Disaster and crisis communication: Trend analysis of technologies and approaches

This paper provides an overview on current trends and research findings for technologies within crisis communication and disaster risk reduction. The outcomes of the analysis highlight five different issues that are important for effective and efficient crisis communication and future directions of disaster risk reduction activities.

The author concludes that knowledge management is an important factor not only for risk and crisis management but also for risk and crisis communication. In this context, new communication technologies are revolutionising the practice of disaster risk reduction and crisis management. Their power and flexibility make them particularly suited to command and control functions, emergency response, the creation and sharing of situational awareness, and the systematic assessment of hazards, vulnerabilities and risks.

This document is an input paper of the 2015 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction.