2012 04 23_masas

Canada’s Multi-Agency Situational Awareness System – Keeping it Simple

March 29 2012

Jack Pagotto P.Eng MEngMgmtHead/Emergency Management & Systems Interoperability S&TCentre for Security Science

OUTLINE

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• Who we are (2 slides only – we have a booth!)

• Our call to action… information silos cost lives!

• The Complex Problem & The MASAS Simple Solution

• Transforming Information Flows

• Key Ingredients to success

• Future Research

• 5 min video (if time & technology permits)

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Centre for Security Science

Vision:“S&T Excellence for a Safe and Secure Canada”

Mission: “Strengthen Canada’s ability to prevent,

prepare, respond and recover from acts of terrorism, crime, natural disasters and

serious accidents through the convergence of S&T with Policy, Ops & Intelligence”

(Canada’s equivalent to Department of Homeland Security S&T)

First Responder Requirements were our call to action…First Responder Requirements were our call to action…

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Inability to share reliable incident information quicklywith 1st responders:

• delays response time• risks lives/property• wastes resources

2009

SARNIA - SNOWMAGEDDON 2010

NB Brady Report

The Complex Problem…• The “fear factor” on real-time sharing

Emergency Management information …– Information release to public is process-sensitive;

• Non-interoperable information systems– Intellectual Property Protected Tools + Frailty of Incident

Management Tools sector

• Complexity and maintenance of inter-agency sharing agreements

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For every complex problem there is a simple solution ….

…. unfortunately it is almost always the wrong solution.

Simplify the problem to simplify the solution.

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Simplify the problem to simplify the solution.

YOU

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Share it once with all...ratherthan repeatedly with many

Eliminate inefficient & unmanageable information flows…

CBRNE

Earthquakes

Weather

Incidents

Wild

fires

ROAD CLOSURES

YOU

<NIEM> 2-MIN VIDEO ILLUSTRATING THE SAME PROBLEM AS SHOWN ABOVE LEFT. FROM WWW.NIEM.GOV (NATIONAL INFORMATION EXCHANGE MODEL)

Our design philosophy...Our design philosophy...1. OPEN STANDARDS AND ARCHITECTURE (CAP,

ATOM ..)

2. OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE (CLEAN, HIGH QUALITY CODE)

3. PROVIDE A DEVELOPERS SANDBOX – OPEN TO ALL

4. SIMPLE, RELIABLE AND DISASTER RESILIENT HUBS

5. DO NOT COMPETE WITH COMMERCIAL TOOLS

6. WORK WITH EXISTING TOOLS or USE OUR FREE TOOLS

7. MINIMAL TRAINING (<1 HOUR)

8. BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME – AVOID DUPLICATING ENGINEERING COSTS TO INTERFACE FEEDS.

MA-SA-SMulti-Agency

• Local, regional, provincial/territorial, federal, first nations, & US partners.• Non-government organizations, Search & Rescue, Military.• Utilities, critical infrastructure managers, critical commercial service providers, • FIRST RESPONDERS, emergency management, transportation, health, public

works, utilities, education, ... ALL PUBLIC SAFETY EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT RELEVANT OFFICIALS & ENTRUSTED PARTNERS

Situational Awareness • Dynamic, current, transient, event-related geospatial information• For use with base maps, thematic maps, and other information• For routine use every day, rapidly scalable to support major incidents.

System (of systems)• Open architecture: GIS, incident management, dispatch, ... • Open standards: Messaging, documents, geospatial, ...

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MASAS = Multi-Agency Situational Awareness System

‘Canada’s National Real-Time Incident Map’

1.AUTHORITATIVE (trustable) INFORMATION2.REAL-TIME3.LOCATION-BASED4. INCIDENT and TYPE–RELEVANT FILTERABLE5.Multi-Agency (Emergency Mgmt partners)6.Multi-Level (fed/prov-territory/municipal/…)7.Nationally recognized/endorsed.

Time

Inte

rest

, Dem

and,

Dol

lars

MASAS … a rapidly evolving national capability.

225 agencies

registered users (Oct 2011-April

2012)

2007 2010 2012

MASAS Nationally Recognized as a “Canadian Public Safety Priority”

• National Strategy January 2011– Approved by all Fed/Prov-Territorial

Ministers

• Identifies MASAS as a national priority

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CA-US Public Safety Priority

Beyond the Border

Action Plan

Page 25: “The second working group will focus on cross-border interoperability as a means of harmonizing cross-border emergency communications efforts. It will pursue activities that promote the harmonization of the Canadian Multi-Agency Situational Awareness System with the United States Integrated Public Alert and Warning System to enable sharing of alert, warning, and incident information to improve response coordination during binational disasters. Specifically, this working group will...”

