Emergency communications and warning systems: Determining critical capacities in the Australian context
Abstract
Purpose
The frequent occurrence of emergencies and disasters continues to threaten community safety and security. Emergency communications and warning systems (ECWS) allow people to make decisions and take actions before, during and after the emergency or disaster. The critical objective of this study is to determine the critical capacities of ECWS in the Australian context.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used stakeholder analysis in which written submissions from individuals, and public and private organizations collected by the Australian federal government were subjected to structured coding techniques in order to identify major ECWS capacity issues. The summary of findings were generating by axially collapsing and summarizing the coded statements.
Findings
Findings showed that a broad range of ECWS are deployed in the Australian context. These ECWS come with social and/or technical limitations that suggest the importance of adopting an integrated or systems based approach for their construction and deployment. Also, while the identification of critical infrastructure vulnerabilities reinforced the argument for an integrated systems approach for ECWS, this also demonstrated the pressing need to build resilience and redundancy into domestic infrastructure networks. In addition, new and innovative ECWS technologies and solutions will enable improved emergency or disaster management in the future.
Originality/value
This paper simultaneously considers important factors and issues impacting ECWS and provides an instructive discourse on the requirement for more combinative ECWS.
Keywords
Citation
Martin, N. and Rice, J. (2012), "Emergency communications and warning systems: Determining critical capacities in the Australian context", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 21 No. 5, pp. 529-540. https://doi.org/10.1108/09653561211278671
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2012, Emerald Group Publishing Limited