Preparing students for disaster risk management and humanitarian relief
Every year students of the Master’s of Geography of Environmental Risks and Human Security participate in a simulation exercise to put their new knowledge of disaster management and humanitarian response to practice. Although in an adapted virtual format, this past week students of the 2019 batch got the chance to immerse themselves in the world of emergency response.
The simulation was marked by four days of virtual exercises, role-playing, and a field exercise. With a small exercise control group leading the scripted storyline, students were divided into three UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) teams, Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie. In the simulation, the teams responded to a fictional disaster caused by storm Kappa, which brought severe storm surge impacts to Western Europe. In the scenario, torrential rainfall over Germany resulted in catastrophic flooding along the Rhine, putting the teams on standby to rapidly deploy.
At the fictional request of the German government, the teams arrived in Bonn to support the national response effort. The tone of the exercise set in as they received their security briefing and mission mandate from the UN Resident Coordinator and UN Humanitarian Coordinator, the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK), and a military liaison officer of the German Armed Forces. Their main objective was to support the national response and to coordinate international contributions.
This was not an easy task as they were first in charge of establishing the On-Site Operations Coordination Centre (OSOCC), coordinating the UN’s Humanitarian Cluster System of specialized agencies, as well as with national authorities, NGOs, and private sector companies to ensure efficient logistics of aid. Immediately, they were presented with critical challenges such as competition for emergency resources and time pressures.
As the situation worsened, their role began to shift, exposing them to the dynamics of complex emergencies. “We felt the cascading disaster and stress. UNDAC teams, who are specifically trained for this, face uncertainty and unknowns in real life. This is what we had to confront,” said Alpha’s team leader, Melisa Mena Benavides of Costa Rica.
On the third day, students who played the environmental experts for their teams were called into the field to provide an assessment for a fictitious ship collision, which led to a damaged bridge and an oil spill. This portion combined a short field exercise with a GPS activity, allowing pairs of two to trek across Bonn’s Rheinaue to reach the incident site.
At the site on the Rhine River, they assessed the extent of the damage to the bridge, the impacts of water contamination in the river, and at a nearby water treatment facility. There they coordinated with an engineer and a chemical water specialist to recommend further mitigation measures.
During the final injection, the scenario turned for the worse as the fictitious flooding from Kappa encroached on nuclear plants in nearby Tihange, Belgium, and Cattenom, France. The teams quickly consulted with an actual expert from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, in order to make the critical recommendation to shut down the reactors to avoid further disaster.
Read the full article here.
An artcile by the Institute for Environment and Human Security – United Nations University (UNU-EHS).
