The Resilience of ICT Infrastructure and Its Role During Disasters United Nations
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United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific The Resilience of ICT Infrastructure and Its Role during Disasters This study has been prepared for ESCAP by LIRNEasia (Rohan Samarajiva and Shazna Zuhyle). The generous funding support provided by the Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning, Republic of Korea, is gratefully acknowledged. The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city, or area of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers and boundaries. The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. This paper has been issued without formal editing. Contents of this study may not be quoted or reproduced for public dissemination, without the consent of ESCAP. Contact: ICT and Development Section Information and Communications Technology and Disaster Risk Reduction Division United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific United Nations Building Rajadamnern Nok Avenue Bangkok 10200, Thailand E-mail: [email protected] The Resilience of ICT Infrastructure and Its Role during Disasters Rohan Samarajiva and Shazna Zuhyle1 Contents 1 Introduction................................................................................................................................................. 4 2 What ICT can be used for ............................................................................................................................ 5 2.1 Documentation of needs and resources ............................................................................................. 5 2.2 Spatial coordination ............................................................................................................................ 7 2.2.1 Satellite systems ........................................................................................................................ 10 2.2.2 Access networks ........................................................................................................................10 2.2.3 Backhaul networks .................................................................................................................... 11 2.2.4 Congestion................................................................................................................................. 12 2.3 Publication......................................................................................................................................... 13 2.4 Facilitation of payments .................................................................................................................... 14 3 Country examples and good practices ...................................................................................................... 14 3.1 The 2004 tsunami in the Maldives .................................................................................................... 14 3.2 The 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka........................................................................................................... 15 3.3 The 2010 earthquake in Haiti ............................................................................................................ 16 3.4 The 2011 earthquake in eastern Japan ............................................................................................. 17 3.5 The 2011 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand ........................................................................ 19 3.6 The importance of redundancy in Bangladesh.................................................................................. 20 4 Efforts by international development organizations during disasters...................................................... 20 5 Policy recommendations........................................................................................................................... 21 Annex: Early Warning Systems.......................................................................................................................... 24 1 The authors wish to thank Roshanthi Lucas Gunaratne for her research contributions and Mark Prutsalis, President / CEO of Sahana Foundation, for his insights on Sahana disaster relief implementation. 2 Acronyms ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations BTS Base transceiver station CBC Cell Broadcast Centre DMC Disaster Management Centre FCC Federal Communications Commission GIS Geographical information systems GPS Global Positioning System GSMA Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) Association HF High frequency ICT Information and communication technology IEPS International Emergency Preference Scheme IT Information technology ITU International Telecommunication Union MNO Mobile network operator PCRAFI Pacific Catastrophe Risk Assessment and Financing Initiative PIC Pacific Island Country SEA‐ME‐WE South‐East Asia – Middle East – Western Europe SMS Short message service TETRA Terrestrial Trunked Radio VHF Very high frequency 3 1 Introduction It is customary in the disaster risk‐reduction field to place various actions in the context of the “disaster cycle” shown in Figure 1. Of these phases, mitigation, prevention, and preparedness are pre‐disaster activities that constitute actions to be taken to limit the impact of a natural disaster. Post‐disaster activities, particularly relief and recovery, include the processes of damage assessment, relocation, and repair of damaged infrastructure. There is no doubt that natural disasters and humanitarian crises cause disorder and panic. There are many instances in which communication services are not considered a priority when there is lack of access to basic needs, such as food, clean water, and shelter, among others. However, it is often access to accurate information that calms the societal turbulence, and in order for information to be communicated, the underlying network must function. Similarly, in order to communicate accurate information, the supporting soft infrastructure (e.g., institutions and policies) must exist. Figure 1: Disaster cycle Relief Recovery Post‐disaster Hazard Mitigation Pre‐disaster Early Warning Preparedness Prevention Information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure plays different roles in different phases of the cycle. Generally, “during disaster” connotes the period beginning with the hazard making contact with humans (thus becoming a disaster) and up to the start or mid‐point of the recovery phase. Services provided over ICT infrastructure can play perhaps their most decisive role in the early warning of natural disasters (see Annex), and there is much research documenting its role;2 the emphasis in this report, however, is not placed on this phase, which is prior to the disaster. Further, the emphasis is on ICT infrastructure, primarily telecommunication networks and the facilities needed to keep them operational. A disaster disrupts all activities in that region. Recovery from disaster requires the restoration of routine ways of doing things and of decreasing uncertainty. Relief is the immediate response to the disruption. Both require control and coordination. 2 Rohan Samarajiva and Nuwan Waidyanatha, “Two complementary mobile technologies for disaster warning”, Info, vol. 11, No. 2 (2009), pp. 58‐65; Rohan Samarajiva,“Mobilizing information and communications technologies for effective disaster warning: Lessons from the 2004 tsunami”, New Media and Society, vol. 7, No. 6 (2005), pp. 731‐47; J.C. Villagran de Leon, J. Bogardi, S. Dannenmann, and R. Basher, “Early warning systems in the context of disaster risk reduction”, Entwicklung & Landlicher Raum, vol. 2 (February 2006), pp. 23‐25. Available from http://www.ehs.unu.edu/file/get/10735.pdf. 4 Information and communication technology, usually understood as electronically mediated communication, storage, and manipulation, allows for the necessary actions related to relief and recovery to be done in ways that are qualitatively superior to the alternatives: Documentation of needs and resources. The enhanced information processing and visualization capabilities of modern computing hardware and software can, by themselves, enable better documentation of the needs that have to be met, ranging from registries of the missing and injured, to medicines and food for the affected, to housing and infrastructure damage assessments. When combined with geographical information systems (GIS), these capabilities are further enhanced. If the information processing capabilities are coupled with communication technologies to enable both superior field data collection (faster and with fewer errors) and effective dissemination to those who can address the needs, the performance is even greater. If databases are organized and populated prior to the incident, especially in terms of resources such as earth‐moving equipment, locations of food stocks, and skills, the efficacy is greater. Spatial coordination. ICTs allow for synchronous and asynchronous communication across space, enabling greater coordination of spatially separated actors. This is especially important when a disaster has a geographically wide scope (a tsunami or a cyclone versus a localized landslide) and when physical transportation systems may have been degraded or even destroyed in the disaster. Even with