Establishment of a Disaster Response Support System Based on Public-Private Partnerships - Focused on Cooperation with a Private Institution Using Drone

Recently, drones are used widely in disaster areas, such as disaster relief and rescue, information collection and monitoring of affected areas. In particular, drones are highly useful to quickly identify the broader range of disaster damages. However, considering the specialized skills required for the operation of drones, training human resources and preparing equipment needs considerable time and budget. The public resources are not sufficient to monitor the damage, particularly in the case of large-scale disaster. This study aims at providing a new public-private cooperation model to support disaster response using private expertise and resources. In order to support disaster response during Typhoon Soulik in August 2018, we organized a collaborative team of emergency drone deployment based on the public-private cooperation and tested its efficacy. For a continuous operation and development of such activities based on public-private partnerships, increased efforts for institutionalization would be needed, including update of joint public-private organizations and operating systems, financial support, public relations, and routine training programs.