Towards a Better Evaluation of Disaster Management Solutions

Ovidiu Noran

and Peter Bernus

IIIS Centre for Enterprise Architecture Research and Management, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia

Keywords: Disaster Management Framework, Disaster Risk Reduction, Defence, Resilience, Architecture Frameworks,

Enterprise Architecture.

Abstract: Worldwide, disaster management endeavours are confronted with a rising number of calamitous events

triggered by climate change, pandemics and armed conflicts. The increasing rate and complexity of such

occurrences has determined governments worldwide to attempt improving the disaster management effort by

adopting various specialised artefacts, among which disaster management frameworks feature prominently.

It appears however, that such artefacts display shortcomings such as lack of directly applicable guidance,

ambiguity and a lack of agility in the face of constant change inherent to disaster events. This situation poses

a conundrum to disaster management decision-makers who need to select such frameworks in the knowledge

that they have the necessary qualities, employ a suitable architecture and contain the required elements to

effectively guide the typically trans-disciplinary and cross-organisational disaster management effort. This

paper seeks to assist in this regard by providing a novel, multi-pronged appraisal approach for candidate

disaster management frameworks.

1 INTRODUCTION

As disaster events worldwide appear to constantly

increase in frequency and intensity, the procedures

and policies historically put in place to prepare for,

deal with and recover from such occurrences show

signs of no longer being able to cope with the changed

environment. Consequently, inherent hazards can

evolve into disasters negatively impacting upon

people and valuables, beyond the ability to avoid,

cope and recover from them (Global Access Partners

& Institute for Integrated Economic Research -

Australia, 2021; Parliament of Australia, 2020b). For

this reason, Governments and organisations have

continuously sought ways to enhance disaster

management-related artefacts so as to cope with the

changed situation; however, significant obstacles are

typically encountered having to do with the inevitable

intricacy of the specific components and concepts

involved and also with the absence of suitable

assistance to employ them in practice. Attempts have

also been made to tackle this complexity and bring

structure by employing disaster management

frameworks; however, questions still remain as to

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2135-8533

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5371-8743

how suitable and adequate for specific organisations

and events these frameworks are, how are they to be

used in practice at various levels and how they can

effectively underpin the essential need for adequate

collaboration in this domain.

As such, decision makers need assistance in their

effort to make sense of, select, structure and actually

use the plethora of existing and emerging candidate

artefacts (including frameworks) claiming relevance

and efficiency. They also need to know if these

constructs actually have the desired properties for the

task at hand and especially, if- and how do they cope

with the high complexity and chaotic characteristics

of the environment they are intended to operate in.

The geographical focus of this paper is Australia, due

to its high rate of many types of disaster events such

as fire, floods, storms, and tsunamis. Therefore, this

is considered a good starting point that provides the

required variety of case studies and artefacts relevant

to disaster management.

The rest of the paper is structured as follows: a

brief description of relevant concepts and related

challenges in disaster management is followed by an

introduction to the artefacts and principles proposed

Noran, O. and Bernus, P.

Towards a Better Evaluation of Disaster Management Solutions.

DOI: 10.5220/0011638100003467

In Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2023) - Volume 2, pages 445-456

ISBN: 978-989-758-648-4; ISSN: 2184-4992

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

445

to be used. Then, it is explained how these artefacts

can assist in the assessment of the disaster

management frameworks, illustrating with several

examples and a preliminary framework assessment.

The paper closes with conclusions and proposed

further work.

2 DISASTER MANAGEMENT

ARTEFACTS

2.1 Resilience: Aspects and

Approaches

There is a multitude of definitions for resilience in the

relevant literature, with the common leitmotif being

the capacity to cope with, and recover from adverse

events. Therefore, resilience appears particularly

relevant to disaster management and as such it is

briefly analysed in the present context.

A study performed by an Australian economic

think tank (Global Access Partners & Institute for

Integrated Economic Research - Australia, 2021)

identifies several aspects that contribute to improving

resilience: shared awareness, teaming and

collaboration and preparedness. These translate into

the need to clearly represent and thus achieve a

common shareholder grasp of the current and future

situations, of the relations between entities of interest

and of adequate and systemic life-long planning.

Further investigations by a Royal Commission in

disaster management arrangements (Commonwealth

of Australia, 2020) has also found hazards, exposure

and vulnerability as relevant factors in determining

resilience.

Moreover, a report by the Global Facility for

Disaster Reduction and Recovery (2016)

recommends that risk and resilience assessments need

to shift from a snapshot approach towards a ‘useful

life’-long appraisal that can constantly guide decision

makers in attaining a resilient future state.

