India Disaster Management Congress, 2009

Thematic Session: Disaster Communication & Early Warning Systems

Context:

The National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) organized the First India Disaster Management Congress in Vigyan Bhavan New Delhi on 29-30 November 2006, the largest knowledge conference on disaster management ever held in this part of the world. Dr. Manmohan Singh Prime Minister of India inaugurated the Congress. More than 1200 hundred delegates from all over India attended and 350 technical papers were presented in 18 Thematic Sessions organized around Thematic Clusters. A dialogue on Public-Private-Partnership on Disaster Risk reduction was also held at Taj Mansingh Hotel in collaboration with World Economic Forum, World Bank and UN/ISDR.

Encouraged by the resounding success of the First India Disaster Management Congress NIDM has decided to organize the Second India Disaster Management Congress in New Delhi on 4^th-6^th, November 2009 on an even larger scale.Plenary Inaugural and Valedictory Sessions shall be held in Plenary in Hotel Ashok and Vigyan Bhavan respectively, as many as 75 Technical Sessions are proposed to be organized around Thematic Clusters in different campuses - Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Indian Institute of Technology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences.Second India Disaster Management Congress is expected to bring together 1500 scientists, scholars and practitioners working on different aspects of disaster risk reduction and management across the world.

Background:

In recent years there is a phenomenal upsurge of knowledge and research on disaster management across wide range of disciplines and subjects. New frontiers of knowledge are opening up at fast pace in universities, scientific, technical and academic institutions, government agencies, corporate sectors, communities and sometimes purely on individual initiatives, but mostly in an isolated and segmented manner, without much interaction and interface among the related disciplines.

While the nature of knowledge and research in particular disciplines are such that this has to be anchored in the domain of specific disciplines, greater interaction and interface among the disciplines would serve the cause of disaster risk reduction in many ways. First, research in one discipline would be benefited by knowledge in related fields - it would validate, complement, and sometimes even correct the findings. Secondly, this would enlarge the perspectives of research in particular disciplines and provide a holistic framework for research. More importantly this would help to create a community of scholars, researchers and practitioners on disaster management who would be aware of the trend of research in different disciplines and able to interact with each other.

The National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) is strategically positioned to bring together organizations and individuals in diverse disciplines and sectors and in assembling, synthesizing and further disseminating knowledge on disaster management in diverse sectors. The Institute is already playing this role through its many activities involving multiple research organizations and individuals. All these organizations and individuals have felt the need for creating a platform where researchers and practitioners shall meet periodically, present their research papers, debate on the issues, challenges, shortcomings and opportunities and discuss the areas of mutual cooperation and road maps. India Disaster Management Congress provides this platform to the disaster management communities across the country.

Globally disasters have a more visible face than ever as observed over last one decade. Socio-economic evolution has not taken into consideration the ecosystem impacts and hence made the human population more vulnerable to impacts. Loss of traditional knowledge systems which supported livelihoods and societies over centuries have also resulted in loss of traditional coping mechanism against disasters, these mechanisms failed to evolve over time hence creating less resilient communities.

Communication & Impact:

Early warning systems that are accessible during an eventuality serve multiple functions and are increasingly recognized as a critical factor influencing the economic and human impacts of disaster and climate change. Communications systems are not a function of technology and access alone, information across these systems flows in cascades and chains between its point of origin and its ultimate use. Such cascades often involve multiple actors and multiple points where information is interpreted, reformulated and transmitted to the next set of actors. How these system processes occur is as important as the technological 'hardware' that performs the physical processes of information transmission. Information flow is a process that depends on a variety of institutional, perceptual and other softwares; as well as the static or interactive interfaces through which potential users interact with stimulus. Because potential actors along a chain of information transmission often differ culturally, educationally and socially, the software and interfaces required for effective communication will often differ as well for keeping an information system "alive" and "working".

Effective Disaster Communication Systems:

A communication system based on socially accepted values, processes and based in socio-ecological environment of the community could have greater "life" and "longevity". The role of technology, policy and institutions is to enable this facilitation for building "Alive" communication systems.

The existing global/national/regional/state/village level communication policies, systems and guidelines and their role in early warning, disasters and building adaptive capacities are to be understood contextually to evolve effective institutional support for building effective disaster communication systems.

Technology interface across hardware and software should enable both asynchronous and synchronous data transmission to ensure cross-system relay both by push as well as pull mechanism in comprehensible forms and language. Data reception systems should use Common Access Protocol (CAP) to ensure standardization and clear understanding by user community.

