Improving decision making in complex crises situations

Today more people than ever are threatened by disasters, be they natural or man-made. Furthermore, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear contamination risks can occur as a consequence of such events. Regions affected are wider and wider and reconstruction and recovery operations are longer-lasting, costly and complex, especially when decontamination is necessary.

The EU DESTRIERO project aims to address some of these issues by developing a next generation post-crisis needs assessment tool for reconstruction and recovery planning.

Significant efforts have been undertaken by international organisations to coordinate stakeholders in the early recovery management stages following a disaster, however no supporting software tool is available, and important gaps remain in optimising coordination at the operational level.

DESTRIERO aims to fill these gaps with an advanced multi-criteria decision analysis tool. Such a support tool will determine priorities in the crisis reconstruction phase and strategic decision-making. The project also aims to boost information sharing between relief organisations and their information systems for coordinated damage and needs assessment as well as reconstruction and recovery operations.

By facilitating coordinated damage and needs assessment and thus aiding reconstruction and recovery planning, the tool will contribute to mitigating the economic and humanitarian impact of disasters and speed-up the required actions to restore the situation to 'a state close to the original one'.

The project kicked off last September in Naples, where the basis for future work was established under the leadership of Agata Priolo, the project coordinator from e-GEOS, a Telespazio company and a leading international player in the geo-spatial business.

Cliodhna McGuirk, CEO of the DESTRIERO partner Saadian, commented, 'There is a real and growing need for greater co-ordination of long term recovery efforts after major disasters in Europe and the wider world. In our view DESTRIERO can provide a crucial role in delivering a platform for information sharing across recovery agencies, leading to more effective decision making and better use of resources. DESTRIERO will seek to uniquely support the Post-Crisis Damage and Needs Assessment (PDNA) framework to achieve these aims. The DESTRIERO consortium brings together a wide range of expertise from end users, research, academic and industry partners from across Europe.'

DESTRIERO will last for three years and receive EUR 3 million in funding from the European Commission. The project has 13 partners from nine countries, including three end users.

More information:
www.destriero-fp7.eu/

Provided by CORDIS