PHIVOLCS progressing with SAMBRO implementation

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) is mandated with the detection and alerting of earthquake, tsunami, volcanic, and landslide hazard events in the Philippines. Currently they are engaged with the Mayon volcano. Earthquakes are quite frequent, being surrounded by multiple trenches and sitting in the pacific ring of fire.

The CAP-on-a-Map project had involved PHIVOLCS in the capacity building and implementation exercises. However, there were delays in securing the required IT resources to operationalize SAMBRO. We are now working in developing and testing the CAP message templates. The aim is go-live by the second quarter of this year.

CAP a solution to transborder warning exchange; ESCAP Expert meeting

We first mentioned to "leave no one behind" during our CAP on a Map work in the Maldives; that was ESCAP's event theme, this past week. Spot-On was invited to contribute to the discussions on the multi-hazard expert group forum. It was an event of the UN-ESCAP Resilience Week; combining with the Fifth Session of the Committee on DRR and launching of the 2017 Asia Pacific Disaster Report.

The event presented data pointing to evidence that multi-hazard warning systems have minimized the loss of lives but the economic losses are still rising. That is an indication that the multi-hazard warning systems are functionally incomplete; i.e. stakeholder losses are not used as an EWS reliability measure. ESCAP investment, to date, has been on the sensor, detection, and decision subsystems, of a functional Early Warning System (EWS). ESCAP perceived that those investments were high impacting and returns from a regional overlook. ESCAP might consider stretching capacity development in the other necessary subsystems too.

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Investments

"CAP on a Map" project displayed at ESCAP

The ESCAP multi donor trust fund has spent USD 15 million in mobilizing RIMES, ADPC, and other Partners/NGOs to facilitate the development of the EWS sensor, detection, and decision subsystems. Sahana was the first to provide a broker solution that interlinked the decision process with the response. Sahana Alerting and Messaging Broker implementation (SAMBRO), through the CAP on a Map project, for improving institutional responsiveness to coastal-hazards in Maldives, Myanmar, and the Philippines, was an investment of the multi-donor trust fund.  

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Reliability Inventory

There is a need for an organization such as ESCAP to take inventory of the reliability, not just the status, of the entire end-to-end chain. ESCAP/WMO committee addressing this issue, might consider the Axiomatic design for realizing system complexities, map the operational orientations, and measure the Markovian properties. These suggestions slightly overlap with the OECD methodology. Some gaps can be realized from the WMO country profile database and by applying the, WMO recommends, OECD criteria for evaluating development assistance. Another recommendation was to link it to the SDGs.

Such a metric would allow for identifying where investment are need for delivering minimum viable products to plug those gaps. These indicators would also set benchmarks for attaining impact-based multi-hazard early warning capabilities. It would also identify where cooperation needs to be facilitated.

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Transborder Warning with CAP

ESCAP/WMO might consider placing the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) international warning standard at the helm in support of transboarder early warning. It removes the need for bi-lateral warning sharing agreements between member states or institutions. Instead use the CAP Real Simple Syndication (RSS) specifications with clear instructions for implementing and begin publishing warnings. Then other systems can poll from those external CAP warning Brokers. IOTWMS, RIMES, Typhoon Committee, and Panel on Tropical Cyclones should become roll models with integrating CAP in their programs and services. Such CAP feeds would, eventually, contribute to the WMO Global Filtered Alert Hub; whereby, anyone could subscribe to location, language, and event specific CAP messages.

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Sharing hydrological data

Hindu-Kush Himalayan
river basins and flooding;
image credits to Mapping the Vulnerable
hotspots over Hindu-Kush Himalaya
region to flooding 

The next Multi-hazard EWS challenge was with downstream hydrological forecasters wanting upstream transboarder data to use as inputs in their modeling algorithms; specifically for nowcasting. The political orientation with the usual prisoner's dilemma games are unwilling to share data. There were recommendations to make that a voter indicator to stimulate the political will. Nevertheless, it is possible to share information.

A Center in Iran

The Asian and Pacific Center for the Development of Disaster Information Management is being developed in Iran with the help of the Iranian Government. The Center might consider facilitating such interoperable information that one could become the  inputs to be used in downstream modeling algorithms. LIRNEasia and Sahana Foundation might consider sharing their knowledge with the Center to develop useful products and services.

The Center comes under the Asia and Pacific Resilience Network (APRN). The intent of APRN was unclear. However, it might complement the efforts of others like ADRRN.  There are established partnerships that are fostering data sharing such as ICIMOD in the Hindukush mountain region and Mekong River Commission are sharing data for flash flood forecast. It is standardized based on the ESCAP Guidance Document. Another was a recommendation to adopt TC/PTC best-practices. All of those are contributions to fostering corporation in hydrological data sharing.

