The papers in their numbers perhaps not unsurprisingly bear significant resemblance to recent events with this year many more papers on issues concerning natural disasters as opposed to man made incidents such as accidents involving hazardous materials. We are hopeful this sharing of knowledge will contribute to managing future events such as;

• This month’s earthquake in China in the province of Sichuan, which caused more than 80,000 deaths.
• And Typhoon Nargis, which was classified as very severe, and hit Myanmar, on May 3rd, causing more than 120,000 deaths

In both these instances the armed forces played important roles in disaster abatement, to assist in the disaster response.

Such disasters show that mankind is unable to control the nature, and the challenges it throws at us, and therefore, we have to develop clear and coherent procedures to manage their impacts. However, should we prepare for the worse? Or in other words: to what disasters should we be prepared? This is a reoccurring question in debates among emergency responders and those who have to pay the price. All kind of ICT and GIS systems are developed, but do they work in real life disaster management? Still, lacking information and communications problems are often mentioned when disaster management is evaluated,  to see how we can improve our emergency response activities. One thing is for sure, is what TIEMS stands for, and that is the interchange between theory and practice. This interchange is required to learn from each other, from different countries, and different disciplines.

In addition to the variety of subjects, we have a large variety of authors: from researchers in China to industry in the USA, and from policy makers in Korea to practitioners in Germany.

All these contributions were reviewed by an international paper review committee, and would like to thank them all for their outstanding job in reviewing papers and supporting the authors with comments to improve these. It was an honor to chair the paper review committee in which so many specialists were involved. 

The following persons reviewed papers.

Every emergency in every part of the world, however similar to those that have gone before them seem to pose new challenges for the emergency management community. And with each new challenge it is vital, if we are to improve our overall responses to learn the lessons from these events, and ensure measures are put in place to mitigate, and if possible prevent these incidents occurring.

Dr Nils Rosmuller
Paper Review Committee Chair