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Background Embankment dams were built south of the Laizhou bay in China for controlling storm surge disasters, but they are not enough to replace coastal forests in protecting the land. This study was designed to evaluate the effects of embankment dams on natural forests dominated by Tamarix austromongolica and test whether the dam-shrub system is a preferable updated defense. Methods Coastal forests on two typical flats, one before and one behind embankment dams, were investigated using quadrats and lines. Land bareness, vegetation composition and species co-occurrence were assessed; structures of T. austromongolica populations were evaluated; and spatial patterns of the populations were analyzed using Ripley’s K and K1,2 functions. Results In the area before embankment dams, 84.8% of T. austromongolica were juveniles (basal diameter ≤ 3 cm), and 15.2% were adults (basal diameter > 3 cm); behind the dams, 52.9% were juveniles, and 47.1 were adults. In the area before the dams, the land bareness was 13.7%, four species occurred, and they all were ready to co-occur with T. austromongolica; behind the dams, the land bareness was 0%, and 16 species occurred whereas they somewhat resisted co-occurrence with T. austromongolica. In the area before the dams, the T. austromongolica population was aggregated in heterogeneous patches, and the juveniles tended to co-occur with the adults; behind the dams, they were over-dispersed as nearly uniform distributions, while the juveniles could recruit and were primarily independent of the adults. These results indicate that the T. austromongolica species did not suffer from the unnatural dams, but benefited somehow in population expansion and development. Overall, the T. austromongolica species can adapt to artificial embankment dams to create a synthetic defense against storm surges.

This article addresses the problem of locating temporary shelters in small Colombian cities through the construction of a stochastic linear programming model that considers different scenarios where the affected population is a factor that generates uncertainty in the location of shelters and the respective flows in the humanitarian supply chain. The model is validated through the construction of a case study referring to the floods presented in a city in the center of the department of Valle del Cauca, which constantly causes the need to relocate the affected population, seeking to reduce attention times to the victims while considering restrictions associated with the budget available for emergency care. The generated proposal becomes a benchmark for the efficient management of shelters in similar disasters in small Colombian cities.

Frequent natural disasters challenge relief network efficiency. This paper introduces a stochastic relief network with limited path capacity, develops an equilibrium model based on cumulative prospect theory, and formulates it as a stochastic variational inequality problem to enhance emergency response and resource allocation efficiency. Using the NCP function, Lagrange function, and random variables, the model dynamically monitors disasters, enabling rational resource allocation for quick decision-making. Compared to traditional methods, our model significantly improves resource scheduling and reduces disaster response costs. Through a random network example, we validate the model's effectiveness in aiding intelligent decision-making for relief plans and resource allocation optimization.

Participating and holding public charity is a long tradition of the Catholic and a concrete embodiment of the Catholic active participation in social care. During the period from 1840 to 1949, the political structure, social class, and economic order of Chinese society underwent earth-shaking changes, and wars and turmoil were frequent. In this period of social turmoil, while preaching in China, Catholicism also adheres to religious concepts, actively practices the concept of charity, and participates in social charity services in many ways. Missionaries, who had come to China in modern times, had actively participated in various charitable undertakings in China with full religious enthusiasm, especially disaster and famine relief. At present, less attention has been paid to the research on disaster relief undertakings carried out by Catholic missionaries in China, especially the history of local religious disaster relief needs to be improved. The Catholic's disaster relief in China has always played an indelible role in disaster relief. And reflecting on and drawing on the historical experience is of great practical significance for the current disaster resistance and relief. Studying the disaster relief undertakings carried out by the Catholic Church in modern Hunan could further expand the research on disaster and relief in China and could contribute to similar research in other countries.

The U.S. federal government manages many domestic and global operations, including environmental disasters. With the need to both mitigate and adapt to climate change, legislative and executive branches have spurred research efforts as the impacts of the Anthropocene accelerate around the country. The Army Corps of Engineers’ overlapping interest in security and providing technological answers to mitigate weather disasters has led to recent research and development, including facilitating the federal mandate to convert military fleets to electric vehicles by 2027 while also building a hydrogen fuel cell emergency operations vehicle. The emergency vehicle, H2Rescue, has recently been tested in the field, and further refinements in the technology are leading towards a transition out of development and into production. However, the engineered solution must also attend to the social dimensions of disaster relief. This paper examines past environmental disasters in one location, the Navajo Nation, to describe how the vehicle could provide a combination of technological and societal future research possibilities for environmental anthropology.

