Strengthening Disaster Risk Reduction Across the Americas Summit - Simulated Exercise Engineering Report

Demonstrate how the international EO community can support emergency management, response, and disaster risk reduction by providing timely, actionable, and relevant products and tools to improve decision making.

Foster collaboration and learning between all stakeholders.

Simulate a disaster scenario to test participants’ ability to adapt to rapidly changing conditions.

Publishing this report as a Public Engineering Report that will be accessible to anyone in the world;

Presenting the findings of this report in the Emergency & Disaster Management DWG;

Developing the idea of a pilot to better advance the discovery and access of data when a disaster occurs; and

Running and supporting future exercises to further advance cross-collaboration among communities involved in disaster preparation and response.

Information must be understood by all levels of decision makers. Much elaborated EO products. Case of useful examples. Training on EO products for DRR. It is important to share the level of accuracy of given products to decision makers to accurately represent/decide upon its weight in each decision-making process.

We need products obtained in real time.

Researchers need more support on different EO products like SAR for emergencies. Researchers need raw data instead of PDF, and a database access to all available data.

We (data producers) need to have access to references (like the presentations shown in these talks) to make better products. We need to understand much better what kind of product is needed by DRR managers.

Access to different kind of auxiliary maps

We need communication centers and communication protocols.

Inform the availability of new products by using newsfeed.

We need disaster (hazards) monitoring systems.

We need specific working groups and research institutes on different disasters types.

We need products and data catalogs about DRR and how to contact data producers. Information available on the Internet is very helpful and reduces searching times. Information Interoperability is another desirable option. In the case where the data is available on websites, navigation, searching or other tools must be incorporated/improved. Some countries like Guyana need assistance to develop and enhance those tools.

Group collaboration between experts and youth professionals must be encouraged to promote the effective knowledge and experience sharing and correct use of data.

A method about how to collaborate more effectively with agencies that work in the same fields of development. We need coordination tools and much better organization between DRR players.

We need to know if it is possible to update DRR information during the event. Have a communication channel with EO data producers to request more specific products.

We need vulnerability maps and potential hazards to prepare contingency and evacuation plans. Temporal series studies are important. Auxiliary information like population distribution, economic activities, biodiversity to evaluate precisely the vulnerability.

We need historical data, statistics to improve data surveying.

This summit accomplished its goal and helped to bring ideas, share knowledge, best practices and make partnerships that will help to solve problems in LAC. We discovered new collaboration options.

The availability of basic and standard information promotes the generation of a common language among different disciplines.

It had some real-life lessons embedded in the simulation.

As an organization that works with flood mapping, we better understand the urgency and reliability that these EO solutions should be for DRR.

We experienced the problems of chaos and communication during an emergency process. We learned how to overcome those difficulties.

Data was really useful.

I learned that specific products for hotspot detection, volcanic ash monitoring, vegetation health and others exist.

We learned how to work with other groups.

We could understand the pro and cons of each EO products. It was really important to collaborate with each other without restrictions.

Sometimes information didn’t reach us on time or was only seen on screens. It is very difficult to start the activation protocols. Not all data were available.

Lots of information but not easy to access.

Sometimes hazard managers do not understand or misuse EO data and products.

As an EO provider, I know the data that people need during a disaster event is not always available.

Depends if managers know what kind data they need to request.

Better communication between data producers and users is a priority. During an emergency, event communication must be clear.

Understand necessities by having a better communication with users and stakeholders.

Improve delivery of data on time. Coordinate time of data obtained, production, delivery, and procedures.

Data useful for DRR must be opened and made available, which is not the case in some countries of LAC.

Most of the participants were willing to help others in the assigned task and they thought that they had the opportunity to share an important amount of knowledge.

The beginning of the exercise was somewhat chaotic. The participants suggest to have more information at the beginning of the activity. The participants were not aware of their individual capabilities and they failed to develop a management method for the data incoming from other groups.

The participants had management problems because one person (the leader) was not able to oversee all the activities occurring in the group.

The beginning of the exercise was confusing, the participants had some problems with understanding their own roles.

The participants had issues understanding the difference between how to submit products (e.g. data) and how to ask for products.

The participants experienced communication difficulties due to the size of the group.

Due to the extension in time of the exercise, people began to superimpose tasks without intention.

The participants found that the sector leader must know the nature of the disaster event and the area because without that knowledge it will be very difficult to know what kind of EO product will be useful to provide.

During the process, the participants understood other groups' difficulties and acted upon those difficulties (i.e., when there was excessive cloud cover).

What helped the most for this group was the shared common technical language, a willingness to collaborate each other, and good communication among different spoken languages and cultural behaviors.

The beginning of the activity was chaotic but the participants were able to organize themselves into different thematic groups by type of disaster.

The group dynamics were good. The participants quickly adapted to different procedures and requirements under high pressure.

The participants were successful working as a real team. They had good communication and traction to the proposed activities.

