Date: 13 April 2026
An international seminar entitled “What Goes Wrong in Disaster Management Centres? From Pipeline Breakdown to Digital-Twin-Based Control” was held on 13 April 2026 at the Advanced Disaster, Emergency and Rapid Response Simulation (ADERSIM) Lab, York University, Toronto, Canada. The seminar was delivered by Prof. Dr. Mehmet Akşit and was partially supported by the Erasmus+ KA220 project SUDEM – Sustainable Disaster and Emergency Management Processes Digitalisation.
The seminar explored the challenges faced by modern Disaster Management Centres (DMCs) when responding to large-scale emergencies. Participants discussed how increasing numbers of incident reports can overwhelm traditional pipeline-based response systems, creating delays, coordination bottlenecks, and reduced operational effectiveness during critical situations.
A central focus of the seminar was the introduction of Digital Twin-based control architectures for disaster management. The presentation demonstrated how descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive digital twins can support continuous monitoring, simulation of disaster scenarios, adaptive resource allocation, and intelligent decision-making. These technologies enable disaster management centres to improve coordination, increase resilience, and optimise emergency response processes under dynamic conditions.
The seminar highlighted the growing importance of advanced digital technologies—including artificial intelligence, digital twins, sensor networks, data fusion, unmanned aerial systems (UAS), and decision-support systems—for the future of disaster and emergency management. These research directions closely correspond to the objectives of the SUDEM project, which aims to modernise higher education through innovative curricula focused on the digitalisation of disaster management processes.
The event also provided an opportunity for knowledge exchange between researchers, educators, and practitioners working in disaster resilience, smart infrastructures, and emergency response. By presenting state-of-the-art research to an international audience, the seminar contributed to the dissemination of SUDEM project objectives and promoted collaboration between European and North American research communities.
Hosted by York University’s ADERSIM Laboratory, the seminar formed part of the project’s international dissemination activities, reinforcing SUDEM’s mission to promote innovative educational approaches and digital technologies that support more effective and resilient disaster and emergency management worldwide.
