Emergency Management Training and Social Network Analysis

The chapter first presents a background review of the application of computer technology in simulations of natural hazard situations. The chapter then presents the efforts of researchers at Mid Sweden University and Nord-Trøndelag University College to build a comprehensive emergency training tool with funding from the Interreg/EU ERDF (European Regional Development Fund). The main part of the chapter reports empirical data from this project GSS (Gaining Security Symbiosis). The project developed the tool for training emergency personnel (police, fire, ambulance, and local officials) in handling crises in the border region between Norway and Sweden. The Web-based software incorporated complex scenarios that the emergency personnel had to contend with during 3-hour training sessions. The participants included employees at the operator, tactical, and strategic level of the organizations. The training tool recorded all communications among participants which primarily was text based. The rich data source was analyzed “on-the-fly” with the software from the R Project for statistical computing and the SNA package (Social Network Analysis package). The statistical software provided detailed graphs of the social networking of communications among the participants on both sides of the national border in central Scandinavia. The chapter concludes with a presentation of ideas towards using the social networking data as input into simulation models based on system dynamics. The empirical data from the project will naturally provide data for future training sessions. A planned future model of the comprehensive training tool—netAgora—will use experiential data in a Virtual Responder component in the training sessions of emergency personnel.