Effective use of KPIs in Natural Disaster Management

The continuous increase in world population has lead has aggravated the periodicity and intensity of occurrence of natural disasters. Natural disasters like earthquakes, landslides, cyclones have ruined the habitat and property of many of these countries.

It is known that stopping the occurrence of these natural phenomenons is next to impossible, but efforts can be made to control the hazards which these disasters inflict on human lives. Natural disaster management aims at pursuing strategies that are designed to contain mitigate the detrimental effects of natural disasters. Any natural disaster management program needs to be prepared to tackle contingencies of varied scales and KPIs serve as important pointers to achieve perfection in these initiatives.

In natural disaster management KPIs can be effectively categorized in 4 major perspectives- disaster monitoring and funding, natural disaster risk reduction, natural disaster preparedness and education and training. Disaster monitoring and funding perspective include KPIs such as number of early warning models developed, % increase in government funding, etc. Natural disaster risk reduction comprises of KPIs like natural disaster risk maps produced, number of vulnerable area identified, and other similar ones. Natural disaster preparedness perspective talks about KPIs in the form of % area and building inspections, % increase in relief measures included, etc. Education and training perspective includes KPIs like number of training sessions of safety management, number of medicinal training programs conducted, etc.

Though the aforementioned KPIs can be utilized in most cases, however, at times it becomes difficult to measure the correct key performance indicators in natural disaster management the task even becomes more complicated. Another important challenge faced in natural disaster management is coordinating the activities of different groups and group members. Keeping all the efforts focused to the ultimate task of managing natural disasters effectively is what these organizations should strive for. Calculating and setting values of parameters used for effective natural disaster management is often considered as a cumbersome task. If these indicators are misidentified, it may make another disaster in natural disaster management.

KPIs effectively arranged in a Balanced Scorecard helps to provide a holistic view of all the activities performed for the management of natural disasters. With the increase in the rate at which natural disasters are occurring around the world and causing huge damage to both invaluable lives and property, the importance of a focused approach for natural disaster management is worth a lot. KPIs help in identifying and prioritizing those areas of the society that needs further attention and that are more vulnerable to these natural risks. KPIs facilitate in better evaluation of all the measures taken for managing natural disasters and assist in buckling up to counter any form damage done due to these unwanted natural calamities.

In summing up it can be said that these key performance indicators are helpful for the natural disaster management program, by evaluating the usefulness of efforts and activities in quantitative numbers. They provide a robust evaluation mechanism to test the disaster management strategies and processes and can provide sound guidance regarding areas where efforts needed to be taken to make the program more effective.