Literature describing the elements and technologies

that can enhance resilience has also been reviewed

(e.g. (Bernus, Noran, & Goranson, 2020; Connor &

Zhang, 2006; Southwick, Bonanno, Masten, Panter-

Brick, & Yehuda, 2014)). The main pervading theme

here was that tackling the resilience Universe of

Discourse using sets of viewpoints is highly

beneficial in coping with the complexity inherent to

disaster management. These findings are

incorporated in the proposed appraisal approach (see

the Enterprise Architecture Framework Evaluation in

Section 3.3).

2.2 Frameworks: Features and

Requirements

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk

Reduction has supervised the creation of the Sendai

Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015 – 2030

(United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction,

2015), which aims to ‘decrease disaster risk and

losses’ (ibid.). This framework appears to be the

precursor of- and inspiration for most of the other

major efforts in establishing national and regional

disaster management frameworks.

A review of such frameworks in Australia has

found that they have been created for each major

phase of disaster management. Thus, for Preparation

and Mitigation there is a Risk Reduction Framework

(Commonwealth of Australia, 2018) and a Disaster

Preparedness Framework (Australian Government,

2018); for Response there is a Resilience Framework

(Global Access Partners & Institute for Integrated

Economic Research - Australia, 2021) and for

Recovery there are also dedicated frameworks (e.g.

the state-level Recovery Framework in Victoria

(2020)). Reference models (‘guides’) also seem to

have been developed in order to provide some high-

level guidance for framework creation (see e.g. the

Disaster Recovery Framework Guide (2020)).

After examining the various frameworks

developed for the ‘Before’ (mitigate and prepare),

‘During’ (respond) and ‘After’ (recover) phases of

disaster management, it has been concluded that, in

fact, their components often extend into other disaster

management phases. This reflects the fact that in

reality, the various phases of disaster management are

partly overlapping. As an example, one needs to

Prepare to attain as high a degree of resilience as

possible, Respond when an event occurs and then

Recover; however, as recovery comparatively takes a

longer period of time, it is highly likely to overlap

with future iterations of disaster management efforts.

Similarly, Preparation may occur while at the same

time mitigating the effect/s of previous events and

disasters and Response may also take place while a

previous Recovery effort and other phases relevant to

other (also possibly cascading) disaster events are still

occurring (see Fig. 1). This cyclic approach is also

incremental in nature, as every iteration must

consider lessons learned from previous activities.

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Figure 1: Possible Disaster Management Phase overlaps.

An effective disaster management framework should

be able to represent, convey and facilitate this

overlapping, iterative and incremental approach.

In Australia, a parliamentary enquiry (Parliament

of Australia, 2020a) and think tank report (Global

Access Partners & Institute for Integrated Economic

Research - Australia, 2021), have found that

vulnerability, a key term that defines the boundary

between hazards and disasters, is inherently linked to

the potentially cascading and compounding character

of such events, such as “[…] pandemic with

associated supply chain failures, or increasing

frequency and severity of cyber-attacks” (ibid.),

currently met with an inadequate response

(Blackburn, Borzycki, & Jackson, 2021).

The above finding reflects the fact that the ability

to adequately cope with one or more disaster events

is closely linked to the proper understanding of the

current situation (be it e.g. a lack of trusted supply

chains, extremely limited domestic manufacturing, or

inadequate energy security (Blackburn, 2018)) and

the complexity of the often compounding and

interacting disaster events (Gissing, Timms,

Browning, Crompton, & McAneney, 2021; Pescaroli

& Alexander, 2018). This again emphasizes the need

for the supporting artefacts to adequately represent,

help to understand, and address the current and future

situations and compounded disasters. This important

set of requirements is reflected further in the structure

of the proposed framework assessment process.

2.3 Main Current Issues of Disaster

Management Frameworks

In the international context, the main issues

highlighted by the United Nations Office for Disaster

Risk Reduction report (2014) are as follows:

- Information gathered via assessments is often not

properly used also because policy makers do not

know how to make sense of the large amount of

data to obtain information (i.e. they are data rich,

but information poor (Bernus & Noran, 2017));

- Future risks are being created in the present due

to poor present and future states understanding;

- Lack of coordination between Disaster Risk

Management and climate change policies due to

poor constraint and mutual influence modelling;

- Insufficient Disaster Management funds due to

improper Resource modelling;

- Incomplete vulnerability understanding due to

low or non-existing human role modelling;

- Poor coordination between stakeholders, and a

lack of information sharing due to improper

modelling of the relations between stakeholders

and other relevant entities, from several

viewpoints;

- Improper Eco-system management – showing all

relevant relations between entities, during their

entire useful lives, not just at a point in time.

