ER-RE Technical Dictionary: Quick Guide to Essential TerminologyEmergency response (ER) and resilience engineering (RE) share a dense technical vocabulary that professionals, students, and cross-disciplinary teams must master quickly. This guide provides concise, practical definitions and context for the most frequently encountered terms, grouped by theme so you can find and understand concepts fast.
Incident management & response
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Incident Command System (ICS) — A standardized, scalable framework for on-scene command, control, and coordination of emergency response. ICS defines roles (Incident Commander, Operations, Planning, Logistics, Finance/Administration) and a modular organizational structure that expands and contracts to match incident size.
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Unified Command — A structure that allows agencies with different legal, geographic, or functional authorities to coordinate, share decision-making, and develop a single Incident Action Plan (IAP) while retaining distinct authorities.
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Incident Action Plan (IAP) — The set of objectives, assignments, tactics, and supporting information for managing an incident during a specified time period (operational period).
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Operational Period — The set time frame during which tactical objectives in an IAP are executed (commonly 6–24 hours).
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Situation Report (SitRep) — A concise, regularly produced report describing current conditions, resources, actions taken, and needs.
Risk, hazard & vulnerability
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Hazard — A source of potential harm or adverse effect (e.g., flood, chemical release, cyberattack).
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Risk — The combination of the likelihood of an event and its consequences (often expressed as Risk = Probability × Consequence).
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Vulnerability — The characteristics and circumstances of a system, asset, or community that make it susceptible to the damaging effects of a hazard.
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Exposure — The presence of people, infrastructure, or assets in hazard-prone areas.
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Resilience — The ability of a system or community to absorb, adapt, and recover from disruptive events while maintaining essential functions.
Preparedness & planning
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Continuity of Operations (COOP) — Plans and procedures to ensure essential functions continue during and after a disruption.
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Business Continuity Plan (BCP) — Organization-specific plans to maintain mission-critical services and restore normal operations.
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Mutual Aid Agreement — Pre-arranged agreements between jurisdictions or organizations to provide resources and support during emergencies.
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After-Action Review (AAR) — A structured review process to analyze what happened, why it happened, and how to improve future performance following an incident or exercise.
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Tabletop Exercise (TTX) — A discussion-based simulation that walks participants through a hypothetical incident to test plans and decision-making without deploying resources.
Systems, networks & infrastructure
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Critical Infrastructure — Assets and systems vital to public health, safety, economic security, and national security (e.g., power grid, water supply, telecommunications).
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Cascading Failure — A process where a disruption in one part of an interconnected system propagates, causing failures in other dependent systems.
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Redundancy — The inclusion of backup components or systems to maintain functionality when primary elements fail.
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Failover — Automatic or manual switching to a redundant or standby system/component when the primary system fails.
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Interdependency — Mutual reliance between systems where failure in one affects performance of another.
Communication & information
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Common Operating Picture (COP) — A shared display of information (maps, resource status, incident timelines) that provides situational awareness to stakeholders.
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Triage — Prioritization method to allocate resources based on urgency and survivability (used in medical, technical, and resource-allocation contexts).
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Information Assurance (IA) — Measures and processes to protect information’s confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
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Alerting & Notification Systems — Mechanisms to rapidly warn the public or staff (e.g., mass SMS, sirens, reverse 911, public address systems).
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False Positive / False Negative — Detection errors: false positive = alarm when no threat exists; false negative = failure to detect a real threat.
Cybersecurity & digital resilience
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Ransomware — Malware that encrypts data or systems and demands payment for restoration.
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Zero Trust — Security model that assumes no implicit trust; verifies every access request regardless of origin.
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Backup & Recovery — Processes for creating data copies and restoring systems after loss or corruption.
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Incident Response (IR) — The organized approach to detect, contain, eradicate, and recover from cybersecurity incidents.
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Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR) — Average time required to repair a failed component or restore a system.
Safety, health & medical
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Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) — Clothing or equipment worn to minimize exposure to hazards (masks, gloves, respirators, suits).
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Mass Casualty Incident (MCI) — An event producing more patients than available resources can manage using routine procedures.
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Toxic Exposure Limit (e.g., PEL, TLV) — Regulatory or recommended thresholds for safe exposure to hazardous substances (Permissible Exposure Limit, Threshold Limit Value).
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Decontamination — Process to remove or neutralize contaminants from people, equipment, or environments.
Measurement, metrics & evaluation
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Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) — Specific, measurable values used to evaluate success in achieving objectives (e.g., time-to-first-response, resource mobilization time).
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Situational Awareness Levels — Often framed as perception, comprehension, and projection: (1) perceiving critical information, (2) understanding its meaning, (3) predicting future states.
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Stress Testing — Simulating extreme conditions to evaluate system robustness (commonly used in infrastructure, IT, and financial sectors).
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Red Teaming — Independent adversarial testing of plans, systems, or defenses to identify vulnerabilities and weaknesses.
Logistics & resource management
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Staging Area — Location where resources (personnel, equipment) are assembled before assignment.
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Cache — Prepositioned supplies or equipment stored for rapid deployment.
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Demobilization — Systematic release and reintegration of resources after they are no longer required.
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Supply Chain Resilience — The capacity of suppliers, transport, and distribution networks to adapt and recover from disruptions.
Governance, policy & legal
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Emergency Declaration — Formal recognition by authorities that extraordinary measures are required; often unlocks emergency powers and funding.
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Command Authority vs. Policy Authority — Command authority pertains to on-scene decisions, policy authority to broader legal or political directives.
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Liability & Immunity Provisions — Legal frameworks that may protect responders or organizations from certain liabilities during declared emergencies.
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Standards & Frameworks — ISO 22301 (business continuity), NFPA standards (fire and emergency), NIST SP 800-series (cybersecurity) — reference frameworks for organizational resilience and security practices.
Human factors & organizational behavior
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Crisis Leadership — The practice of guiding organizations during high-stress, high-uncertainty events, emphasizing clear communication, decisiveness, and adaptability.
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Situational Stressors — Environmental, social, and cognitive pressures that impair decision-making and performance during incidents.
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Crew Resource Management (CRM) — Techniques to improve team coordination, communication, and decision-making originally developed for aviation; adapted widely in emergency services.
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Normalization of Deviance — The gradual acceptance of nonstandard practices that deviate from safe norms, increasing risk over time.
Common abbreviations (quick list)
- ICS — Incident Command System
- IAP — Incident Action Plan
- COOP — Continuity of Operations
- BCP — Business Continuity Plan
- AAR — After-Action Review
- COP — Common Operating Picture
- MTTR — Mean Time to Recovery
- PPE — Personal Protective Equipment
- MCI — Mass Casualty Incident
How to use this dictionary
- Use the thematic sections to quickly orient yourself when reading plans, reports, or standards.
- Pair terms: understanding relationships (e.g., hazard → exposure → vulnerability → risk → resilience) clarifies decision points.
- For training, convert definitions into short exercises (e.g., create an IAP for a simulated MCI; run a tabletop on a cascading infrastructure failure).
- Keep a one-page cheat sheet with the quick abbreviations and the top 10 KPIs your organization tracks.
If you want, I can:
- expand any section into a full primer with examples and exercises,
- produce a printable one-page cheat sheet, or
- create flashcards for study.
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