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DEVELOPMENT OF GEOSCIENCE INFORMATION FOR AREA BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLAN

BY: MOHAMAD FARUQ SYAHMI MD ARIPIN

INTRODUCTION

As part of the Disaster Resilient Cities: Forecasting Local Level Climate Extremes and Physical Hazards for Kuala Lumpur project funded by Newton-Ungku Omar, Geomapping Technology Sdn. Bhd. was assigned to develop Technical Guidance Note (TGN) on Development of Geoscience Information for Area Business Continuity Plan (Area BCP). The pilot study on Area Business Continuity Plan is in Kuala Lumpur. 

RELATED DOCUMENTS

  • Malaysian Standard (2007) MS 1920:2007: Business Continuity Management – Framework. 36p 
  • International Organization for Standardization (2012) ISO22301:2012: Societal security — Business continuity management systems — Requirements 
  • JICA Study Team (2015) Planning Guide for Area Business Continuity (Area BCM Toolkits), Version 2

TECHNICAL RECOMMENDATIONS 

A proposed workflow is presented in Figure 1. The proposed workflow comprised of three main components which can be conducted concurrently, namely: 

  1. Formulation of Area BCP (Annex A) 
  2. Geohazard and Risk Assessment (Annex B) 
  3. Urban Geology Map (Annex C) 
  1.  
Figure 1: Proposed workflow for geoscience information development of Area BCP (Modified after JICA Report 2004)
Figure 1: Proposed workflow for geoscience information development of Area BCP (Modified after JICA Report 2004)

DATA COLLECTION AND COLLATION

Implementation and formulation of Area BCP required the following geographic information to be collected and analysed: 

  1. Geophysical hazard inventory map, 
  2. Digitized industrial agglomerated area map, 
  3. Transport, infrastructure and lifeline utilities map, 
  4. Legal framework for disaster risk management and BCP, 
  5. Current state of BCP implementation 

Most of the existing data are readily available and archived by the relevant authorities, government agencies, and/or municipal councils.

Table 1: Data requirement for Area BCP in construction of GIS database modified from Hitoshi Baba et al. (2014)
Table 1: Data requirement for Area BCP in construction of GIS database modified from Hitoshi Baba et al. (2014)

ANNEX A – FORMULATION OF AREA BCP / AREA BCM  

Business Continuity Plan (BCP) 

  • Business Continuity Plan (BCP) relates the management and business continuity between individuals and organizations.  
  • BCP can be referred to as the development of a recovery framework or a strategy plan in preparedness of emergency, high risk event or natural disaster. 
  • In addition, the BCP is able to realize the sustainable development of the area as it ensures that industrial development of an area is not threatened further despite the disaster (JICA 2014). 
  • A survey conducted by NISER’s ISMS Survey in 2003 shows that only 52 % of Malaysian organizations are currently practicing Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP) while 37% are implementing BCP (Jalil 2004). These figures imply generally that the level of BCP implementation in Malaysia is still at a relatively infant stage. 

Area Business Continuity Plan (Area BCP)

  • The Area BCP is a framework and guide of disaster risk management by stakeholders. Such stakeholders include individual companies, industrial area administrators, local authorities and infrastructure administrators to continue the business of the industrial agglomerated area as a whole. 
  • The geographical scope of the Area BCP depends on the local situation or the size of the of stakeholder’s coordination, so that the scope of the Area BCP may be an industrial park, an industrial agglomerated area or even a nation. 
  • The Area BCP should be coordinated with the BCP of each party in such a way as to complement critical information required to quantify damages or share business resources for both public and private parties. 
  • Each BCP should refer the Area BCP to identify limitations in the area, considering the Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of the business resources and planning the recovery initiatives. 
  • Hence, the developed Area BCP should be looped back to BCP for continuous reviewing and monitoring for future improvements. 

Process of Area BCP/Area BCM

  • Area BCP formulation conducted by JICA study team which facilitated stakeholder discussion to take steps as Figure 2 developed by a team which refers to the standard ISO22301 procedure. 

 

Figure 2: Steps to formulate Area BCP and to implement Area BCM. Source: Hitoshi Baba et al. (2014)
Figure 2: Steps to formulate Area BCP and to implement Area BCM. Source: Hitoshi Baba et al. (2014)

ANNEX B – GEOHAZARD AND RISK ASSESSMENT

There are two ways to determine the target disaster situation: first, by evaluating past experiences in the area, and second, by performing numerical hazard assessments and risk assessments. 

If the region has experienced the business interruption(s) in the past due to natural hazard(s), it is highly likely that in the immediate future, the same type(s) of hazard will occur at the same or greater scale (Hitoshi Baba et al., 2014). If work group members decide to consider past hazard(s) as the object hazard(s) for preparation, the disaster history of past events can be used as target situation(s). When the area has encountered multiple types of hazards, the working group may choose one type for the first Area BCM cycle, and others for the following Area BCM cycles. 

In the case that the area may not have accurate records of the past disaster(s), it is important to evaluate or assess the area’s prevalent hazard which may disturb business operations, the magnitude of the hazard, and the risks of disaster caused by the hazard. The following analyses are necessary. 

  • Identify predominant risk caused by natural hazard, 
  • Target setting of disaster scale, 
  • Hazard assessment of the area, 
  • Vulnerability assessment and risk analysis of the area. 
Figure 3: Steps to formulate Area BCP and to implement Area BCM. Source: Hitoshi Baba et al. (2014)
Figure 3: Steps to formulate Area BCP and to implement Area BCM. Source: Hitoshi Baba et al. (2014)

ANNEX C – URBAN GEOLOGY MAP 

Urban geology was defined by Culshaw (2012) as study of the interaction of human and natural processes with the geological environment in urbanised areas, and the resulting impacts, and the provision of the necessary geo-information to enable sustainable development, regeneration and conservation. Urban Geology Map incorporate the following information in one easy to understand map. 

  1. Geomorphology, 
  2. Surface and Subsurface Geology. 
  3. Engineering Geology, 
  4. Hydrogeology, 
  5. Hazards and Geoenvironment. 

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