Structure and Elements of Disaster Response Processes - A General Meta-Model

Executing effective, efficient disaster response processes (DRPs) in the immediate aftermath of disaster is crucial to minimizing any potential damages to life and assets. Existing approaches from the business process management background seem to promise to support the management of DRP with process-aware IT systems and tools. However, domain-specific challenges of disaster response management (DRM) and especially the importance of place-related process features, require new concepts in process-aware IT systems. This report of ongoing research thus introduces and discusses a class-based meta-model consisting of fundamental DRP components and their interdependencies. The aim of this model is to make these domain-specific issues tangible for IT-supported processing and provide a sound data structure to facilitate the adaption and future development of process-aware IT systems for DRM.