Bridging the information gap: Mapping data sets on information needs in the preparedness and response phase

During the preparedness and response phase in regularly recurring natural disasters, the responding and professional communities have to decide which actions to take in order to support affected communities. We investigated the information needs of and the disaster management data available to both national and local decision-makers during the floods that affected the riverine islands of the Sirajganj district in Bangladesh in 2014. We conducted 13 semi-structured interviews and three focus group discussions, collecting in this way input from 51 people, transcribed and coded them so that clusters of information needs emerged. Subsequently, we mapped the information needs on the available data sets and identified the needs that are not well covered, of which the need for timely and location-based information is the most important. We recommend executing identification and mapping of available data sources on the information requirements as part of the preparedness phase. Data preparedness can solve to some extent the issue of data not being available timely enough in the initial response phase. Our future research aims at further closing these information gaps by linking and integrating disparate data sets to cover more information needs and by equipping disaster management volunteers at community level with a mobile data collection app to collect data before, during, and after the floods.