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How does MASAS work?

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MASAS Basic

Toolset

MASAS Basic

Toolset

MASAS Basic

Toolset

MASAS Basic

Toolset

Simple Open-Hub ArchitectureCompatible with all commercial tools

Your Tool

s

Their Tool

s

ESRI, EmerGeo,Interdev, Sentinel, IHS,

CriSys, Command View, IDV, MyStateUSA,

SharePoint, Hazus, …, basic MASAS tools

Your Tool

s

Your Tool

s

Their Tool

s

Their Tool

s

Incident management, mapping, dispatch,consoles, tablets,

smartphones, sensors,digital radio, …

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FirewallFirewall

Training

Training

ExerciseExercise

OpsOps

Challenge with email, fax, phone calls

EMAIL

Date: _________To: _________From: _______CC: _______BC: _______Importance: __Subject: ________________Body: What, where, why, how bad, until when, ...

PC Mac

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UNSTRUCTURED INFORMATION = INFORMATION OVERLOAD

Focus is on connections and structured information

Content types: Alerts (CAP), doc, pdf, jpg, etc.

sdasdfasdfafafa

fafhhhlkjhkjhkjh

khkhkhkhjhkjjjj

MASAS Connection (API)

• From• Actual/Test/Exercise• Category, Event• Location• Severity• Content type

Envelope

Label

Handshake

19Similar to a newsfeed.

Firewall

Structure defined by open standards• Common Alerting Protocol (CAP)

• OASIS - Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards• Recognized by United Nations – International Telecommunications Union (ITU)• One of family of Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL) standards

– Canadian Profile of CAP (CAP-CP)• Defines rules for Canadian implementations

– Mandates inclusion of an event and location code– Limits each alert to only one event type

• Visit www.CAP-CP.ca for documents and more information

• Atom GeoRSS• Atom is a universal publishing standard for web content. Ex. News feeds• GeoRSS provides geographic context

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COMMON ALERTING PROTOCOL – Canadian Profile

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CAP’s common threat assessmentUrgency

“Immediate” - Responsive action SHOULD be taken immediately“Expected” - Responsive action SHOULD be taken soon (within next hour)“Future” - Responsive action SHOULD be taken in the near future“Past” - Responsive action is no longer required“Unknown” - Urgency not known

Severity“Extreme” - Extraordinary threat to life or property“Severe” - Significant threat to life or property“Moderate” - Possible threat to life or property“Minor” - Minimal to no known threat to life or property“Unknown” - Severity unknown

Certainty“Observed” – Determined to have occurred or to be ongoing“Likely” - Likely (p > ~50%)“Possible” - Possible but not likely (p <= ~50%)“Unlikely” - Not expected to occur (p ~ 0)“Unknown” - Certainty unknown

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CAP enables automatic message generation …

“This is a” (CAP-CP EVENT TYPE) “alert for” (CAP-CP LOCATION) “issued by” (CAP SENDER), “effective until” (CAP EXPIRE TIME).

“There is an “(CAP SEVERITY FACTOR) threat to life or property”. “Responsive action should be taken... (CAP URGENCY FACTOR).” “You should” (CAP RESPONSE TYPE)”.

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This is a TORNADO alert for CALGARY issued by NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE, effective until 7PM. There is an IMMINENT threat to life or property. You should take cover immediately.”

This is a TORNADO alert for CALGARY issued by NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE, effective until 7PM. There is an IMMINENT threat to life or property. You should take cover immediately.”

… including very short message formats …

Very Short Message (RSS Title, Internet Headline)

• Critical Alert – Flash Flood – Mar 06, 2012 at 03:52PM

Short Message (e.g. TXT messages, Twitter)

• Flash Flood Alert Mar06 0352PM Take necessary precautions. Drayton Valley http://emergencyalert.alberta.ca #ableg

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04/10/2325

…and automated into multiple languages!

Multi-Agency SITUATIONAL AWARENESS

“As much as 88% of human error in response to an incident is due to problems with situation awareness.”

Dr. M. Endsley

What ishappening?

Why do I care?

What do I do about it?