Presenting SAMBRO Implementation Challenges at CAP Forum in Thailand

The Sahana Alerting and Messaging Broker (SAMBRO) has certainly been gearing up to provide a complementing service. In one aspect, SAMBRO is capable of subscribing to CAP messages, aggregating them, and then allowing authorized personnel to relay those messages, whether they be public, private, or restricted. The process of originating and relaying was already tested in the Philippines. CAP messages that come into SAMBRO can be offered through a RSS feed or a RESTfull API. Users may subscribe to receive alerts from SAMBRO though email, SMS, FTP, and Mobile APP as well. The outcomes of this work, in relation to the Common Alerting Protocol warning standard, was presented in Thailand at the 2016 CAP Implementation Workshop. READ THE SAHANA BLOG.

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Timor-Leste emergency communications: fact finding mission

The workshop on an Emergency Communications Plan for Timor-Leste was hosted by Autoridade Nacional de Communicações (ANC), also known as the National Communications Authority. I participated in the capacity of an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Emergency Communications Expert. Day 1 (27th Apr) of the workshop was attended by 40 participants from various emergency management and disaster mitigation organizations. Nine organizations from Government, Nongovernmental, and Private organizations presented their cases on critical infrastructure and information exchange platforms. Discussions highlighted frequency, safety, human capacity, and continuity related issue and were brought to ANC's attention.

Access my workshop slides

I was in Dili, 24 Apr. through 02 may. On Saturday 25th, a downtown fire burned down two shops. The fire department responding to the event were unable to save the two shops. The general opinion was an unsatisfactory one towards the City of Dili's Fire brigade. A reason they didn't take part in our workshop? They certainly could have taken full advantage of the forum to discuss the strengths and weakness of the efforts and collaboration and coordination with other agencies present at the event; a missed rare opportunity.

Alue farms to Dili markets

Staff affiliated with communications department of the Timor-Leste Red Cross, National Disaster Management Directorate, Ministry of Health, Maritime agencies, and Commercial Aviation requested ANC to act on a set of suggested regulatory issues. The three Telcos operating in Timor-Leste: Timor Telekom, Telemore, and Telecomcell were keen in participating in a pilot that involves investigating interoperability and warning techniques. A strong Internet connection for the National Emergency Operation Center (NEOC) and a common SMS database for focal point warnings were suggested as starting Corporate Social Responsibility activity by the Telcos. The Ministry of Health expressed the need to lower tariffs or subsidize them to support emergency medicine and public health.

Day 2 and 3 of the workshop was focused on warning and response aspects for interagency coordination, data collection, and information exchange. Participants were exposed to best practices; especially around the EDXL-CAP and EDXL-SITREP standards. They involved in several hands on exercises designed for a participatory approach to extracting issues on topics around the warning and response functions. Other discussions were on the lack of procedures and mandated organizations upholding their responsibilities.

The ANC and ITU team visited the Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) managed by the National Police, National Defense Joint Forces/PNTL/Civil, and National Disaster Management Directorate (NDMD) operated NEOC. Police headquarters and NDMD have an inventory of VHF communications equipment. They are unused either on reasons of frequency allocation or the significant shortcoming of skilled resource person to operationalize the equipment. To supplement the shortcomings in the systems ought to be functioning, organizations have developed make-shift workarounds until such time they become a priority. For example, the dysfunctional Meteorological department is focusing their efforts on establishing a memorandum of understanding with the Indonesian meteorological services.

Fishing life on the beaches of Dili

There is very little or no communications system integration and adoption of interoperability to enhance system automation and decision support. At present, the NDMD EOC is quite motivated in developing and implementing systems and procedures. They already have an operational Sahana-based incident reporting system, namely the Timor-Leste Disaster Information System. The NDMD managed NDOC database is a platform for collecting disaster data. The work flow is such that data written on paper forms at the Suco (village) and then manually aggregated, once again on paper forms, at the sub-districts administrations are eventually digitized at the District level. Unreliable electricity and Internet supplies are problem for sustaining continuity of the IT systems. Working language are Parotugese and the Tetun; however, a larger portion of the population (> 50% illiteracy) do not speak, read, or write Portuguese. Even at the grassroots, English is easier to communicate.

Timorese along the Dili beaches

Timor-Leste is a new country with systems evolving at a minimal pace. Developing infrastructure such as roads, airports, and maritime ports are at the tip of the iceberg. Economy heavily relies on oil. Approximately 70% of the households dependent on farming. The country is mostly effected by flash floods and droughts. Violence in the homes and public health are other frequent issues the society faces. Tsunamis and Cyclones are seldom events but can be destructive, given their exposure.