Compiling all the findings, the summary of main

issues presented by the reviewed current Disaster

Management Frameworks appear to be as follows:

- unclarity as to what a disaster management

framework should actually contain;

- lack of proper disaster management framework

theoretical background: for example, underlying

metamodels describing concept definitions such

as viewpoints, levels of abstraction, hierarchies,

as life cycle and life history;

- confusion as to what stakeholders are to be

involved and how do they relate to each other;

- inadequate representation of the relation between

entities during the whole life of the involved

entities, rather than in a snapshot manner;

- no reference to life cycle of the participant entities

(including stakeholders) and no clear modelling

of the human role;

- no explicit set of qualities expected from a disaster

management-specific framework (e.g. reliability,

maintainability, ease of use, adaptability etc);

- lack of shared situational awareness mainly due to

interoperability issues;

- calls to learn lessons from analogous Defence

Command and Control (C2) failures (Vassiliou,

2014) and high-level requirement descriptions,

however, with no detail of exactly how these

concepts and capabilities may integrate into the

disaster management concept.

As current Disaster Management Framework (DMF)

propositions will continuously evolve and new ones

will be developed, the authors suggest an assessment

Prevent / Mitigate E1

Prepare E1

Respond E1

Recover E1

Etc

Respond E2

Recover E2

Prevent / Mitigate E2

Prepare E2

Prevent / Mitigate E3

Prepare E3

Time

Disaster Management Phase

Simultaneous Phases:

Recover E1, Recover E2,

Prevent E3, Prepare E3

Prevent E1 &

Prepare E1

Overlap

E1… E3: Multip le (p os sibly cas cading) Dis as ter Events

Towards a Better Evaluation of Disaster Management Solutions

447

structure intended to appraise candidate DMFs in line

with the above issues and thus potentially also guide

their further development.

3 PROPOSED ASSESSMENT

STRATEGY

The assessment procedure proposed evaluates how

the candidate artefact performs in structuring and

assisting areas that are deemed essential for effective

disaster management. The aspects assessed in each

step have been determined according to the findings

of Section 2 and are further explained in this section.

Figure 2: Proposed assessment strategy.

As can be seen in Figure 2., the first step looks for the

presence of Non-Functional Requirements (NFRs)

(also called ‘-ilities’, or quality attributes) that are

required to be present in the assessed artefact so that

it adequately performs in supporting the disaster

management Universe of Discourse (UoD). The

second step evaluates the architecture of the artefact

itself, in order to determine if it contains the required

perspectives and aspects and also if it structures them

in the most appropriate manner for the intended

domain. The last step is the most comprehensive,

allowing to assess more complex concepts and thus

ensuring that the assessment procedure suitably

evaluates the ‘requisite variety’ (Ashby, 1991) of the

candidate framework in respect to the complexity of

its intended UoD. More precisely, it evaluates

whether the framework is able to guide Mitigation,

Preparedness, Response and Recovery efforts

matching the content and interactions’ complexity of

actual disaster situations.

Importantly, as depicted in Figure 2, each step is

underpinned by internationally recognised and

adopted standards. As one of the major identified

problems is interoperability (see Section 2.3), the

presence of said standards acts as a bridge towards

common understanding, acceptance and agreement in

respect to adopting a unified assessment procedure.

3.1 Quality Attributes of Disaster

Management Frameworks as

Systems-of-Systems

The Disaster Management Universe of Discourse can

be considered a highly dynamic and complex System

of Systems that interact in a complex manner

(Commonwealth of Australia - Department of Home

Affairs, 2018). Therefore, in its turn a Disaster

Management Framework should be an adaptable

system of systems whose complexity should match or

exceed that of the Disaster Risk Management UoD

(Ashby, 1991) and that should be continuously

learning so as to maintain system qualities in the face

of expected and unexpected changes.

