsurprisingly the study has also qualified the absolute integral importance of information, often simply referred to as data, and data communication, which we call the information highway.
In addition to this connective use of information we have consolidated into three distinct sectorial tiers; users – those having jurisdictional responsibility – the command and control leaders-and the technology support used. Using all of these elements – information – capabilities – domain – and sector, the business architecture of crisis management has then been visualised in one homogeneous CRISYS Concept Model.
Operating model
The CRISYS Concept Model is translated into a CRISYS Operating Model and a demonstration roadmap that have been constructed to allow validation of the proposed concepts, methodologies and solutions within the real physical environment through practical exercises. Three operational scenarios are suggested each containing different specific requirements. They are: (a) the deployment of resources into a remote rural area, similar to but not replicating humanitarian aid delivery outside Europe; (b) response over an extended duration in a highly urbanized community that experiences partial loss of the critical infrastructure; and (c) a short duration event entailing an aerial toxic release in an urban geographically and politically divided location.
The validation process encompassed by these scenarios is deliberately constructed to permit a variety of solutions to be evaluated using a toolbox, rather than system of systems, approach. Hence first responders to situational annalists may use different hand-tools, or alternative data communication systems might be deployed dependent upon the needs of mobile or static headquarters. Underlying this approach is the desire expressed by study respondents to build up the capacity of components through integration of existing capabilities and enhancing their interoperability rather than by seeking to drive a new singular uniformity.
This approach also reflects the dynamic nature of an event where needs change throughout the emergency time cycle, just as the immediacy of finding the nearest resources becomes supplanted by a requirement to find more sustainable longer term resources. Furthermore this holistic crisis management process is reinforced by the inclusion of significant learning opportunities for professionals and citizens.
It will be apparent that the CRISYS project recommendations, as stated below, present an interesting and challenging view, being both confirmatory yet also demanding fundamental reinterpretation of the established practices. The objective throughout has been to improve European response in the aftermath of crisis, even where response to some events is so well practiced that some judge improvement unnecessary. The stimulation throughout has been to gain advantage from the better use of the people, processes, information and technology already on offer.
Crisis response
For the EU to be able to respond more effectively, efficient and cost-effective to disasters both inside the EU and outside the EU, the following is recommended to improve crisis response operations:
- develop a common operating framework (not a fully unified system), for responses to operate more effectively in the future. A common practice, doctrine and concept of reference at EU level make the EU less reliant on Member States civil protection systems
- achieve insight into the availability and technical characteristics of assets, which remains central to capacity building and effective response
- explore the possibility to use more military assets to fill in critical gaps in EU disaster response. This way the EU capacity is further strengthened and rapid reaction to a wide range of crisis situations is made possible
- enhance harmonised (across MS and agencies) situational awareness by obtaining/using tools that allow easier geographical and spatial awareness, by enhancing legacy communication systems and by facing new demands from social media. This way fully informed decisions can be made and time and risk factors to operators and victims are reduced
- develop technologies and logistics management systems at the public private interface, to improve logistics and thus prevent deployments from being hindered
- explore the impacts and provide solutions for 2nd tier effects : for example psychological effects, ethical issues and societal resilience
- reduce risk to emergency responders by providing them with accurate and timely information relating to hazards and risks.
The improvement of learning and validation efforts in the areas mentioned below is also recommended to contribute to the improvement of the operations as recommended above:
- execute EU training and realistic exercises on a regular basis, to enhance the interoperability of assets.
- incorporate citizen engagement in response requirements, to decrease societal vulnerability.
- demonstrating and testing available infrastructure, technology and tooling in order to justify future acquisition and implementation as below.
Operations
Infrastructure, technology and tooling that allow easier geographical and spatial awareness, including strategic and tactical placements of the assets and first-responders units in the field; technology that supports a basic doctrinal framework and facilitates open source and secures information exchange; technologies that can link data interfaces including mobile and visualised systems; seamless and secure communications (satellite and digital communications, etc.) with high bandwidth even in remotest environments, interoperable with existing legacy systems and communication networks. Capacity to establish ad-hoc solutions in case of damaged infrastructures; common situational awareness improvement through introduction of available technologies like Galileo, GIS, mobile data and warehousing, modelling software and training simulation; include citizens and volunteering groups in the response process, taking into full advantage the new communication; solutions for enabling capture across a range of sensors from satellite to hand held and robotic technologies.
Other tools and efforts should cover hand held and portable technological tools to provide both a rich operational picture for adoption through all levels of both the political and command environments in multiple discipline and geographic circumstances and to improve rescue, fire fighting and medical services; knowledge extraction and processing tools that increase the ability to fuse, mine and refute, validate and dismiss information; the development of IP protocols that alert and inform the public; the authoring of lexicons, symbolism and common messaging capable of meeting national and cultural diversities would be part of this system; solutions for an up to date asset database; software solutions for fire modelling, including fire fighting and rescue scenarios; solutions for public private collaboration on supply chain and logistical delivery; surveillance manned, un-manned aircraft and satellite imagery (IR-SAR images); X-ray and advanced scanning; fingerprint taking and storage systems (victim identification) and decontamination chains.
In the long term, the achievement of improvements in operations, learning/quality management and underpinning infrastructure, technology and tools will prove to be conditionally depending on enhancements in the strategy, coordination and decision-making mechanisms. Crysis recommends to start with the improvements in parallel with the improvements in operations and learning/quality management, thus preventing them from becoming an obstacle.