DIADEM

     

ISCRAM 2009 Special Session on Information Processing in Environmental Crisis Management & Response


In particular the new features of ARGOS like calculation and visualisation of gas dispersion stood in the focus of the presentation that Jan-Steen Jensen, senior scientist at Danish Emergency Management Agency gave at the International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (ISCRAM) 2009 in Gothenburg (http://www.iscram.org/ISCRAM2009). The workflow of the Duty Hazmat Officer from DEMA in case of a chemical incident was presented. From a practioner's viewpoint Jan Steen Jensen showed how ARGOS can be used for response to large chemical incidents in Denmark.

In the same session on Information Processing in Environmental Crisis chaired by THALES and Universität Karlsruhe (TH), Tina Comes, PhD student at Universität Karlsruhe (TH), presented a new approach that facilitates decision making with multiple objectives under uncertainty. This approach combines multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) and scenario based reasoning (SBR). MCDA has proved helpful for selecting one out of several alternatives in many domains. Especially in crisis management, where conflicting objectives are daily work, MCDA has been applied successfully. However, MCDA does not foresee an analysis of multiple plausible future developments, whereas something scenario-based reasoning (SBR) is frequently used for this purpose. But contrarily to MCDA, SBR does not facilitate the evaluation of decision alternatives with respect to several objectives. The new approach presented by Tina Comes enhances the respective strengths of both techniques and helps overcoming their main weaknesses. Integrating SBR into MCDA allows not only for discussing multiple plausible developments as a base for strategic plans and actions but also for an in-depth performance evaluation of the considered actions.