The international Standard ISO 25010-2011

(ISO/IEC, 2011) gives guidance on quality attributes

of systems and on additional attributes relevant to

system use. Boehm et al. (2014) define an ‘Initial

Definition of an -ilities Ontology’ based on value for

the stakeholder, where the -ilities defined summarize

the class hierarchy of the primary stakeholder -ilities

classes of Mission Effectiveness, Resource

Utilization, Dependability and Flexibility, joined by

their primary means-ends subclasses, and the primary

composite -ilities of Affordability and Resilience

(ibid.). Based on the set of requirements in the

Standard and on the above-mentioned hierarchy,

previous efforts (Noran & Bernus, 2022) have

produced an enhanced list of -ilities for assessment as

shown in Table 1, featuring the addition of ubiquity

(the capacity of being used irrespective of location),

evolvability (understood as adaptive [self-]evolution

(Brown, 2014)) and viability (i.e., the system’s

capability of long-term survival), all of which are

very relevant in view of the rationale for the candidate

DMFs targeted by the proposed evaluation process.

ISO25010

NFR

Evaluation

List of

necessary

-ilities

Evaluation factors,

objectives,

methods,

value analysis

Ontology /

Metamodel

Viewpoints

Life cycle

Life history

Self-Evolution

Agility

Candidate

Disaster Management

Framework

NFR – assessed

Framework

Architecture

Evaluation

ISO42030

Architecture – assessed

Framework

Enterprise

Architecture

Framework-

based

Evaluation

ISO42030

Annex A

Assessed

Framework

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Table 1: Enhanced list of -ilities for Disaster Management

Frameworks (additions in italics).

Individual -ilities

• Quality of Service: Performance, Accuracy,

Usability, Scalability, Versatility

• Resource Utilization: Cost, Duration, Personnel,

Scarce Quantities (size, weight, energy, …)

• Protection: Safety, Security, Privacy

• Robustness: Reliability, Availability,

Maintainability

• Flexibility: Modifiability, Tailorability /

Extendability, Adaptability

• Composability: Interoperability/Portability,

Openness/Standards Compliance, Service-

Orientation

• Evolvability

• Ubiquity

Composite -ilities

• Comprehensiveness/Suitability: all of the above

• Dependability: Quality of Service, Protection,

Robustness

• Resilience: Protection, Robustness, Flexibility

• Affordability: Quality of Service, Resource

Utilization

• Viability

The following gives a short explanation as to how the

-ilities in Table 1 may apply to an assessed candidate

DMF. As some of the qualities are related, they will

be treated as a group (or expanded upon only once)

where relevant.

Thus, the DMF must eliminate ambiguity as all

stakeholders should be able to understand and agree

on the current and future situations and on the

transition required; it should be usable by all the

envisaged relevant stakeholders, and also be

applicable to a range of scenario sizes irrespective of

any major changes made to it by other entities. In

other words, the framework must be able to self-

evolve to a certain extent so as to adapt to changes in

its environment (see Evolvability in Table 1, noting

that the assessment of the self-evolution capability

will also be analysed in Section 3.3). Where the

necessary changes exceed the capacity of the

framework to adapt itself, the controlling entities

should be able to readily change it (see modifiability,

tailorability and extendability in Table 1).

As resources are typically limited in crisis

situations, the Framework in question should display

an efficient use of resources – be it financial, human,

time or energy. The use of the proposed Framework

should allow modelling of the risks for response

crews and should support security or privacy in all of

the disaster management phases. The assessed

Framework

should be robust, i.e. it should be

available when and where required (see Ubiquity in

Table 1), should be consistent in its approaches and

readily modifiable if so required. In order to maintain

integrity, an underlying meta-model should be

present to provide unambiguous terminology and

underpin consistency following any changes.

Interoperability, together with portability, openness

and standards compliance should be present to ensure

that the entities involved in disaster management

planning, response and recovery can effectively work

together, which is currently not a trivial aspect (Noran

& Bernus, 2011). The framework’s capacity of long-

term survival (viability in Table 1) should also be

present as it is essential in view of the incremental and

evolutionary approaches taken to disaster

management and of its typically overlapping phases

(see Figure 1). This would ensure a unified and

consistent approach using a single framework instead

of a heterogeneous collection of paradigms promoted

by the contributors to the various phases of disaster

management efforts.

3.2 Architecture Evaluation of the

Disaster Management Frameworks

The variety of viewpoints and apparent lack of

underlying guiding paradigm reflected in the

reviewed risk reduction management document raises

two issues for the prospective users. Firstly, how can

it be ensured that all the appropriate aspects have

been covered in an appropriate manner? The answer

to this issue is provided in this paper by using an

Enterprise Architecture Framework-based

assessment as shown in Section 3.3.

