The future of emergency management (EM) is changing fast—and so is the science and technology to protect it. The December 2024 issue of the Domestic Preparedness Journal highlighted the transformative impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on emergency management (EM) and emergency operations centers, highlighting both the technological advancements and practical applications but also barriers to implementation and acceptance. A team from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) contributed to several articles showcasing recent efforts to explore the EM and AI research and development (R&D) landscape with stakeholder engagement.

Focusing on R&D for EM

The article “EM of Tomorrow: Emerging Technologies and Concepts,” coauthored by Dan Cotter and Christina Bapst-Stump of the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate and Ann Lesperance and Rachel Bartholomew of PNNL, highlights how an ongoing collaboration, the Emergency Management of Tomorrow Research Program, is helping sift through the noise to prioritize R&D needs to inform future investments for EM.

“Partnerships are important to advancing R&D in EM—they help us to combine resources, expertise, and ideas to address the complex challenges," said Lesperance, who is a joint appointee for Northeastern University Seattle’s College of Social Science and Humanities Programs and director of PNNL’s Northwest Regional Technology Center (NWRTC), which is a virtual resource supporting preparedness, resilience, response, and recovery. 

“By connecting across disciplines and institutions, we can more effectively identify and explore R&D opportunities and harness emerging technologies that can directly enhance community resilience and safety," added Bartholomew, advisor and NWRTC deputy director. 

Exploring the AI landscape

In “Opportunities for Artificial Intelligence in EM,” PNNL’s Alex Hagen and Jon Barr share how an in-depth landscape assessment conducted in 2024 dug deep into research articles, preprints, code repositories, and surveys at the intersection of applied AI and EM. Hagen and Barr vetted their findings through discussions and exercises with emergency managers, university faculty, college students, national laboratory researchers, and federal staff. 

“Our landscape assessment emphasized that the integration of AI into EM is not just a future possibility but a present necessity—and that comes with challenges. By engaging with a broad range of stakeholders, we are building a better understanding of how AI solutions can efficiently and ethically be integrated into how we prepare for and respond to emergencies,” said Hagen.

Outreach included a “sandpit” exercise, performed at the University of Albany in conjunction with its College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity, where students were asked to perform in one day what many researchers do for their career: identify an important EM challenge, create an AI-enabled solution to the problem, and validate and report on that solution.

“It was impressive to see just how much research is connecting EM challenges with AI solutions and how the next generation is thinking about the field,” said Barr.

Envisioning the future of emergency operations

The visionary piece “From Today to Tomorrow: The Emergency Operations Center of the Future,” coauthored by PNNL’s Nick Betzsold and contractor Grant Tietje, explores a futuristic vision for emergency operations centers, grounded in findings from landscape assessments, stakeholder outreach, and a series of tabletop exercises that explored how the rapid and accelerating pace of advancements in science and technology can be highly disruptive to emergency services.

“AI is already changing the narrative for emergency response and preparedness. Through hands-on exercises we bring diverse voices to the story of what technology looks like in the emergency operations center of the future,” said Tietje.

“We learned so much from connecting with emergency managers and staff in the emergency operations centers. Their input helped us refine a futuristic but realistic vision for where we might enhance operations with science and technology,” said Betzsold. 

To check out the full journal, visit: https://www.domesticpreparedness.com/journals/december-2024.