New Perspectives for Emergency Response: Lessons Learned on Crisis Mapping from Trials and Exercises

Kurzfassung

In support of crisis management new technologies are continuously being developed. The remaining challenge for practitioner organizations is not only to identify suitable solutions to close their gaps, but also to test and evaluate its benefit before the disaster strikes. The EU-funded project DRIVER+ (Driving Innovation in Crisis Management for European Resilience) has therefore designed a methodical and technical environment to assess innovation in crisis management in a realistic but non-operational setup through trials. To bridge theoretical potential and practical implementation, the Center for Satellite Based Crisis Information (ZKI) at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) has been working closely with its users for years to apply new methods from remote sensing research to generate up-to-date situation information for civil security applications and disaster response products. In DRIVER+, ZKI interdisciplinary teamed up with colleagues at DLR to demonstrate near real-time contextual routing for crisis response. Experienced practitioners assessed its added value during a trial focusing on major urban flooding events. Systematically collected data through the DRIVER+ Test-bed approved that DLR’s system could improve transport planning and inter-agency situational awareness. Together with the Bavarian Red Cross, ZKI further tested the application of 3D situational awareness in an earthquake scenario during the EU civil protection exercise IRONORE2019. We will present the results of the two exercises and how user feedback is driving the further development of ZKI products. In addition, we will discuss how new developments as 3D mapping, AI and web data fusion will provide further opportunities for remote sensing in future to support emergency responders even more effectively in complex crisis scenarios.