A second Issue relates to ensuring that the

represented aspects have been organised in the most

suitable way for the intended purpose. This matter is

dealt with in this section by employing architecture

evaluation. For this purpose, the authors resort to the

use of a generic architecture evaluation standard,

namely ISO42030 (ISO/IEC, 2019b), which aims to

organize and document architecture evaluations for

the enterprise, systems and software fields of

application. According to this standard, the

evaluation of alternatives should be performed in two

passes: 1) eliminate proposals that do not satisfy

mandatory non-functional requirements, and 2)

compare candidate solutions using an appropriate

decision- making method (see Figure 3).

Towards a Better Evaluation of Disaster Management Solutions

449

Figure 3: ISO42030-proposed evaluation process.

The first pass has been already dealt with in Section

3.1. In regards to the decision-making method

specified in the second pass, ISO 42030 also requires

that, based on business goals, architecture governance

derives the evaluation objectives, specifying what

kind of answers are expected from the architecture

evaluation. Objectives can e.g., include determining

if the solution will increase efficiency (and if so, then

to what extent), or if it will improve current

capabilities and / or services quality, or if it will

promote new features (e.g., agility). The second pass

is presented in more detail in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Proposed components for the Architecture

Evaluation of Disaster Management Frameworks.

The comparison of potential solutions is to be

performed by defining evaluation factors that

influence the answers, and selecting methods known

to deliver these answers. Such factors (which are

normally derived from business drivers) may contain:

disaster risk mitigation, preparedness, response and

recovery cost, schedule and quality. Suitable

evaluation methods here typically include the use of

analysis reports or expert panels.

Due to the high complexity of the Disaster

Management UoD, it may happen that he answers to

the above evaluation are rather vague; therefore, to

achieve a meaningful comparison of architectural

solutions one must establish the value of a particular

architecture (i.e., perform value analysis). Thus, it

may be required to determine if the quality

requirements are met, or whether there is a potential

trade-off or optimisation possibility; there may also

be a need to establish how architectural decisions

contribute to the expected quality attributes (for

example, ‘will a centralised, or rather federated

disaster management framework best underpin its

agility?’). Note that this value assessment process

must also include determining to what extent the

chosen architecture supports achieving the business

goals. The value of the chosen approach may be

demonstrated using key performance indicators based

on adequately selected metrics, e.g. disaster response

promptness, extent, cost, etc.

Should the desired measures be not readily

available when inspecting the proposed architecture,

then architectural analysis may also be required,

comprising the creation of e.g., simulation models

that can be used for sensitivity analyses. It is to be

noted that the cost of architecture analysis is typically

high, as it needs to explore alternatives in detail

(Martin, 2017); as such, it should only be used when

absolutely necessary.

3.3 Evaluation using an Enterprise

Architecture Framework

A typical approach in dealing with complexity is to

structure the concepts into various categories

according to a classification structure. This effort

should be underpinned by a metamodel whose role is

to uphold the integrity and consistency of this

ordering. In this approach, the above-mentioned

categories would become viewpoints exhibiting main

stakeholder group concerns articulated in the various

disaster management phase requirements. This

approach is hereby proposed to be applied to

candidate DMFs using a classification structure from

the domain of Enterprise Architecture, namely

ISO15704:2019 Annex A: Generalised Enterprise

Architecture and Methodology (GERAM) (ISO/IEC,

2019a). This Enterprise Architecture Framework

(EAF) has been selected for being the abstraction and

synthesis of the elements of several other mainstream

EAFs; GERAM is an established and proven artefact,

having been used in several projects within many

domains, which includes Disaster Management

(Noran & Bernus, 2011). The modelling framework

Eliminate

unsatisfactory

proposals

Evaluation

Framework

Architecture

Evaluators

Architecture

Evaluation

Report

Evaluate and

Compare compliant

solutions

Governance Mandated

Evaluation Objectives

(incl Mandatory NFRs)

Mandatory NFR

compliant system

Disaster Management

Ecosystem

Characteristics

Architecture Description

of proposed Disaster

Management Framework

Evaluation

objectives,

factors,

methods

Architecture

Evaluators

Disaster Management

Framework

Architecture

Evaluation

Generic

Evaluation

(ISO42030)

principles

Architecture

Analysis

Evaluation

Factors

Evaluation

Objectives

Evaluation

Methods

Value

Analysis

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(MF) of the Reference Architecture component of

GERAM (called GERA) contains a set of viewpoints

which can be employed to organise candidate

frameworks so as to assess their completeness for the

envisaged use and also to support a common

stakeholder understanding of the present, future and

necessary transition. The GERA MF is represented in

Figure 5, together with an example of modelling

construct obtained by selecting a specific set of

dimensions.