A rare extreme windstorm struck Portugal in 1941 when Macau was suffering from the complex Second Sino-Japanese War (WWII). Macau Chinese raised funds for Portuguese windstorm reconstruction-a little-known international diplomatic charity event relevant to Luso-Chinese relations. This article reviewed the Letters of Credit (in Chinese and Portuguese) and Chinese newspapers to provide a historical overview of the charity event across geographies, nationalities, and ethnicities and uses public choice theory to explore the motivation and underlying logic of events. Following more than two months of intensive fund-raise efforts, an active fundraising process by the Chinese elite and the public culminated in a donation of HK$ 31,075.23 (equivalent to HK$ 310,752.3 today compared to the salary level at that time) to Portugal on behalf of the Macau government to assist those affected by the storm there. Initially, it conveyed the assistance and humanitarianism of the Macau Chinese for Portugal's natural disaster. Furthermore, this episode illustrates the Chinese elite and Macau government’s willingness to seek political capital and power in response to the war crisis. This research allows us better understand international diplomatic relations patterns and rethink political and social history.

This study aimed to address the problem of post-disaster emergency material dispatching from multiple supply points to multiple demand points. In large-scale natural disasters, it is very important for multiple emergency material supply points to serve as sources of materials for multiple disaster sites and to determine emergency material scheduling solutions accurately. Furthermore, the quantity of emergency materials required at each disaster site is uncertain. To address this issue, in this study, we developed an emergency material scheduling model with multiple logistics supply points for multiple demand points based on the grey interval numbers. To optimize the proposed multi-supply-point and multi-demand-point emergency material scheduling mode, a multi-objective optimization algorithm based on a genetic algorithm was used. Experimental results demonstrate that the multi-objective optimization method can solve the emergency logistics scheduling problem better than the particle swarm optimization multi-objective solution algorithm. Additionally, the multi-supply point and multi-demand point emergency material dispatch model and optimization algorithm provides robust support for emergency management system decision-makers when they need to respond quickly to disaster relief activities.

This study presents the Drone Swarms Routing Problem (DSRP), which consists of identifying the maximum number of victims in post-disaster areas. The post-disaster area is modeled in a complete graph, where each search location is represented by a vertex, and the edges are the shortest paths between destinations, with an associated weight, corresponding to the battery consumption to fly to a location. In addition, in the DSRP addressed here, a set of drones are deployed in a cooperative drone swarms approach to boost the search. In this context, a V-shaped formation is applied with leader replacements, which allows energy saving. We propose a computation model for the DSRP that considers each drone as an agent that selects the next search location to visit through a simple and efficient method, the Drone Swarm Heuristic. In order to evaluate the proposed model, scenarios based on the Beirut port explosion in 2020 are used. Numerical experiments are presented in the offline and online versions of the proposed method. The results from such scenarios showed the efficiency of the proposed approach, attesting not only the coverage capacity of the computational model but also the advantage of adopting the V-shaped formation flight with leader replacements.

Given the accelerated advancement of drones in an array of application domains, the imperative of effective path planning has emerged as a quintessential research focus. Particularly in intricate three-dimensional (3D) environments, formulating the optimal flight path for drones poses a substantial challenge. Nonetheless, prevalent path-planning algorithms exhibit issues encompassing diminished accuracy and inadequate stability. To solve this problem, a hybrid improved symbiotic organisms search (ISOS) and sine–cosine particle swarm optimization (SCPSO) method for drone 3D path planning named HISOS-SCPSO is proposed. In the proposed method, chaotic logistic mapping is first used to improve the diversity of the initial population. Then, the difference strategy, the novel attenuation functions, and the population regeneration strategy are introduced to improve the performance of the algorithm. Finally, in order to ensure that the planned path is available for drone flight, a novel cost function is designed, and a cubic B-spline curve is employed to effectively refine and smoothen the flight path. To assess performance, the simulation is carried out in the mountainous and urban areas. An extensive body of research attests to the exceptional performance of our proposed HISOS-SCPSO.

