At the Cabinet meeting today, Premier Lin Chuan stated that he expects typhoon and flood information services to become more comprehensive by incorporating the information and communications technology industry to create an autonomous integrated system.
The premier made these remarks after a briefing by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) on its integrated typhoon and flood warning information services.
A complete grasp of information is highly important in disaster response and has been greatly facilitated by the Integrated Platform on Information and Intelligence of Disaster website set up by the MOST and the National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction (NCDR), the premier said.
Lin noted that there were discrepancies between what he saw when inspecting Taitung after Typhoon Nepartak and the scenes shown on television as well as the information provided by the Central Emergency Operation Center (CEOC). The administration requires a review and confirmation mechanism so that the CEOC can compare and incorporate information from other sources such as television media, the Internet and local correspondents. For example, the photos and information provided by local residents and councilors would have supplemented the administration's understanding of the disaster in Taitung prior to the premier's inspection of the disaster sites. Therefore, how to integrate such information and make disaster data more comprehensive is a direction that the administration must work toward in the future.
The MOST stated that in recent years it has been proactively working to integrate various ministries' and agencies' typhoon and flood monitoring and warning information. The NCDR, an affiliate of the MOST, assists the CEOC in evaluating information, integrates various agencies' disaster data for overall analysis and assessment, and provides such material as a disaster-response reference for the CEOC, various ministries and agencies, and local governments.
To enable city and county governments to share disaster information during typhoon response periods, in 2015 the MOST launched a preliminary plan to integrate central and regional disaster information. The MOST provided 12 universities with subsidies for assisting local governments in delivering more advanced and detailed information, which was posted on the NCDR's Integrated Platform on Information and Intelligence of Disaster website for use by various ministries and agencies.