INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: WHERE IS IT IN THE COORDINATION OF EMERGENCY SERVICES?

logies opens up opportunities for significant improvements in integrating, coordinating and communicating information among emergency services. The need for such communication is especially critical where emergency services are called upon to manage the effects of major emergencies and disasters. Although often local in origin, the impacts of such events usually spread across social as well as physical boundaries, requiring multi-agency response and resource allocation. Furthermore, the adequacy of response is greatly influenced by the degree to which organisations and individual respondents can collectively develop and implement solutions to commonly recognised problems and associated responsibilities (Anderson 1990a). However, neither recognising common problems, nor developing and implementing common solutions are easy tasks. Firstly, hazards and their effects are continuously changing in kind and in their effects on human populations. The increased urban use of hazardous chemicals, for example, combined with poorly designed storage facilities and transportation routes can easily place large concentrations of people at risk. So can the effects of natural disasters—especially where large numbers of people are concentrated in inadequately planned and poorly protected environments