A situational awareness framework for improving earthquake response, recovery and resilience

When we think of understanding the impact on the buildings of a city from an earthquake we imagine structural engineers assessing structures and the local area through measurements and readings. However, the access to such areas is not always straightforward and nor is it necessarily possible to have enough manpower to complete these analyses. Instead, crowdsourcing and smart sensors can be utilized in both the pre and post disaster phases using information witnesses to give enhanced situational awareness to those coordinating the earthquake response effort. Even in remote areas many people have access to smartphones, wearable technology and mobile internet access. Furthermore, with the advent of smart cities, further sensors can be placed strategically on infrastructure and transmit information about its structural health. Dedicated mobile applications can be used to capture reports, photographs and videos of vulnerable infrastructure before and after an earthquake. These photos and reports can then be mapped to identify areas where structures or critical infrastructure are most at risk or where other secondary effects may occur. This can be done before sending in expensive manpower to areas that may not yet be safe. Moreover, those who are submitting information do so in the knowledge that they are contributing to a faster and more efficient response, providing vital information about where resource can be most effectively used, and, in return, closing the intelligence loop, receive situational awareness information about their immediate environment. We present an initial situational awareness framework for earthquake management that encompasses the preparedness, response and recovery phases. It is envisaged that this framework will help develop more effective risk assessment and management frameworks for structures and critical infrastructure (e.g. industrial facilities).