Editorial pointers

COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM March 2007/Vol. 50, No. 3 5 The ferocious effects of Mother Nature, most notably in the form of Hurricane Katrina and the Indian Ocean tsunami, have motivated a growing legion of practitioners and researchers to rethink, and react, to the role IT plays and should play to enhance emergency response and crisis management. Natural disasters—hurricanes, wildfires, floods, earthquakes, and more—can have sweeping consequences and often require large-scale evacuations. Getting the needed medical assistance and information in and out of the affected areas can be an overwhelming task often fraught with danger. Technological support in the form of emergency response information systems (ERIS) can greatly enrich these efforts and most experts in the field agree an overhaul of its practices and processes is long overdue. This month’s special section presents the current state of ERIS through a series of articles that examine new trends and technologies introduced since the Katrina and tsunami disasters. It is fitting this project was spirited by two of the leading voices in ERIS reform: Bartel Van de Walle and Murray Turoff, who invited experts in this growing discipline to discuss some of the latest advances in ERIS, as well as in systems that may be applied ahead of potential disasters, such as a possible avian flu pandemic. The articles note the effectiveness of applying decision support systems, ICT-based support, agent technology, public warning systems, and global discovery management. Above all is the need to strengthen the lines of communication and information availability.