The weakest point was the lack of skills mainly in social science and disasters that in some occasions precluded the participants to anticipate emerging problems and plan appropriately.

The participants found that communication among groups must be improved.

The participants expressed the importance of a central data repository where they could put their data and products to increase efficiency and response time.

The group found it hard to manage incoming messages because most of the messages arrived out of time.

The participants invested too much time checking the validity of incoming messages.

In general, the interaction with other sectors was difficult.

Cooperation could be much better if there are more precise "rules of play.""

At the beginning, the participants experienced some difficulties trying to understand their own rules as a humanitarian group.

The participants remarked that the exercise was long in time which resulted, as the simulation progressed, in a lack of focus on their own aims.

The positive experience was that the participants felt they worked in harmony and they could understand each other due to the use of common vocabulary.

At the beginning of the exercise, the participants had some coordination problems, but as the simulation progressed, each member of this group adapted and found their own role and task. Consequently, the participants worked in synchrony and the directions were executed dynamically.

The negative part was that it took too much time for the participants to do their task and deliver the requested products, due to the group expending too much effort trying to provide a perfect product.

The participants had some communication problems with the SimCell and other groups.

Sometimes the participants did not know what kind of products or services could be requested.

The participants experienced some delay when they requested primary information from other groups.

The participants worked mainly with the humanitarian group.

At the beginning of the exercise, it was a complete chaos.

The participants noted the need for better protocols and the lack of enough primary information.

The participants had communication problems within the group and they saw that sometimes that the assigned roles were not always respected.

The participants incorporated some extra technology like WhatsApp improving the communications.

Most of the time, this group followed the exercise without information being provided from the other groups since the groups forgot to send reports to the executive group regularly.

The “president” remarked that a subgroup proposed to deal with social upheaval by a means of a military coup (as she stated, but probably was a misinterpretation of declaration of a state of siege, a task that was performed without consulting the government).

Government (Executive)

Disaster Managers (DM)

Earth Observations (EO)

Researchers (RES)

Humanitarian (HUM)

Commercial Companies (COM)

A lead that coordinated how they sector group responded during the exercise;

A note taker connected to the internet who observed the exercise play and recorded major decisions and how they were resolved;

A point of contact for all communications in and out of the group; and

A representative to report key decisions to the Executive.

The Director oversaw the conduct of the exercise (from setup to clean up), maintained contact with Controllers and Evaluators, and debriefed Controllers and Evaluators following the exercise.

Evaluators documented observations, captured unresolved issues, and analyzed exercise results. Evaluators did not interfere with exercise flow. Chosen based on their expertise in the specific functional areas.

Facilitators were responsible for keeping participant discussions on track with exercise objectives and ensuring all issues were explored as thoroughly as possible within the time constraints. They assisted and raised any issues to the Exercise Director, and controlled the flow of scenario injects. Facilitators communicate with Controllers and ensure that all SE player roles run as smoothly as possible.

Controllers directed the pace of exercise play, provided key data to players, and prompted or initiated certain player actions to ensure exercise continuity. Controllers issued exercise materials to players as required, monitored the exercise timeline, and supervised the safety of all exercise participants. Two Controllers were available for each sector. Controllers were responsible for ensuring that Injects (see below) were acted upon by players. Controllers communicated with the Facilitators and Exercise Director to resolve any problems.

Observers supported the development of player responses to the situation by asking relevant questions, delivering messages, or providing background references where required. Observers did not directly participate in the exercise. They observed selected segments of the exercise as it unfolded while remaining separated from player activities. Observers viewed the exercise from a designated observation area and are were to remain within the observation area during the exercise.

The Simulation Cell (SimCell) provided communications between players and a wide variety of simulated external agencies (e.g., first responders). The SimCell provided realistic, real-time, two-way communications (email for this exercise) between players and simulated response and support agencies. The SimCell controlled the flow of injects (e.g., timing of events related to the simulated disaster) to specific sectors and answered any requests directed to them by the players. The SimCell was physically separated from the main group of players.

The Situation Reporting Cell (SitRepCell) coordinated with the Controllers and the sector leads and note takers to keep a running report of sector progress through the scenario during exercise play. The SitRepCell monitored the note taker via shared documents (GoogleDocs in this case), SimCell emails, and queried sector Controllers, as necessary, to maintain the reports. They did not engage in exercise play.

The Contextual Injects simulated activities that prompted players to demonstrate capabilities required to achieve the objectives. Contextual Injects included events, requests, directives, and decisions made by non-playing and simulated entities. The injects drove exercise play towards the achievement of objectives and helped build the exercise operating environment. Each inject had a set of naturally expected actions that players initiated in response to the simulation.

The Contingency Injects were implemented after a player has had adequate time to demonstrate an action, but was not observed carrying out this action. The contingency injects ensured that play moved forward and that expected actions occurred.

The Expected Player Actions indicated to Controllers and Evaluators when certain significant player actions should have happened naturally, without being prompted by a Contextual inject. Failure for an expected action to occur was communicated to the players via a contingency inject.