Disaster Management and Information Technology: Professional Response and Recovery Management in the Age of Disasters

This edited book entertains a multitude of perspectives on crisis information management systems (CIMS)-based disaster response and recovery management. The use of information technology in disaster management has become the central means for collecting, vetting, and distributing information. It also serves as the backbone for coordination and collaboration between response and recovery units as well as resource management tool. This edited volume aims at covering the whole range of application and uses of CIMS in disaster response and recovery. It showcases coordination and collaboration mechanisms between government agencies, the involvement of non-governmental entities, lessons learned as well as lessons not learned, approaches to disaster resiliency in society, community engagement in disaster/catastrophe responses and recovery, and, particularly, the role of CIMS in response and recovery. Serving as a platform for showcasing recent academic discoveries as well as a knowledge source for practitioners, this volume will be of interest to researchers and practitioners interested in disaster response, public administration, emergency management, and information systems.

Hans Jochen Scholl serves as a Professor in the Information School at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA. He earned a Ph.D. in Information Science from the University of Albany, NY/SUNY and also holds a Master's degree in Business Administration from the GSBA Zurich, Switzerland. His research interests focus on understanding human-originated complex systems. He employs quantitative and qualitative approaches ranging from System Dynamics to Situational Action Analysis and Action Research among other methods. Areas of study include information management, Digital Government, disaster studies (Disaster Information Management), information artifact evaluation, and pro sports information management. Jochen is a past president of the Digital Government Society. He also serves as Past Chair of the IFIP WG 8.5 (IS and Public Administration) and as Board Member of the ISCRAM organization. Jochen's group also maintains and publishes the Digital Government Reference Library (DGRL) and the Disaster Information Reference Library (DIRL). He serves on a number of editorial boards including Government Information Quarterly, Information Polity, Transforming Government among others.

Eric E. Holdeman’s areas of expertise include building regional coalitions between agencies, governments, the private sector and non-profits. Planning, Regional planning, Emergency Operations Center (EOC) design and construction, multi-media public education programs, Joint Information Center (JIC) formation and operations, media relations, social media, meeting facilitation and integration of technology into emergency management and homeland security programs are just a few of the areas in which he has extensive experience. In 2007 he was recognized by Government Technology Magazine as one of the Top 25 people in the nation who, “Challenge convention, confront entrenched bureaucracy and promote innovation.” Eric currently works professionally in the areas of building disasterresilience for five states and five Canadian provincial areas in the Pacific Northwest. Additionally, he has experience and expertise in port security, emergency management and risk management. He has also authored numerous articles for professional journals and opinion pieces for local, regional and national newspapers. He is a Senior Fellow and contributing writer for Emergency Management Magazine and columnist for the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM). An experienced and accomplished public speaker he is sought after to present at national and regional conferences. Eric has a popular blog on emergency management and homeland security topics at www.disaster-zone.com.

Kees Boersma is full professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences and the Faculty of Science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. His interest is in organizational and technological innovation in relation to societal resilience. He is co-founder of the Crisis Resilience Academy of the Institute for Societal Resilience. From 2015-2022 he served as a board member of the Association Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (ISCRAM). Since 2019 he is a member of the steering committee of KUNO: the Platform for Humanitarian Knowledge Exchange. He was a visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the USA, and at the University of the Free State in South Africa. His current projects include: the EU Horizon 2020 project "LINKS: Strengthening links between technologies and society for European disaster resilience" (PI), and the EU Horizon 2020 COVID-19 project "HERoS: Health Emergency Response in Interconnected Systems" (WP leader). In his research, Prof. Boersma works closely together with practitioner organizations, policy makers and community members to investigate how new technologies and innovations are or can be used to improve information sharing, mobilization, new ways of working, steering and coordination, and risk communication.