Purpose – The number of natural and man-made disasters is remarkable and threatened human lives at the time of occurrence and also after that. Therefore, an efficient response following a disaster can eliminate or mitigate the adverse effects. This paper aims to help address those challenges related to humanitarian logistics by considering disaster network design under uncertainty and the management of emergency relief volunteers simultaneously. Design/methodology/approach – In this paper, a robust fuzzy stochastic programming model is proposed for designing a relief commodity supply chain network in a disaster by considering emergency relief volunteers. To demonstrate the practicality of the proposed model, a case study is presented for the 22 districts of Tehran and solved by an exact method. Findings – The results indicate that there are many parameters affecting the design of a relief commodity supply chain network in a disaster, and also many parameters should be controlled so that, the catastrophe is largely prevented and the lives of many people can be saved by sending the relief commodity on time. Practical implications – This model helps decision-makers and authorities to explore optimal location and allocation decisions without using complex optimization algorithms. Originality/value – To the best of the authors’ knowledge, employee workforce management models have not received adequate attention despite their role in relief and recovery efforts. Hence, the proposed model focuses on the problem of managing employees and designing a disaster logistics network simultaneously. The robust fuzzy stochastic programming method is applied for the first time for controlling the uncertainties in the design of humanitarian relief supply chains.

Purpose: Malaysian disaster relief volunteers have a long and proud history of participating in relief missions within and outside the country. Despite of a plethora of researches into the various areas of disaster relief, there has been a little scholarly activity looking into the experiences of the medical volunteers worldwide and even less research on the experiences of the relief volunteers in Malaysia. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify the effect of disaster relief works on volunteers in Malaysia. Methods: This is a non-experimental cross-sectional design study, which was conducted using survey questionnaire to examine the incidence of burnout, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and the quality of life (QOL) among the disaster relief volunteers. And the study also examined the socio-demographic variables of the participants. In addition, the association between the sociodemographic variable and the preferred coping strategies was also investigated through self-reporting checklist. Results: The findings of this study revealed that 90.9% volunteers (n = 312) experienced some levels of recurring stress throughout their lives, which led to burnout. Also, 96.8% (n = 332) of the participants were categorized as having at least some symptoms of PTSD. However, self-reporting QOL measurements indicated that the participants are, in general, satisfied with their lives. Significant associations between the incidence of burnout, incidence of PTSD and QOL were identified. Both positive coping measures and behavioral or avoidant coping measures were also identified. Furthermore, a number of socio-demographic factors were also seen to interact significantly with burnout, PTSD and QOL. Conclusion: This study provides some insights into the psychological challenges of disaster relief volunteers in Malaysia, and this impact can last a long time after the volunteers return to their hometowns. Several recommendations including practice development, policy and research were discussed in the study.

Purpose – To meet the rising global needs, the humanitarian community has signed off on making a strategic change toward more localisation, which commonly refers to the empowerment of national and local actors in humanitarian assistance. However, to this date, actual initiatives for localisation are rare. To enhance understanding of the phenomenon, the authors explore localisation of logistics preparedness capacities and obstacles to its implementation. The authors particularly take the perspective of the international humanitarian organisation (IHO) community as they are expected to implement the localisation strategy. Design/methodology/approach – A phenomenon-driven, exploratory and qualitative study was conducted. Data collection included in-depth interviews with 28 experienced humanitarian professionals. Findings – The findings showed the ambiguity inherent in the localisation strategy with largely different views on four important dimensions. Particularly, the interviewees differ about strengthening external actors or internal national/local offices. The resulting framework visualises the gap between strategy formulation and implementation, which forms major obstacles to the localisation aims. Research limitations/implications – Further research is required to support the advancement of localisation of logistics preparedness capacities. Important aspects for future research include triangulation of results, other stakeholder perspectives and the influence of context. Practical implications – The authors add to the important debate surrounding localisation by offering remedies to overcoming obstacles to strategy implementation. Further, the authors’ proposed framework offers a language to precisely describe the ways in which IHOs (should) view localisation of logistics preparedness capacities and its operationalisation. Originality/value – To the best of authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first academic article on localisation within the humanitarian logistics context.

Humanitarian relief organizations face many challenges due to the increasing number of both natural and man-made disasters such as drought, famine, war, and conflict. According to the United Nations, these challenges will continue to increase because of the risen vulnerability of humanitarian supply chains, especially regarding cost, accuracy, and duration. In this systematic review, we explore methods of lowering the cost of humanitarian responses, more specifically in regard to the education and training of aid workers.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to improve the relief procurement process as one of the most important elements of humanitarian logistics. For doing so, a novel two-round decision model is developed to capture the dynamic nature of the relief procurement process by allowing demand updating. The model accounts for the supply priority of items at response phase as well. Design/methodology/approach – A mixed procurement/supply policy is developed through a mathematical model, which includes spot market procurement and a novel procurement auction mechanism combining the concepts of multi-attribute and combinatorial reverse auctions. The model is of bi-objective mixed-integer non-linear programming type, which is solved through the weighted augmented e-constraint method. A case study is also provided to illustrate the applicability of the model. Findings – This study demonstrates the ability of proposed approach to model post-disaster procurement which considers the dynamic environment of the relief logistics. The sensitivity analyses provide useful managerial insights for decision makers by studying the impacts of critical parameters on the solutions. Originality/value – This paper proposes a novel reverse auction framework for relief procurement in the form of a multi-attribute combinatorial auction. Also, to deal with dynamic environment in the post-disaster procurement, a novel two-period programming model with demand updating is proposed. Finally, by considering the priority of relief items and model’s applicability in the setting of relief logistics, post-disaster horizon is divided into three periods and a mixed procurement strategy is developed to determine an appropriate supply policy for each period.

