Civil protection

The author, Professor Jiri Matousek, PhD, DSc., Dipl. Eng., was working nearly 40 years in R D for Chemical Corps, Medical Services and Civil Protection, inter alia as Head of the Czechoslovak NBC Defence R D Establishment (now Military Technical Institute of Protection, Bmo) and a member of the Czechoslovak Delegation to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. He is currently chairman of the OPCW Scientific Advisory Board. 

State Agency for Civil Protection, Republic of Bulgaria 2Kingston Environmental Laboratory, USA... 

Abstract Main features of the R D resulting in the new means for primary decontamination of chemical warfare agents based on the chemisorption principle introduced into the Czech Army s individual decontamination mean IPB-80 and into the Czech Civil Protection first aid kit ZPJ-80, and in the upgrading of sets for secondary decontamination PCHB-60-P and PCHP-60-P are presented. First results of R D on universal solutions for detoxification of super-toxic lethal chemical warfare agents on human skin are shown and discussed. 

KemI (2000). Non-toxic Environment. See www.kemi.se Lohse, Joachim et.al. Substitution of Hazardous Chemicals in Products and Processes, Report compiled for the Directorate General Environment, Nuclear Safety and Civil Protection of the Commission of the European Communities, Contract No. B3-4305/2000/293861/MAR/E1,... 

The same understanding of what is critical, of what is an infrastructure and of what is entailed by the protection measures, have been a matter of discussion within countries and at the international level. These definitions, which are political in nature, more than technological, are influenced by the different perspectives taken by the problem stakeholders for instance, national defense, law enforcement, business continuity, and information assurance are four different domains that have their say on CIP. Moreover, even within governments there have been disagreements among the various policy standpoints—mainly originating from the requisite to link CIP initiatives with other on-going policies e.g., anti-terrorism, civil protection, security of supply, etc. 

Kruger Consult, Techno-Economic Aspects of Measures to Reduce Water Pollution in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises on the Basis of an Industry and Market Driven Approach. European Commission, Directorate-General XI.C5 Environment, Nuclear Safety and Civil Protection, Luxembourg, 1995, Contract No.B4-3040/93/001170. 

The main responsible Italian authorities are the Ministry of the Environment (prevention) Ministry of Defence for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief (response) Ministry of Health (urgent medical care) and Ministry of the Interior (for transport issues). 

Personal communication with Dr. P. Murphy, Directorate General for Environment, Nuclear Safety and Civil Protection DG XI, Commission of the European Communities, 200, rue de la Loi, B-1049 Brussels, Belgium. 

CSTEE/EEC (1987). Internal report CSTE/877101/XI fromDirectorate/EEC General for Environment, Nuclear Safety Civil Protection, DG XI/A/2, Brussels. 

DG XI (responsible for Environment, Nuclear Safety and Civil Protection including Notification, Classification, Packaging and Labelling of Dangerous Substances and Preparations)... 

The levels of criticahty and support capabihties of the territorial system were assessed using an original set of 138 variables, divided by the fohowing groups buildings, civil protection, demography, economy, education, justice, health, housing, social support, and environmental support. 

Nevertheless, place and scale matters, and this implies that a model that works well in a place, probably won t work so well in another place. Each place has its own socioeconomic, political and cultural characteristics. As we could see, previously, the factors that influence the final result of the equation differ from place to place, according with theframework of reference used in the analysis (the national or the regional). Nevertheless, the overall model is consistent in different scales, allowing to the elaboration of adapted and specified strategies of risk mitigation and civil protection measures. 

Department of Civil Protection, University of Defence, Brno, Czech Republic... 

The questionnaire also included questions regarding the respondents knowledge of alerts (meteorological and civil protection), their response to those alerts, and their opinion on how adequate or inadequate the mass media coverage of natural and technological hazards is. Finally, a group of Likert-type scales that focused on the respondents trust level in... 

In the questionnaire, the respondents were asked to state, on a scale of 1 (none) to 5 (full) their level of trust in the institutions most usually involved in accident and emergency and crisis management operations. The trust levels in all of the 7 institutions are high, aU of them being above the mean value of the scle fire departments and Portuguese National Medical Emergency Institute (INEM), 4.02 Pohce, 3.44 National Republican Guard, 3.43 municipal civil protection, 3.31 national civil protection 3.38 Red Cross, 3.85. 

As for the meteorological and civil protection alerts, we considered two levels of analysis in our approach. 

One consisted in asking whether the respondents knew of the existence of the alerts issued by the National Weather Service, the National Civil Protection and the Municipal Civil Protection. Then, if the answer was positive, we asked if the respondents changed their daily routines as a consequence of those alerts. 

On a merely descriptive basis, while 69.6% of the respondents are aware of the alerts issued by the National Weather Service, only 40.5% know of the ones issued by the National Civd Protection, and a mere 20.1% know of the alerts by the Municipal Civil Protection. Conversely, the response to the alerts is higher to the alerts issued by the civil protection (63.4%) than to those issued by the Weather service (50.0%). 

The comfort index also goes in the same direction for the weather service and national civil protection alerts, with the higher comfort index corresponding to a higher awareness. In the case of the Municipal Civil Protection alerts, the intermediate degrees in the comfort index (1 and 2 in a scale from 0 to 4) show higher awareness than average results. 

The age of the building is also significant when analysing the severe weather alerts, but no correlations were found between this variable and the civil protections alerts. 

There is also a similar correlation between the knowledge of both national and municipal civil protection services alerts when it comes to the work condition workers, including working students, are more aware of the alerts than the retired and the students, with the unemployed being close to average. 

The high level of trust in emergency and civil protection institutions and the overall knowledge of meteorological and civil protection alerts showed by respondents are indicators of a general concern for hazards and their possible consequences, and do establish a sohd basis for the implementation of a structural security culture that promote civic epistemologies related to risk and risk governance. 

Commission of the European Communities, Directorate-General XI, Environment, Nuclear Safety, and Civil Protection, Chemicals Control in the European Community, Special Publication No. 112, Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, 1992. 

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