We talk about situation awareness a lot. In fact, it permeates a lot of our central assumptions and decisions.  It also impacts how we strategize about our operations and planning, especially as it relates to information management. So really, what is situation awareness?  How does it relate to information management?

Situation awareness is the primary conceptual tool that disaster personnel use to manage all the information that disasters create. Endsley (1988) describes situation awareness as “the perception of the elements in the environment within a volume of time and space, the comprehension of their meaning and the projection of their status in the near future.” According to Endsley (2000), situation awareness is a distinct stage from decision making and the subsequent performance of actions. Endsley (1995, 2000) defines three levels of situation awareness leading to decision making and the performance of actions:

• Level 1 – Perception of current situation,
• Level…