Demonstration of Sahana: free and open source disaster management

ABSTRACT

Recent disasters such as the 2003 SARS outbreak, the 2004 Asian tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir/Pakistan earthquake and the 2005 hurricanes Katrina and Rita clearly identified the shortcomings of information and communication technology (ICT) solutions for disaster rescue and recovery. While there are early warning systems [5] and GIS support systems there is no comprehensive ICT system that can provide the crucial disaster management capabilities. This includes managing data on victims and relief personnel, geographical data on roads and landmarks, disaster logistics data, etc.

Sahana is a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) application (http://sahana.lk/) that provides a comprehensive solution for information management targeting relief operations and rehabilitation efforts.

In this demonstration presentation, we mainly discuss the functional modules of Sahana and the underlying technology framework. We then describe features to make Sahana customizable.

REFERENCES

• 1: Adodb website:http://adodb.sourceforge.net/.
• 2: Lamp wikipedia entry:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/lamp_(software_bundle).
• 3: Umn/mapserver website:http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/.
• 4: Xajax web site:http://www.xajaxproject.org/.
• 5: G. Ranjan and A. Kumar. A natural disasters management system based on location aware distributed sensor networks. In Mobile Adhoc and Sensor Systems Conference, 2005. IEEE International Conference on, page 3 pp, Nov. 2005.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.4 INFORMATION SYSTEMS APPLICATIONS

General Terms:
Human Factors, Management

Keywords:
FOSS, disaster management systems, humanitarian applications, tsunami