The study of terrain and all its related elements and facets are of crucial importance to the military. Lodi, Smit, and Ayirebi agreed with this statement and added that the importance of terrain was recognised by military leaders more than two thousand years ago.[i] Military operations can occur at any of the three levels of war: tactical, operational and strategic and can be a combat operation or a military operation other than war (MOOTW). Information about the geography empowers a military commander to plan and execute a mission successfully. As technology developed and evolved, geographic information systems (GIS) have come to play a major role in this. Today, a military operation without the use of GIS is unthinkable. In a developing country like the South Africa, however, licenses for proprietary GIS software, vendor-exclusive training and the bureaucracy of the procurement cycle add to the time and costs of a mission. The question arises whether open source software is a feasible alternative. Since the South African National Defence Force was initially trained in the use of proprietary software and it therefore became a strong habit, the perception now exits that FOSSGIS products are neither mature enough nor user-friendly enough to be used in military operations. This study evaluates the use of an open source desktop GIS product, QGIS, in a use case for a military operation “other than war” (MOOTW). QGIS outputs were compared to those produced in ArcGIS, a proprietary desktop GIS product widely used in military operations. The user-friendliness of the two products as well as pricing was also compared. Results show that the QGIS outputs provide the operational commander with equivalent information to successfully plan and execute a mission. This implies that open source GIS is suitable for military operations, especially those with limited budgets and at short notice, such as in the case of disaster relief. [i] Lodi, K., Smit, H. & Ayirebi, G. (2014). Terrain analysis in the course curricula of the South African Army Engineer Corps. Scientia Militaria: South African Journal of Military Studies, 42, 102-121.

As an important part of emergency response, the post-disaster emergency resource allocation is essential for mitigating disaster losses. To realize the effective allocation of relief materials and the reasonable selection of transportation routes, a multi-objective resource allocation model is proposed, considering the characteristics of uncertainty and persistence during rescue process. Furthermore, the multi-objective cellular genetic algorithm (MOCGA) is developed to solve the model by introducing the auxiliary population and neighborhood structure in the cellular automata. Finally, the comparison experiment proves that the overall performance of MOCGA is satisfactory compared with non-dominated multi-objective whale optimization algorithm (NSMOWOA), non-dominated multi-objective grey wolf optimizer (NSMOGWO) and non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) in the pareto front (PF), the hypervolume, the average value of objective function, and the PF ratio. Results show that MOCGA can solve the multi-objective dynamic emergency resource allocation model well, and can provide decision-makers with more excellent and diverse candidate rescue schemes than other algorithms. Besides, by analyzing the rescue schemes, this paper also provides a theoretical rescue scheme for decision-makers' scientific decisions.

Natural disasters bring huge loss of life and property to human beings. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) own the advantages of high mobility, high flexibility, and rapid deployment, and are important equipment during post-disaster rescue. However, UAVs usually have restricted battery and computing power. They are not fit for performing compute-intensive tasks during rescue. Since there are widespread parking resources in a city, multiple parked vehicles working together to compute the applications from UAVs in a post-disaster rescue is investigated to ensure the quality of experience (QoE) of the UAVs. To execute uploaded task effectively, surviving parked vehicles within the monitoring range of an UAV are arranged into a cluster as much as possible. Then, the task execution cost is analyzed. Furthermore, a deep reinforcement learning (DRL)-based offloading policy is constructed, which interacts with the environment in an intelligent way to achieve optimization goals. The simulation experiments show that the proposed offloading scheme has a higher task completion rate and a lower task execution cost than other baselines schemes.