The presence of (or need for) a metamodel and /

or ontology underpinning the assessed framework can

be modelled using the Generic Instantiation level,

while the contents and appropriateness of potential

templates and relevant standards can be represented

using the Partial model level (see Figure 5 top).

Figure 5: GERA MF and a sample creation of a modelling

construct for dynamic business models.

3.3.1 Life Cycle, Vulnerability

The life cycle context present on the vertical axis in

the proposed MF (see Figure 5 top) allows to meet the

disaster event and management life-long modelling

requirement established in Section 2.1. This is

exemplified in Figure 6, where the typical phases of

disaster management are mapped onto the GERA life

cycle phases. In addition, it can be seen that the time-

abstracting MF construct allows for selected

modelled phases to be repeated as required. It should

be noted that a representation considering time is also

possible (exemplified later on in the paper).

Various other modelling constructs, focused on

specific viewpoints, allow filtering selected aspects in

order to manage the inherent UoD complexity (see

Section 3.3.3 for more details).

Figure 6: Disaster Management life cycle mapping on the

GERA-derived construct.

In turn, Figure 7 illustrates a scenario of how the

modelling constructs obtained (as shown in Figure 5)

can be used to represent the relations between entities

relevant to disaster management together with the

necessary collaboration and interoperability (Noran,

2011) of the participant entities, in a so-called

‘dynamic business model’. Thus, for example, one

can see the cooperation of the government (Govt),

various disaster management organisations (DMO)

and local communities (Com) working together to co-

design and deliver risk reduction and management

programs (Duckworth, 2021) (see arrows from these

entities to the Disaster Management Project (DMP),

Disaster Management Framework (DMF) and

Disaster Response Units (DRU)).

The required agility of relevant entities (e.g. the

Disaster Management Framework (DMF), Disaster

Response Unit (DRU), etc.) is represented by arrows

going from their Operation life cycle phase back to

their own Architectural, Detailed Design and

Implementation life cycle phases. This signifies that

the entities can re-design themselves, as long as the

extent of this re-organisation does not go over a set

threshold, after which higher authority (typically, the

designing entities) are invoked.

Management

and Control

Cust Service

Entity

Simplify

Human

Machine

Resource

Information

Function

Particular level

Hardware

Software

Design

relim. design

tailed design

Identification

Concept

lementation

Operation

commission

Requirements

Organisation

Management

and Control

Product or Service

Human

Machine

Resource

Organisation

Information

Function

Generic

Partial

Particular

Hardware

Software

LC phases

Views

Instantiation

Design

Prelim. design

Detailed design

Identification

Concept

Implementation

Operation

Decommission

Requirements

Management

and Control

Product or Service

Human

Machine

Resource

Organisation

Information

Function

Generic

Partial

Particular

Hardware

Software

LC phases

Views

Instantiation

Design

Prelim. design

Detailed design

Identification

Concept

Implementation

Operation

Decommission

Requirements

MF of GERA

Mgmt.

Operation

Implementation

Det. Design

Prel. Design

Requirements

Concept

Identification

Prevention /

Mitigation

Preparation

Response

Recovery

Decommission

GERA MF

Construct

Disaster Management

Phases and Iterations

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451

Figure 7: Possible Disaster Management scenario (dynamic business model).

Importantly, one can also use this model to analyse

proposed scenarios. Thus, one can investigate the

possibility for the Defence Forces to create a Special

Disaster Operations unit (ADF/SDO in the figure) in

order to better prepare and execute disaster relief

operations, as this seems to increasingly be the case

(Jennings, 2020).

Vulnerability and related concepts derived from

the reviewed documents (see Section 2.2) can also be

analysed here, from the system-of-systems point of

view modelled by the relevant entities in the context

of their lifecycles and showing the automation extent.

For this purpose, a suitable modelling construct

showing human role (present in the structure shown

in Figure 5 top) can be derived from the GERA MF.

3.3.2 Disaster Compounding

Concurrent and compounding disasters have been

described in relevant literature, although mostly

limited to one other factor only (i.e., societal pressure

during other disasters (Gissing et al., 2021)). In the

real world, however, there are many other types of

interconnected disasters that need modelling; for

example, Earthquake/ Tsunami (Noran & Bernus,

2011), or Fire-Clouds–Storm-Lightning–Fire

(Commonwealth of Australia, 2020). This kind of

inter-relation (initially shown using a simplified life-

cycle focused representation in Figure 8) can also be

further modelled using the above-described approach

by selecting appropriate viewpoints to depict the

required influences and necessary intervention by

appropriate DRUs (see e.g. (Noran & Bernus, 2011)).

