In recent years climate change has become more extreme, natural disasters more frequent, and Taiwan has not been spared. The August 8 typhoon disaster of 2009 that hit southern Taiwan is a stark warning. At the time, in addition to all-out relief efforts by government organizations, various kinds of assistance from private groups flooded into the affected area try to save as many lives as possible. The Sahana disaster relief information platform introduced using TELDAP resources by the Research Center for Information Technology Innovation, Academia Sinica,uses the power of IT to effectively integrate various government and private disaster relief manpower and resources so that they are used more effectively in disaster relief. The TELDAP e-newsletter invited Sahana disaster relief information platform Project Manager Liu Xiao-zhan to talk about its origins and application cases.

Origin of Sahana disaster relief information platform
The great tsunami that struck Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and other south Asian countries at the end of 2004 caused heavy casualties. After the disaster, to facilitate disaster victim resettlement, reuniting of relatives and friends and dispatch of resources, scientists in India and Sri Lanka etc, in accordance with the situation at the time, compiled various requirements. After two months, the Sahana disaster relief information platform was initially established and began to assist with post-tsunami recovery and resource dispatch work.

In the years that have followed Sahana has played an important role in disaster relief work in a number of major disasters, for instance, the 2010 Haiti earthquake in which damage to buildings and loss of life were very serious and volunteers and rescue teams rushed to the country from all over the world. Sahana played an extremely important role after that disaster by showing, on a map, where assistance was required and where it had already been given, providing hospital information and missing person registration. The most recent case was the serious floods in Pakistan in which around one third of the country was left under water and relief resources were rushed to the scene from all over the world to provide materials and medical assistance. Allowing resources overlap and waste to be avoided and the data required to be found quickly so that aid materials can be smoothly delivered where needed, Sahana provides an instant communication, information exchange and integration platform, and also realizes the Web2.0 spirit.

Sahana allows various information to be quickly integrated
The core of Sahana is “Open Source”, the developers of which were interested people from all over the world and anyone can download this software’s source code for free then, according to individual requirements, adjust it.  This “open and cooperative” model is Sahana’s most distinctive feature. Sahana also fully integrates other resources, including Google Maps http://maps.google.com、OpenStreetMaphttp://www.openstreetmap.org, the two main free geographical information platforms of today, allowing Sahana’s software to be combined with maps and visualize various types of information. Sahana is not only open, after the Haiti earthquake it also integrated military and company data, making disaster assessment more accurate.

This disaster relief platform is able to quickly integrate different information mainly because it makes use of “open format information,” that is, an information format that is jointly used; for example, hospital information EDXL-HAVE (Hospital Availability Exchange) is a standard information exchange format. Through this kind of information format, resources in the medical system can be quickly grasped and patient evacuation related judgments made .

Based on the existing Network SMS system, at present mobile communication device-to-device communication and information transmission functions are being actively integrated into Sahana, a development that will speed up information transmission and sharing, and which, in places where the telecommunications infrastructure cannot completely support the Internet, will be a very important communication channel. In Haiti, Sahana was fully integrated with Ushahidi, software that uses mobile phones to report the disaster situation and relief requirement information, allowing aid teams to quickly get a grasp of the disaster scene and relief needs.

 Dr. Xiao Jing-deng explaining Sahana disaster relief information platform technology
The localized development of the Sahana disaster relief information platform

Although the Sahana disaster relief information platform was introduced within one week after the August 8 flood disaster and Chinese translation completed, it was unable to play a role in relief work following the disaster. To allow this set of tools that can increase the efficiency of disaster relief to be widely understood and used, Dr. Xiao Jing-deng of the Research Center for Information Technology Innovation, Academia Sinica, began carrying out platform localization work in the spring of 2010. As well as translation into Chinese, Taiwan’s particular requirements were also integrated into the platform;for example ID number is the “unique code” for missing people and disaster victims, and inputting of Taiwan’s geographical information and localization of disaster relief material units has been carried out. Also, a large seminar was held in 2010 that introduced Sahana to NPO and GO and small-scale drill workshops were held for county governments.

Believing that “using information tools to increase work efficiency cannot be achieved in one fell swoop” Dr. Xiao Jing-deng’s team think that routine use and practice is the only way that a disaster relief information platform like Sahana can actually be introduced into the disaster relief process and raise the level of work efficiency. In the drill held by the Social Affairs Section of former Kaohsiung County Government and the Department of Labor of Pingdong County Government, personnel from related local government departments and from non-profit organizations that cooperate closely with the county governments carried out a drill on the SahanaTW platform through situational simulation.

Project Manager Liu Xiao-zhan explaining a Sahana disaster relief information platform drill
Dr. Xiao’s team will continue to hold various activities and promotional meetings with the aim of allowing more non-profit organizations and related government organizations understand this tool, to not only raise the effectiveness of everyday work management, to also allow it to play an important role in disaster management.

Links:
SahanaTWtesting website：http://sandbox.sahana.tw
The home page has account passwords for various rights. Visitors are welcome to test at will.

Taiwan Sahana Development Forum
SahanaTW drill@Kaohsiung County Government
SahanaTW drill@Pingdong County Government
SahanaCamp 1.1 Taiwan
Sahana CrisisCamp for Pakistan Flood 2010