Smart Disaster Detection and Response System for Smart Cities

Every year, natural and human-induced disasters result in infrastructural damages, monetary costs, distresses, injuries and deaths. Unfortunately, climate change is strengthening the destructive power of natural disasters. In this context, Internet-of-Things (IoT)-based disaster detection and response systems have been proposed to cope with disasters and emergencies by improving the disaster detection and search and rescue missions during disaster response. Accordingly, IoT devices are used to collect data and help to identify hazards after disasters and to localize injured people. However, a solely IoT-based detection and response system will not be totally suitable for emergency response in smart cities, as the lack of connectivity with IoT devices might occur, due to breakages in communication infrastructures or network congestions. Therefore, we propose a novel architecture for smart disaster detection and response system for smart cities. We discuss the main building blocks of our envisioned smart system, as well as the critical challenges that will be faced ahead to implement our smart system.