Ontology - Based Semantic Interoperability in Emergency Management

Emergency management is " the discipline and profession of applying science, technology, planning and management to deal with extreme events that can injure or kill large numbers of people, do extensive damage to property, and disrupt community life " (Drabek & Hoetmer, 1991). The recent disasters such as Katrina and Southeast Asia tsunami have reinforced the need for development of a comprehensive approach to emergency management (Public Safety Canada, 2005). Comprehensive Emergency Management refers to the development of a capacity for handling emergency tasks in all phases-mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery-in connection with all types of disaster agents by coordinating the efforts and resources of all players-non-governmental organizations, government agencies and private sectors-involved (Britton, 1999). In this report, emergency management refers to major incidents and disasters, and emergency management and disaster management are used interchangeably. One of challenges for the people in emergency management is a lack of accepted terms. People in the domain have not found common ground with respect to the language that is used to define and articulate the field (Britton, 1999). In Section 3, we will provide some examples of this problem in the context of disaster research where, for example, the concept of risks is sometimes confused with hazards or vulnerabilities, or, variations that exist in the definitions of a disaster. This problem impedes many interdisciplinary developments, and causes confusion and distancing between the researchers and the practitioners. Another challenge is the problem of interoperability between information technologies devised for emergency management. There has been substantial research programs aimed at strengthening IT-enabled capabilities for emergency management. They intend to improve the exchange of critical information, support better decision making, and increase the flexibility of organizations involved. Interoperability issues arise when such technologies need to share information. Interoperability generally comes in three aspects: (1) technical: compatibility of message formats (2) semantic: 4 terminology and definitions, and (3) organizational: practices and procedures (National Research Council, 2007). This research addresses the problem of semantic interoperability between people or application systems in the emergency management domain. The objective is to identify and evaluate several solutions to this problem that could be adopted by any governmental and private agencies involved in the domain. The outline of the proposal is as following. This chapter provides background information and related work to develop the problem statement. Chapter 2 describes the summary of the accomplished work. Chapter 3 outlines the plan for completion …