2016-02-18
Context is all you need: stay tuned and be aware right when its happening!
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Blog Series on Climate Change
#2 - Wildfires
Fire season is in effect on all forestland. Fire alerts can be monitored in near real time via the Global Forest Watch interactive map, they are ongoing.
There is strengthened evidence that climate change increases the frequency and the severity of fire weather around the world. Climate change expert Niklas Hagelberg says a fast-warming planet will likely lead to more record-breaking blazes: “The planet is already 1.1°C warmer than it was in pre-industrial times and that is changing the world around us.” (source: UNEP). In addition to that, projections* indicate that the frequency of wildfires will substantially increase over 74% of the global land by the end of this century.
All over the world, emergency teams step up all efforts to strengthen their response to forest fires this year and into the future. Prevention, preparedness and emergency response are key elements in times of critical emergencies and disasters. We asked three questions to Mathieu Lafforgue, Public Warning Systems specialist at Intersec.
Q: To what extend can mobile alerts help authorities safe lives?
A: Fires can extend extremely fast and in an unexpected manner. Alerting the population ahead of time and in real-time, and providing contextualized information as the situation evolves is critical. It’s like in any stressful situation, people want to be informed on a regular basis to trust the authorities in charge. With the right tools, emergency response teams can send regular updates to the population on weather conditions, fire activity, evacuation warnings and orders, then message people who have evacuated when it is safe to come back home for example. To reach the widest audience possible, three technologies are available, which can also be used together: Cell Broadcast, SMS and mobile apps.
Q: Wildfires are unpredictable and spread quickly. What can response teams do?
A: Populations become more vulnerable to threats which are more diverse, less visible, and less predictable. Repeated communication to those who have not yet evacuated can save their lives. Alerting those that approach an endangered zone and ordering them to turn around is also critical. In certain circumstances, sending specific instructions to people located in a very targeted perimeter is possible with some technologies like device-based geofencing (DGBF).
Q: Can today’s technology facilitate the work of the first responders?
A: When wildfires occur, it is important that they respond in a timely manner. A crisis management solution can help visualize the risks, the position of assets and vehicles, population presence and so on. Some solutions include a cartographic layer so that rescue teams can visualize in real-time how a fire progresses and anticipate how it can continue evolving taking into consideration various meteorological factors. In any case, coordination is key. The deployment of alerting technologies must come together with a well-defined public warning strategy.
*Figure: The below figure displays the projected change from 1981–2000 to 2080–2099 in frequency of wildfires and length of wildfire season. (source: NEJM)
Blog Series on Climate Change
#1 - Dramatic Europe Floods
In July 2021, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria and the Netherlands have suffered the most brutal impact of the deluge, killing hundreds of people and leaving streets, homes and infrastructures submerged in muddy water and isolating entire communities. Future climate change is projected to increase the occurrence and frequency of once-in-a-century river floods in most regions of Europe.
Hydrologist Hannah Cloke argued in the British newspaper The Sunday Times that the warnings had not reached the people in Germany in time. This, she said, was a "monumental system failure". On the other hand, officials defend their actions saying that technical infrastructure was destroyed in one go.
Extreme conditions may affect electronic broadcast of official communications, a fact to take into consideration. We asked Mathieu Lafforgue, Public Warning Systems specialist at Intersec, to provide insights when such scenarios arise.
Q: What if dramatic flooding happens in the middle of the night?
A: It is in itself a challenge. Notwithstanding, whether it's day or night, the more we can anticipate the better. Public safety officials, weather experts and scientists must work together to frame a proper rescue and continuity plan and anticipate the relocation of populations at risk. However, depending on circumstances – especially when sudden emergencies arise such as tsunamis – it is not always enough.
On this latter cases, automation of alert triggering can even be a way to secure fast sending of warning messages. Inland floods are generally quite predictable, 48 hours before happening and more, so there is no need to wait until the middle of the night to warn people. Then, when people are asleep, loud warnings are required. As always, alerts must be multichannel, especially in the event of imminent and life-threatening risks.
Use of mobile Cell-broadcast EU-ALERT level-1 can trigger an audible alarm on mobile phones in the perimeter at risk even if they are on silent mode. In addition, air-raid sirens – assuming they are still operational – can be activated to wake people up and signal them of an imminent major threat. People can then get to know the reality of the situation through more traditional communication channels (short-messages, internet, TV, radio…).
Q: Can telecommunication operators maintain a minimum service of their infrastructure?
A: Yes, they can. Maintaining and securing vital communication infrastructures are key for public safety. Communication Services Providers (CSPs) design their network architecture considering hypothesis of major breakdowns or destruction scenarios: equipment and telecommunication links are often redundant.
A mix of varied telecommunication technologies and service providers at the same place reduces the likelihood of having them all fail at the same time. For example, cell phone towers in a village may turn off service due to power outage and lack of electrical inverter. But even then, a high range radio cell of 30km in a neighboring town could take over the cell-broadcast service to alert population in the village.
Note that multiplying the redundancy systems (energy, backhaul, geographic redundancy, multi-layer networks and technologies, etc.) can lead to significant costs. So CSPs and public regulators have to converge on balanced and sustainable approaches in economic and security terms.
Q: But what if technical infrastructure is fully destroyed?
A: Again, with today’s predictive technologies and forecasts, such events can be anticipated so that monitoring and alerting infrastructure are used before being hit. Alert Short-messages transmitted by mobile carriers provide contextualized safety instructions. There are extremely effective even a few minutes before the catastrophe strikes. Such communication channels via public warning systems allow officials to send repetitive updates, draw attention of the population, and increase the reach of a given alert.
Ultimately, once public electronic infrastructures (internet, landlines, mobile networks, air-raid sirens) are awfully all down, there are not many other options left: portable PA carried by emergency response teams, and a lot of human solidarity and resilience…Thankfully, in a near future, mobile devices in Europe will be able to display predefined alerts and safety instructions on order of the Galileo satellite constellation, even in case of terrestrial networks outage.