A Data Management System For USAR Operations.
The project stems from operational needs from both real emergency as well as exercises carried out in the last years by USAR (Urban Search and Rescue) Assessment teams and their coordination cells (UCC- Usar Coordination Cell). During a USAR emergency operation (i.e. earthquakes, volcanic eruption, high snow like in Rigopiano) the UCC performs its work relying usually on data provided by the teams from the affected site. The quality and quantity of these data, their sources and their destination may vary according to the type of: emergency, in-country disaster management system, deployed resources. It is of key relevance to manage and merge data timely and effectively to make them available for the support in rescue operations.
Prometheus is a data management system absolutely innovative within the UCPM (The Union Civil Protection Mechanism) community as well as in the INSARAG (International Search and Rescue Advisory Group ) family.
Its development, implementation and spreading will affect in particular the assessment phase of an emergency where USAR teams are deployed but it will be potentially used also in other phases of the emergency with further integrations.
This system, that will be available already in an advanced beta version by November 2019, goes beyond the current systems used so far, because it is carried out using a bottom-up approach responding to the real experienced needs of USAR teams as well as of their coordination cells (UCC) and additionally it is the only one designed to be free source with a security protocol on data/metadata. Therefore, Prometheus facilitates the emergency response during the so-called “Golden day” (first 24 hours) when the chance to rescue a higher percentage of alive victims is still high; and it fills a gap of existing IT tool at EU and worldwide level to be effectively used by USAR teams and UCC.
Prometheus project capitalizes the outcomes on procedures on “barrier effect” of EASeR project (completed in 2020), easerproject.eu and the tools to improve the wide area assessment of BELICE project (to be completed in 2021), beliceproject.eu both led by the CNVVF and co-funded by UCPM, DG ECHO.
