Decision Models and Group Decision Support Systems for Emergency Management and City Resilience

This paper introduces the concept of Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS) as a tool to support emergency management and resilience in coastal cities. As an illustration of the potential value of GDSS, we discuss the use of the Pointe Claire teaching case. Participants in the exercise work in groups to approach the case using four different computer-supported decision models to explore and recommend policies for emergency mitigation and city resilience. The case, as well as the decision models, can be a valuable GDSS tool, particularly in the mitigation stages of the emergency management cycle. We present preliminary results from the use of the case, models and a simulation environment in a graduate course. We finish the paper by presenting our experience as a framework for building more efficient and secure emergency management systems through the use of GDSS.