Developing shared situational awareness for emergency management

The response efforts in emergency operation need to be fast and efficient. Actors from different fields have to cooperate in dynamic and complex environments and still in an efficient manner. In order to perform, the shared situation awareness of the response organization needs to be as good as possible. The purpose of our research was to identify the factors that affect the formation of shared situation awareness in search and rescue operations. The research is based on the theories of information, communication, and trust. The data collection was performed during a search and rescue exercise held in Finland in 2009 and included both observation and questionnaires. As a result we have defined the critical information needs for cooperation, a method for describing the communication, and the components of system trust. Emergency organizations can use the results in the development of their response activities. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.