FORTRESS · Foresight Tools for Responding to cascading effects in a crisis

FORTRESS will identify and understand cascading effects by using evidence-based information from a range of previous crisis situations, as well as an in-depth analysis of systems and their mutual interconnectivity and (inter-)dependency. FORTRESS will seek to intervene in current crisis response practices by bridging the gap between the over-reliance on unstructured information collection on one side and a lack of attention to structural, communication and management elements of cross-border and cascading crisis situations on the other. It will use state of the art information collection and modelling tools to assist stakeholders in evaluating what information is significant, relevant and of greater priority so that they can adjust their actions accordingly. It will do so by using evidence-based information from historical crisis case studies (WPs 2 and 3), as well as comprehensive analysis of the different relationships between systems (WP 4), and systems and sensitivity information from current crisis management contexts and practices in four system simulations (WP 5). This will enable FORTRESS to build a collaborative and accesible, modelling platform for cascading and cross-border effects in a range of crisis situations (WP 6). This will feed into the development of the FORTRESS Incident Evolution Tool (FIET) in WP7; a user-friendly tool with cross-border capabilities that can be used in a cascading crisis. FIET can be used as a foresight tool to assist decision-makers in understanding the potential effects of their decisions in training environments. FIET is also a decision support tool that is user-friendly enough to be employed during a crisis to assist real-time decision making. FIET will be subject to rigorous testing in the field to evaluate its effectiveness, and the project will ensure its user-friendliness by undertaking extensive training with decision-makers to optimise the look and feel of the system (WP 8).