BCEMP key terms

An approach that manages mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery as connected phases across all levels of government and the private sector, rather than as separate or strictly sequential activities.

Planning and capability-building that addresses the full range of possible emergencies-natural, technological, and human-caused-using common functions and structures, instead of preparing for only one specific hazard.

The recurring sequence of mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery activities used to organize emergency management work; in practice the phases overlap and are not strictly linear.

The capacity of a community, organization, or system to absorb disruption, adapt to changing conditions, and recover essential functions in a timely manner.

A doctrine holding that emergency management succeeds only when individuals, families, businesses, nonprofits, and all levels of government are engaged as active partners in preparedness and response.

The systematic process of finding and listing the hazards that could affect an organization or community, using historical records, data, site surveys, and expert input.

The process of estimating the likelihood and consequences of identified hazards and combining them to determine which risks require attention and treatment.

A grid that plots likelihood against consequence to rank risks into priority levels, helping planners compare dissimilar hazards and decide where to act first.

The physical, social, economic, or organizational characteristics of a person, asset, or system that make it susceptible to harm from a hazard.

A description of a specific hazard's causes, frequency, magnitude, warning time, duration, and likely geographic extent, used to compare hazards and design plans.

Selecting and applying options to address assessed risk-avoid, reduce, transfer, or accept-with the choice based on cost, feasibility, and the organization's tolerance.

Sustained actions taken before or after an incident to reduce or eliminate long-term risk to people, property, and operations, such as land-use controls, retrofitting, and protective works.

The range of activities-planning, training, exercising, equipping, and public education-that build and maintain the capabilities needed to respond effectively to emergencies.

The document that assigns responsibilities, describes the concept of operations, and outlines how an organization or jurisdiction will respond to and recover from emergencies.

A documented set of procedures and arrangements that enable an organization to continue or restore its critical business functions at acceptable levels during and after disruption.

A planning method that starts from the capabilities needed to achieve desired outcomes across many hazards, then builds and assesses those capabilities rather than relying only on hazard-specific plans.

A discussion-based exercise in which participants talk through a simulated scenario and their roles, decisions, and coordination, without deploying actual resources.

A document produced after an exercise or incident that summarizes what happened, identifies strengths and gaps, and recommends corrective actions with owners and deadlines.

A pre-arranged written arrangement between organizations or jurisdictions to share personnel, equipment, or services during an emergency, specifying request procedures, costs, and liability.

A standardized, modular management structure that assigns clear roles for command, operations, planning, logistics, and finance so that multiple agencies can work together at an incident scene.

An ICS arrangement in which representatives of several agencies with jurisdictional or functional responsibility jointly set objectives and make decisions for a single incident without relinquishing their own authority.

A physical or virtual facility where designated officials coordinate information, resources, and policy decisions in support of field operations during an emergency, without directly commanding the scene.

The number of subordinates or functions one supervisor can effectively manage; incident managers keep it within a workable range by adding layers or divisions as the organization grows.

A written or oral plan covering a defined operational period that states incident objectives, strategies, tactics, assignments, and support needs for responders.

The time interval for which an incident action plan is prepared and used, often 12 or 24 hours, after which objectives and assignments are reviewed and updated.

A shared, continuously updated understanding of the incident-its status, resources, and needs-available to all coordinating organizations so decisions rest on the same information.

The organized movement of people away from an area threatened by a hazard to a safer location, including warning, transportation, route, and reception planning.

A structured study that identifies an organization's critical functions and estimates how disruption over time would affect operations, finances, legal obligations, and reputation, setting recovery priorities.

The target time within which a function, system, or process must be restored after disruption to avoid unacceptable consequences.

The maximum acceptable amount of data or work that may be lost, expressed as the time between the last backup or replication and the disruption.

The longest period a function can remain unavailable before harm becomes unacceptable; recovery objectives are set below this limit.

The effort to ensure that an organization's essential functions can continue during and after a disruption, using alternate facilities, personnel, systems, and procedures.

The limited set of activities an organization must keep performing, or restore quickly, to meet its legal, safety, and mission obligations during a disruption.

The process of restoring normal operations, facilities, and staffing after an emergency, including repairing damage, replacing resources, and applying lessons learned.

The technical subset of continuity planning focused on restoring data, applications, networks, and hardware after a failure or cyber incident, usually against recovery time and point objectives.

A managed process for tracking improvement actions from exercises, audits, and real incidents through to completion, with assigned responsibility, deadlines, verification, and reporting to leadership.

Defined measures used to track whether a program is achieving its objectives, such as exercise participation, plan currency, recovery capability, and corrective action closure rates.

A structured way of choosing among competing options by weighing duties, consequences, fairness, transparency, and the public interest, and by documenting the reasoning.

A published set of principles and expected behaviors that guides practitioners' conduct, including honesty, competence, confidentiality, avoidance of conflicts, and service to the public.

The ongoing process of identifying parties affected by or interested in a program and involving them in planning, decisions, and feedback so plans reflect real needs.