3 Pillars of Situational Awareness

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MASAS-X Priority – Get Information Flowing

MASAS Information eXchange

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MASAS Information Flow

AUTHORITATIVE, TRUSTED, UNCLASSIFIEDINFORMATION

FILTER INFORMATION fAction/Monitor/IgnoreAutomated or Manual

FILTER INFORMATION fAction/Monitor/IgnoreAutomated or Manual

Local

Regional(P/T)

Federal

Legend

Transforming Information Flow… while reporting protocols remain intact

Agency 1 Agency2 2

First Responder

First ResponderEOCEOC

P/T EMOEOC

P/T EMOEOC

EOCEOCEOCEOC

Regional Office

Regional Office

Regional Office

Regional Office

Regional Regional

FederalFederal

Single EntitySingle Entity

Coordinating Group

Coordinating Group

FieldField

External(Non-AuthoritativeCommunity)

NewsSocial Media

Crowd Sourcing

EOCEOCEOCEOC

Regional Office

Regional Office

Regional Office

Regional Office

Filter by issuer, event type, severity, …

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The “Big Picture” – National view

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Provincial/Regional View

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Community Picture

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Ease of Use - Disaster ProvenSpring Flooding 2011•Province of Manitoba•City of Brandon•Small Communities•Canadian Military

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Emergent behaviour…

Notes on posted alerts were used to share information towork shift crews.

Workcrew note: “Do not drain breech – it is providing backpressure to dike wall”

Workcrew note: “Do not drain breech – it is providing backpressure to dike wall”

On top of your Maps

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MASAS community is growing quickly...

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• All federal EOC’s• Public Safety, RCMP National Operations Center, CF Command View,

Transport Canada Situation Center, Environment Canada, ...

• All provinces and territories• Various stages of up-take

• Many municipalities, regions• EM, police, fire, EMS

• NGO’s, Critical Infrastructure (Nuclear plants etc)• Ex. Windsor University, Red Cross, Bruce Power, ...

• Many EM and GIS tool vendors• Content providers

• Environment Canada, Earthquakes Canada, Canadian Space Weather,

Canada – U.S. Sharing

Source: FEMA IPAWS

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… build the hub and they will come• Limitless number/type of national sources of valuable

information that are being interfaced– Sensors (stream level, bridge strain sensors,

radiation/chemical sensors)– Broad-area alerts

• Solar Flares affect massive areas of Canada

• Flood polygons

– Road status – Long-range weather products for EM– Many more emerging

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MASAS and Solar Flare Alerts

• offers opportunity to feed Solar Flare Alerts into Emergency Managers across country seamlessly

• Filterable messages … ‘only let me know when a serious solar storm is happening’…

• Enables national CI owners/managers to ‘contribute observations to a common national map of alerts’.

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Space weather forecast:Based on data from multiple inputs.Updated every 15 mintues.Posted on web site and RSS.Feed into MASAS alerts

MASAS and Solar Flare Alerts

Activity level CAP Severity

to

MASAS

to

MASAS

0 3 6 9 121518212427303336394245485154

Stormy = MODERATE

Major Storm = SEVERE

Active, Unsettled, Quiet = MINOR

Geospatial PresentationThree Forecast ZonesThree Forecast Zones

Polar ZonePolar Zone

Auroral ZoneAuroral ZoneSub-Auroral ZoneSub-Auroral Zone

MASAS VIDEO CLIP <6min>

1) Integration with BC Emergency Management (4min)

2) Integration with FEMA Integrated Public Alerts & Warnings System (IPAWS) (2 min)

Success = …?Sat 2012-03-17 4:45 PM - ACTUAL EMAIL FROM EMERGENCY MGMT OFFICIAL:

“We have evacuation planning software that calculates populations and provides best routing of evacuees to shelters. This tool was developed for us for nuclear emergencies with con joined threats such as hurricanes or storm surges that might constrain evacuation operations.

I picked an area for evacuation and generated a map with routes to shelters. I then created a masas entry and embedded a link to the public information site and attached the evacuation map. This took all of 5 minutes from start to finish at home on my RIM Playbook.

Looking ahead to our upcoming nuclear exercise authorized users in our EOCs and emergency services in the field will be able to get essential information off the map, essentially in real time.

A written plan sent via email might take an hour; a situation report might update those paying attention only hours later. This approach helps us distribute critical information to all those with a need to know in near real time. We will continue to build a user community and culture around this capability.

Lots of positive comments from the players, our ops, comms and Int units, DND, RCMP and many others.”

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For more information and/or to become a

MASAS-X Participant

Visit www.MASAS-X.ca

[email protected]

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