Purpose – An understanding of the “AS-IS” stage of a relief operation is the basis for further action in humanitarian supply chain management. The purpose of this paper is to develop a toolbox called the Humanitarian Supply Chain Assessment Tool (HumSCAT). This toolbox is comprised of a set of basic tools which can be classified into each phase of disaster relief. Design/methodology/approach – The HumSCAT is proposed by paralleling frequently used tools in commercial supply chains with the objectives and characteristics of relief phases. A case study was used to validate the HumSCAT along with six tools provided in the preparation phase. Findings – The HumSCAT consists of seven tools in the preparation phase, nine tools in the response phase and ten tools in the recovery phase. The case study illustrates how to use the HumSCAT and the six tools. The latter were found to be useful for improving the relief chain. Research limitations/implications – The list of tools is not exclusive. Other tools might be applicable as long as they meet the objectives and characteristics of the phase. A tool should be adjusted accordingly to the contexts. Tools in other phases should be validated in future research. Practical implications – The HumSCAT may serve as a reference toolbox for practitioners. Its output can be used for further designing of the “TO-BE” status of humanitarian relief chains. Originality/value – The HumSCAT is proposed as a toolbox for academics and practitioners involved in humanitarian supply chains.

Abstract Background Though the right to health is included in Haiti’s constitution, little progress has been made to expand universal health coverage nationwide, a strategy to ensure access to health services for all, while preventing financial hardship among the poor. Realizing universal health coverage will require a better understanding of inequities in health care utilization and out-of-pocket payments for health. This study measures inequality in health services utilization and the determinants of health seeking behavior in Haiti. It also examines the determinants of catastrophic health expenditures, defined by the Sustainable Development Goal Framework (Indicator 3.8.2) as expenditures that exceed 10% of overall household expenditures. Methodology Three types of analysis were conducted using the 2012 and 2013 Household Surveys (Enquête sur les Conditions de Vie des Ménages Après Séisme (ECVMAS I (2012) and ECVMAS II (2013)) to measure: 1) outpatient services as a measure of inequalities using the 2013 Concentration Index; 2) drivers of health seeking behavior using a logistic regression model for 2013; and 3) determinants of catastrophic health expenditures using Seemingly Unrelated Regressions for both 2012 and 2013. Results The rate of catastrophic health expenditures increased nationwide from 9.43% in 2012 to 11.54% in 2013. This increase was most notable among the poorest wealth quintile (from 11.62% in 2012 to 18.20% in 2013), yet declined among the richest wealth quintile (from 9.49% to 4.46% during the same period). The increase in the rate of catastrophic health expenditures among the poorest coincides with a sharp decrease in external donor funding for the health sector. Regression analysis indicated that the rich wealth quintiles were less likely than poor wealth quintiles to incur catastrophic health expenditures. Interestingly, households were less likely to incur catastrophic health expenditures when they accessed care from Community Health Workers than when they received care from other types of providers, including public and private health care facilities. This study also shows that Community Health Worker-provided services have a negative concentration index (− 0.22) and are therefore most utilized by poor quintiles. In contrast, both public and private outpatient services had positive concentration indexes (0.05 and 0.12 respectively) and are most utilized by the rich wealth quintiles. Seeking care from traditional healers was found to be pro-poor in Haiti (concentration index of − 0.18) yet was also associated with higher catastrophic health expenditures albeit the coefficient was not significant. Conclusion The expansion of universal health coverage in Haiti is evolving in a ‘pro-rich’ manner. Realizing Haiti’s right to health will require a course-correction supported by national policies that protect the poor wealth quintiles from catastrophic health expenditures. Such policies may include Community Health Worker service delivery expansion in underserved areas. Evidence-based interventions may also be required to lower outpatient user fees, subsidize drug costs and promote efficiencies in pro-poor disaster relief programming.

Abstract Large-scale sudden-onset disasters may cause massive injuries and thus place great pressure on the emergency blood supplies of local blood banks. When blood is in short supply, blood products gathered urgently to a local blood center should be appropriately allocated to blood banks in the affected area. Moreover, ABO/Rh(D) compatibilities among blood groups must be considered during emergency situations. To minimize the total unmet demand of blood products considering the optimal ABO/Rh(D)-compatible blood substitution scheme, a mixed integer programming model is developed and solved efficiently by using a greedy heuristic algorithm. Finally, a numerical example derived from the emergency blood supply scenario of the Wenchuan Earthquake is presented to verify the proposed model and algorithm. The results show that considering ABO/Rh(D)-compatible blood substitution can remarkably increase the efficiency of emergency blood allocation while lowering blood shortage, and the preference order of possible ABO/Rh(D)-compatible substitutions has an influence on the allocation solution.