Overview Emergency Communications Practices, Methods, and Expected Outcomes from Nuwan Waidyanatha

Code-fest on early warning interoperability

The Code-fest around the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) was a gathering of early warning experts and the Sahana plus IT Industry. They used four CAP-enabled tools and three early warning issues as the basis for learning and experimenting interoperability. This event was an Indian Ocean Tsunami 10th (IOTX) Anniversary commemoration activity that followed from the CAP Jump Start and Implementation Workshops held in Negombo.

Teams and the Tools

Three distinct teams engaged with new software developments used three tools:
[Py-team] Sahana Eden CAP Broker (web2Py SAMBRO; work-in-progress)
[JAR-team] CAP Editer (Java/JavaScript capable of publishing RSS feeds)
[JS-team] HTML/JS/Py Smart-phone CAP Publisher

Eliot Christian (WMO) gave an overview of CAP and I (LIRNEasia) used the Sahana-Krakatoa(LAMP) CAP-enabled Alerting/Messaging Module, designed for training  and simulations, to demonstrate the typical work flows related to "alerting".

The teams had to engage in the predetermined activities:
(A) Integrate an RSS feed to deliver CAP messages
(D) Emulate the Google Alerthub
(B) Recommend features for the FIA Reference Service
(C) Discuss the design requirements for validating event specific data

 

Data exchanges with RSS

The main task of the three teams were to accomplish activity (A). However, there were renditions of activity A) that The Py-team, further dissolved in to three teams. Fran Boon's group (SSF) worked on the CAP import and Dmonic Konig's (AidIQ) group worked on the CAP export RSS feed. Both of these groups worked f2f at Orion City IT Park along side the other local and foreign participants. Another team with Pat Tressel (University of Washington), Ambar (Birala Technical College), and others were gathering virtually.

The JAR-team already had the RSS feed working before coming to the CAP Code-fest. A bit of improvising had the Java/JavaScript developers, lead by Ishan Ambanwela with automating the concatenation of a string derived from the , , and attributes, to produce the CAP ; typically used for back tracking the message to the originator. Another task was enhancing the software to accommodate multiple polygons with overlapping or disjoint characteristics. each polygon would be saved in a distinct segment of the CAP message to indicate the geographic areas of the targeted recipients.

Akila Ravihansa (WSO2) leading the C-team and working with Michael Randall (USGS Volcano Hazards Program) and Armond Zamanyan (Google Crisis Response) had the mobile CAP publisher to work with. They enhanced it to publish an RSS feed of the CAP message. That message was received by the Eden SAMBRO and confirmed to be importable. These efforts are to work towards developing a Alerthub similar to the one that Google Crisis Response has to offer. The challenge is that Google Alerthub is live and does not provide a platform for Alerting Authorities to test their integrations for delivering CAP messages through Google to the public such as Now+ alerting one of a location specific alert when in the device is in that area.

Alerting in the Ad Space

The FIA reference guide is recommending ways, such as the one on harmonizing action oriented pictographs. These guidelines are mainly for those disseminating alerts through the Internet; including norms members should abide by when practising in this space.

The FIA Reference Service is an XML data structure with an ontology for maintaining various Internet Alerting related resources. These range from pictographs, document, so on and so forth. SSF had suggested that an object type designated for applications would be introduced. For example, the CAP message could carry the Javascript required for executing an application such as for playing the audio version of the message. Another could be that the recipients have options to select as a follow up action, such as acknowledging that "I AM SAFE".

Alerting on Ads is a nifty technology that leverages the capabilities of intelligent advertising technologies to distribute population and geographically targeted Ads in return for guaranteed impressions.

Validating event data

Stuart Weinstein (PTWC) mentioned in his talk at the CAP Implementation Workshop that International Warning Systems are coordinated by the United Nations through the UNESCO/IOC. He emphasized that it would be good if the various seismic monitoring and detection centres responsible for the various regions (shaded in the the map) could exchange the event specific data such as the depth, magnitude, pitch, displacement, etc to apply the Centroid Moment Tensor Model to forecast tsunamis in real-time.

Various stakeholders at the CAP Code-fest, interested in this topic, formed a group to discuss the design approach towards standardizing and verifying such data. When the seismic stations alert the other institutions around the world, they could include the event specific data in a CAP with a URL pointing to repository holding the nested data. Thereby, those who wish to process that data could utilize them.

The consensus of the group was to begin outlining an ontology with the earthquake data as means for testing the first developments. SSF's Standards and Interoperability Committee members: Dominic Konig and Nuwan Waidyanatha will take the lead in developing the blueprints. The goal is to develop it to a level of maturity that a stakeholder like Google would host the "validator".

Concluding remarks

The CAP Code-fest brought together the right number of people to manage such a productive event; where everyone had an opportunity take home some knew piece of knowledge. Looking forward to supporting future CAP Code-fests.