Figure 8: Disaster / effect compounding representation.

Note that this kind of mapping can also be performed

for the interdependent effects of one or more

DMP

DMO

Gov’t

DRO

COM

DRU

DML

Life cycle phases: Id: Identification; C = concept; R = requirements, PD = preliminary design, DD = detailed design,

I = implementation, Op = operation, D = decommissioning. Other aspects: P = Production / Service, M = management

DMF

Legend:

DMO: Disaster Mgmt Orgs

ADFHQ: Defence Force Headquarters

ADF /

SDO: Defence Force

Special Disaster Ops

DRU: Disaster Response Unit

DMP: Disaster Mgmt Project

DML: Disaster Mgmt Laws

DRO: Disaster Response Operation

DMF: Disaster Mgmt Framework

Gov’t: Government

COM: Communities

:Operation -Service &

Management

: Operation - Service only

: Possible scenario

: Agility

ADF HQ

ADF/

SDO

: Possible scenario

PDE

Legend:

PDE: Primary Disaster Event or Effect;

SDE / TDE: Secondary / Tertiary …

TDE

SDE

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disasters; for example, power interruption may

impact on other services, then flowing into various

other areas and communities.

To summarise, this approach allows to analyse

patterns present in complex and highly dynamic

systems interacting in a cascading fashion and to

formulate suitable preparedness and response.

3.3.3 The Time Dimension: Life History

Time is not represented explicitly in the proposed

MF, although it is present in the form of a life history

concept, which can be depicted graphically by adding

an orthogonal time dimension to the modelling

constructs obtained from the GERA MF (see Figure

9); this can enable a more thorough analysis of the

disaster management scenarios represented.

Such an approach may be required because, as shown

in Figure 1, Section 2.2 and Figure 8, disaster events

and disaster reduction, response and recovery actions

may compound and overlay, augmenting the

complexity of the situation and necessitating more

detailed modelling. As an example, Figure 9 presents

the scenario of setting up Disaster Response

Organisations and Units, while also illustrating the

overlap of Disaster Response Operations that they

create and operate. Thus, the Government and

Disaster Risk Task Force set up Disaster Risk

Response Organisations, which then, with

involvement from Community Organisations, set up

Disaster Response Units and Operations. This

representation is similar to that shown in Figure 7;

however, due to the time dimension, it can give

additional detail such as concurrency and succession.

Note also the possibility to represent both

management and mission fulfilment of the involved

entities aspects, as necessary.

Importantly, this enriched model provides additional

information as to ‘who does what’ - but also ‘when’.

3.3.4 Additional Potential Assessments

Further assessments may assist with the current

difficulties in the actual implementation of the

proposed Frameworks as described by the United

Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (2014).

These can be performed by creating constructs using

various combinations of aspects contained by the

above-described GERA MF. Thus, Management vs.

Service / Mission Accomplishment provides clarity in

regards to task allocation for decision makers and

operators. The Software vs. Hardware division allows

to represent the implementation of required functions

Figure 9: Life histories of entities relevant to the disaster management scenario.

Gov’t & Disaster

Risk Task Force

...

Disaster Risk

Response

Organisations

Disaster

Response

Unit (DRU)

LEGEND: mission fulfillment of entity:

management of entity:

operational relationship (interaction or support:

generative relationship (conceive/design/create):

Influence relationship:

Community

Organisations

...

Disaster

Response

Operation

general policies,

principles

participate

create

DRU

design &

implement

operation

participate in

DRU governance

identify the need for, concept and mandate of operation(s)

define

DRU

Laws

time

general policies,

principles

participate in

operation governance &

give feedback

operation

operations

may overlap

Towards a Better Evaluation of Disaster Management Solutions

453

and their physical deployment. Automation extent

shows e.g. what information and resources are

necessary to, and what functions can be performed by

machines rather than humans, so as to avoid putting

disaster response crews at unnecessary risk; this also

aids in mitigating vulnerability.

Data and properly derived information (Bernus &

Noran, 2017) that is adequate in quantity and quality

and is delivered when and where required can

significantly help all phases of the disaster

management. This aspect can be modelled using the

Information viewpoint of the GERA MF.

The way the candidate DMFs are actioned in all

disaster management phases can be modelled using

the Function viewpoint of GERA MF.

The essential aspect of organisational

cooperation, which has proven to be a weak point in

many disaster relief operations (Paturas, Smith,

Albanese, & Waite, 2016), can be modelled in the

Organisation viewpoint.

