Crowdsourcing as a way to increase situational awareness of C&C Centers for emergency response

Abstract

Rescue operations in most disasters are heavily dependent on accurate situational awareness. Having accurate and complete information is the key for making good decisions. A large amount of such information is contextual, that is, it is variable and needs to be taken from the disaster scenario by different means. While "Be safe! Stay away! Let professionals do the work!" is the typical approach of rescue operators with regard to people, there are also advantages of public engagement considering that Citizens generally have a better knowledge of the stricken area and know the daily routines of their family, friends and neighbors. This means that they can help in describing affected areas as well as in localizing possible victims. Inspired by the last sentence, we propose a framework based on these concepts and describe the set of actions that would make it possible. The framework named PENSAD stands for Public Engagement to increase Situational Awareness in Disasters .