Development of an Early Warning and Incident Response System for the Protection of Visitors from Natural Hazards in Important Outdoor Sites in Greece

Abstract

Safety in touristic destinations is of utmost importance since tourists’ preferences change frequently in response to emerging threats. Natural hazards are a significant risk and, as such, they need to be considered in the effort for safe tourism. Services and systems monitoring and predicting extreme natural phenomena and disasters in sites of special tourist and cultural interest can lead to more effective risk management and incident response. This paper presents Xenios, a system under development in Greece that provides early warning and risk communication services via web-based and mobile phone applications. We present the user requirements analysis contacted, which led to the design of a modular system architecture through a formal Business Process Model procedure. Currently, early warning systems for wildfire, floods, and extreme weather events are offered, based on a fusion of information from satellite imagery, meteorological forecasts, and risk estimation models. Moreover, visitors’ dispersion monitoring via unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and Wi-Fi connection signals is also offered, along with emergency response planning and ticketing system’s interfacing. The system is built around a modular architecture that permits the easy integration of new subsystems or other danger forecasting modules, depending on the site’s actual needs and limitations. Xenios also provides a mobile app for site visitors, which establishes a communication link for sending alarms, but also serves them with useful tourist information, so that they are encouraged to download and use the app. Finally, the opportunities for supporting a viable business model are also discussed. The results of this study could prove useful in designing other natural risk management systems for sites of cultural and natural interest.

Exhaustive Insights Towards Social-Media Driven Disaster Management Approaches

“…Following are some of the existing methodologies being reviewed:  Early Warning Methods  Such a form of methodology is related to the usage of real-time updates and automated alert systems. Various methodologies reviewed are Forest fire detection (Aramendia et al [26]), earthquake detection (Beltramone & Gomes [27]), Rating curve method integrated with nomograph (Cheong et al [28]), Community-based scheme (Al-Mueed et al [29]), Loosely coupled architecture for risk assessment (Psaroudakis et al [30]), Flood detection by hybrid method (Rozos et al [31]), People-centric method (Shah et al [32]), Joint modelling with machine learning and classification using rule-based methods (Shen et al [33]), Cyclone detection (Sultan et al [34]), Community monitoring for hydrological forecast (Tarchiani et al [35]), Flood mapping with satellite images (Wania et al [36]). The contribution of social media platforms in all the schemes mentioned above was mainly to facilitate the authorities to offer more immediate updates about disasters with automatic push alerts to the users in affected areas.…”

An alternative flood measurement approach: Flood Meter

“…Xenios [13] To provide early warning and risk communication services via web-based and mobile phone applications…”

Evolution of Tourism Risk Communication: A Bibliometric Analysis and Meta-Analysis of the Antecedents of Communicating Risk to Tourists

“…Previous social interaction studies focus on examining the effects of warnings and messages taking other formats [37,38]. The researchers conducting these studies aim to explore the various characteristics of warnings, for example, the kind of information, the timeliness, and the tone communicated.…”