Community-based collaborative information system for emergency management

Natural and man-made disasters, such as tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, and epidemics pose a significant threat to human societies. To respond to emergencies in a fast and an effective manner, Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) is very important for the decision-making process. The provision of information concerning the ground-zero situation to the emergency management stakeholders is an essential prerequisite for MCDM. In this paper, we propose a strategy to form a community-based virtual database, which connects local resource databases of suppliers that provide information and human resources for emergency management. Such a virtual database enables collaborative information sharing among community-based NGOs, public, and private organizations within a community. Moreover, to mobilize resources, the aforementioned process raises awareness within the community and aids in assessing local knowledge and resources. In our work, we present the design, implementation, and evaluation of such a community-based database, which maximally utilizes all of the available information and network resources of a community to better manage natural and man-made disasters. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.