Disaster response and mitigation require effective and coordinated communication to avoid confusion and mayhem. Institutional cooperation framework is required for channeling information across reliable communication systems and cascades of interfaces for better response during disaster situations.

Knowledge management and packaging of information is critical for creating desired impact on the individual and community behaviour on disaster information shared. An early warning could be useless if it were not able to get the community alert in the event of an upcoming disaster situation, further if it creates panic it would do more damage. Packaging of disaster information in various modes of communication such as personalized devices (such as mobile, telephone, email etc.), mass media (newspaper, radio, television) and community media (loudspeaker, hooter, alarm etc.) is necessary to ensure that desired objective is met. Communication systems are as effective as the quality of content they carry with them.

Expected Outcome:

This session looks into issues of disaster communication and its impact in extracting response from communities during early warning, mitigation and adaptation process. The session seeks to identify institutional roles, technological options (for infrastructure and delivery) and communication products for enabling community based disaster preparedness to effectively manage eventualities, build resilience and evolve community based coping mechanisms. Evolution of these mechanism would help in decentralization of risk governance with community level institutions, who would be better prepared" and "equipped" to take mitigation steps.

Interested scientists, scholars, researchers and practitioners are invited to submit the abstracts of their papers for presentation at the Congress for the Thematic Session "Disaster Communication & Early Warning Systems".

The abstract could cover any or all topics given as under, or any other topic relevant to the thematic session

Disaster Communication for Community Behaviour Change Communication Systems for Enabling Public Private Partnerships for Disaster Management Role of Social networks in enabling communication channels for disaster information Communication Systems for building adaptive capacities - Innovations and pilots Communication Systems for disaster mitigation in Urban and peri-urban Geography Community based Communication Systems for disaster mitigation Disaster Communication Systems, analyzing policy scenario - Enabling and Disabling factors

Download Call For Abstract

The abstracts should not exceed 300 words and must be submitted on or before 31st July 2009 along with name of the author/ co-authors, designation, institutional affiliation, postal & e-mail address. Please identify the lead author.

The abstracts shall be submitted either electronically or by post to the Organizers and Facilitators of the concerned Thematic Session, also endorsing a copy to the Conference Secretariat for information. The addresses are given as under. Selection of abstracts shall be notified to the authors on or before 16th August 2009.

Please send your abstract to Email:DCS-IDMC09@ekgaon.com, mark a copy of your email to Email: dashvishy@yahoo.com and Email: idmc@nidm.net

For more information and abstract submission please visit www.ekgaon.com/dcs-idmc09/ and http://nidm.gov.in/idmc2/sessions.asp

For further information related to this session please contact:

The authors of the selected abstracts shall submit full-length papers on or before 30 September 2009 to the Organizer of the Thematic Session, Email: DCS-IDMC09@ekgaon.com endorsing a copy to the Conference Secretariat, Email: dashvishy@yahoo.com, idmc@nidm.net

Paper set up Size of paper: A4 Margins: Top 2.49 cm; Bottom 2.49 cm Left: 3 cm Right: 3 cm Maximum length: 7500 words Recommended length: 3000 words

Title of paper
Times New Roman, bold, 14 points, lower case, center aligned

Name of authors
Times New Roman, bold, 12 points, lower case, center aligned Name Designation Institution Postal address Email address

Abstract
Times New Roman, italic, 10 points, lower case, center aligned

Heading 1
Times New Roman, bold, 12 points, lower case, left aligned

For more information and abstract submission please visit www.ekgaon.com/dcs-idmc09/ and http://nidm.gov.in/idmc2/sessions.asp

Launching in 2010, The International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment is the only journal to promote research and scholarly activity that examines the role of building and construction to anticipate and respond to unexpected events that damage or destroy the built environment.

For more information, or to submit to the journal, go to:
www.emeraldinsight.com/ijdrbe.htm

Disaster Prevention and Management, An International Journal, sets out to advance the available knowledge in the fields of disaster prevention and management and to act as an integrative agent for extant methodologies and activities relating to disaster emergency and crisis management. Publishing high quality, refereed papers, the journal supports the exchange of ideas, experience and practice between academics, practitioners and policy-makers.

For more information, or to submit to the journal, go to:
www.emeraldinsight.com/dpm.htm