Finally, the paramount aspect of resourcing

featuring prominently in disaster management

(Chang, Wilkinson, Seville, & Potangaroa, 2010) can

be modelled through the Resource viewpoint.

Explicit examples of these aspects’ mappings are

not possible here due to available space and will be

disseminated separately.

4 CASE STUDY

The following will attempt to illustrate the use of the

proposed assessment procedure by evaluating a DMF,

namely the Australian Disaster Preparedness

Framework (ADPF, see Figure 10, right) (Australian

Government, 2018). Note that this represents only a

preliminary evaluation, to be followed by more

comprehensive efforts in future work.

4.1 Non-Functional Requirements

The first step of this assessment is limited to the NFRs

deemed most important, i.e. adaptability, ubiquity,

evolvability and viability (or possible synonyms

present in the target document).

Adaptability: the ADPF states that national

preparedness needs to be adaptable as part of the

preparedness principles. However, there is no

mention as to how this will be achieved.

Ubiquity: the ADPF mentions the need for national

preparedness to be linked to foreign governments and

international agencies. This is the only possible

mention of ubiquity present in the document,

however once again no details (even high level) are

given of how this could be achieved.

Figure 10: Australian Disaster Prevention Framework.

Evolvability: the document mentions the need to be

‘adaptable’ to changes in the nature of disasters and

context of application. The only other potential

mention of evolvability is ‘continuous improvement’.

Viability: there is no mention of this NFR or of a

similar term throughout the document.

Recommendation: the framework should give more

attention and at least high-level guidance to the NFR-

linked aspects, besides a mere mention in the

document. NFRs such as viability should be included.

4.2 Architecture Evaluation

Evaluation Objectives for this framework may

include whether the ADPF increases efficiency,

improves current capabilities or quality, or if it

promotes agility.

Efficiency is mentioned in the document in terms of

the management of disasters along their entire

lifecycle. However, the ADPF appears to give no

details as to how this will be achieved. Capabilities

appear to have received more attention within the

Govern area of the framework; however, Agility is

only mentioned under the form of adaptability.

In terms of the Evaluation Factors, such as

disaster risk mitigation, preparedness, response and

recovery cost, schedule and quality, the ADPF

appears to only cover Preparedness. As the scope of

the document appears to be limited to this phase

(although sometimes also touching on the Recovery

phase), this may be sufficient.

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454

Recommendation: the ADPF should provide more

guidance on streamlining the disaster management

efforts and on the adaptability of the framework.

4.3 Enterprise Architecture

Framework-based Evaluation

From the point of view of the disaster management

life cycle, it appears that the ADPF only covers the

Mitigate/ Prepare phases (see Fig. 6), which may be

appropriate in view of its name (‘Preparedness’)

although as mentioned references to other phases

exist (e.g. Recovery).

The ADPF claims to aim to promote collaboration

although this is not detailed in the document, even at

high level (it could be achieved e.g. via a Functional

viewpoint). The importance of data is stated in the

document; however, once again there is no detail

given on how this may be used to underpin an

effective preparation effort; moreover, there appears

to be no distinction between data and the Information

derived from it. The Organisation and Resources

viewpoints get mentioned in the document however

no details (even high level) are provided as to how

collaboration will happen, authorities will be

allocated and resources will be shared and managed.

A minimal guide for the use of the framework is

provided, although it does not follow a consistent

approach (various concept categories are mixed in the

same diagram) and in the absence of details, it is not

very useful. Moreover, there is no sample scenario

illustrating at least one of the proposed steps.

Recommendations: 1) The ADPF will need to be

complemented with other frameworks covering

Response and Recovery. 2) Information, Functional,

Organisation and Resources viewpoints are highly

recommended at least as high-level guidance for the

use of the framework. 3) Generally, at least one

example of each aspect covered should be provided.

4) Sample scenario/s should be provided, even at

generic level to clarify the application of the

framework for disaster management decision makers.

5 CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER

WORK

This paper has adopted a novel, holistic approach

towards clarifying the still evolving concept of

disaster management framework and assessing such

candidate artefacts for their qualities, architecture,

and completeness of their viewpoints in the context

of their intended use. This work may assist policy

makers establish whether a proposed disaster

management framework is suitable for their purpose

in regard to necessary qualities, suitable structure and

applicable viewpoints and concepts, selected

according to their intended domain, geographical

location, as well as available and required resources.

Future research will extend the preliminary

assessment to include all required elements and

perform the appraisal of other proposed disaster

management frameworks in order to validate and

further refine the proposed assessment approach.

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