IRespondPH: A Mobile and Web-based Application for Post Disaster Needs Assessment and Response in the Philippines

Abstract

The Philippines is one of the most hazard-prone countries in the world, from natural disasters such as tropical cyclones, floods, earthquakes, drought, and volcanic eruptions. Being stricken by the worst of the disasters it has frozen many developments in the Philippines and it has negatively affected the people's health, lives, properties, livelihood, and their living environment. As natural disasters are unpredictable and inevitable, appropriate disaster risk reduction measures are important, but the post-disaster response is as important and as essential, an efficient post-disaster response could help save more lives and minimize the adverse impact of the calamity. In this paper, IRespondPH, a mobile and web-based application for Post Disaster Need Assessment (PDNA) and disaster response in the Philippines was developed. It aims to provide citizens with real-time disaster information and help disaster managers to make data-driven decisions in the aftermath of a disaster based on the data reported by the citizens. The development of IRespondPH by the utilization of the Agile Software Development cycle was discussed. The testing of the mobile application has been carried out using Agile testing, a continuous process with 4 levels, from component testing to integration testing, to system testing and acceptance testing. Based on the results from simulated data, the tests showed a favorable result with mean scores ranging from 3.8 to 4.6, for all areas of a usability test. It further shows that the developed system is ready for implementation.