Background: The application of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in disaster relief is increasingly widespread, but it is still unclear whether ICT can reduce casualties and economic losses in disaster response phase. Methods: We searched studies in the databases of Scopus, EI, MEDLINE and EMBASE from Jan 1, 1990, to Mar 22, 2019. Excel 2016 and VOSviewer (version 1.6.11) were used to analyze the extracted data and visualize the network diagram. Results: We included 169 eligible articles. The number of ICTs-related disaster-relief articles published annually shows an overall trend of growth since 1990. The United States has the greatest influence in this field. The 169 articles reported twenty-four technologies and the top three reported most frequently were remote sensing, social media, and geographic information system (GIS). The main roles of ICTs in natural disaster rescue included information dissemination, post-disaster image collection and damage assessment. However, of the 169 articles, only five reported that ICTs reduced casualties or economic losses in disaster response phase, two concluded that rescue robot was ineffective in mudslide rescue, and the remaining 162 (95.86%) did not evaluate the effect of ICTs on the rescue. Conclusion: ICTs have the potential to reduce casualties and economic losses, but some technologies are not applicable to all rescue scenarios. In addition, most studies did not pay attention to the effect of technology on the rescue.

The flood levees in the vicinity of Krakow city (Poland) are, in some places, over 100 years old. Thereupon, in the flood dike, and its subsoil, can appear unconsolidated zones, which, during the flood stage, can be a simple way of water flow and/or even can be the place where the levee body will be destroyed. This phenomenon took place in Wawrzeńczyce village, near Krakow city, during the flood in 2010. The geophysical research was carried out, in order to develop a methodology of recognition of potential areas where the levee body can be damaged. The geophysical surveys were conducted with the use of electrical and electromagnetic methods, as well as utilizing the seismic method. The general identification of examined media was realized by the electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) method. The ERT surveys were supplemented by capacitively-coupled resistivity (CCR) measurements, in order to analyze the usefulness of the CCR method for the examination of river dikes and reduction of interpretation ambiguity. The ground penetrating radar (GPR) method detected small anomalies in the body dike, due to the very high resolution of this method, which were not detected by the ERT and CCR techniques. During GPR surveys, non-standard measurement techniques were applied. Finally, the high-resolution seismic reflection (HRSR) method provided a clear and high-resolution image of the dike structure up to the water table and assisted with the identification of the hazard non-consolidated zones.

Abstract Background To design and implement a replicable disaster training curriculum for the first on-call medical student hazardous materials response team. Methods Twenty-eight first-year medical students participated in a simulated citywide bioterrorism disaster drill. Students were notified of the Code Orange via email, a pager system, and group SMS text message. Twenty-five students participated in the drill, while the three remaining student leaders worked with the ED staff and HazMat Branch Director to ensure that all protocols were followed properly. Five groups of five students took turns donning HazMat gear, decontaminating three mannequins (an infant, a child, and an unconscious adult), and then safely removing the gear. Results All modes of communication were received within 5 min, and all the students arrived at the ED within 20 min. The decontamination was determined to be sufficient by the team leader, Emergency Department staff, and HazMat Branch Director and was completed approximately 10 min after the entrance to the decontamination chamber. Conclusions Current US medical school curricula lack emergency preparedness training in response to potential terrorist attacks and hazardous material exposures. Our program, while still in its early workings, not only allows students to develop critical knowledge and practical skills but also provides a unique opportunity to leverage much-needed manpower and resources during emergency situations.

Natural disasters represent a latent threat for every country in the world. Due to climate change and other factors, statistics show that they continue to be on the rise. This situation presents a challenge for the communities and the humanitarian organizations to be better prepared and react faster to natural disasters. In some countries, in-kind donations represent a high percentage of the supply for the operations, which presents additional challenges. This research proposes a Markov Decision Process (MDP) model to resemble operations in collection centers, where in-kind donations are received, sorted, packed, and sent to the affected areas. The decision addressed is when to send a shipment considering the uncertainty of the donations’ supply and the demand, as well as the logistics costs and the penalty of unsatisfied demand. As a result of the MDP a Monotone Optimal Non-Decreasing Policy (MONDP) is proposed, which provides valuable insights for decision-makers within this field. Moreover, the necessary conditions to prove the existence of such MONDP are presented.

Logistics planning in disaster response phase involves dispatching commodities such as medical materials, personnel, food, etc. to affected areas as soon as possible to accelerate the relief operations. Since transportation vehicles in disaster situations can be considered as scarce resources, thus, the efficient usage of them is substantially important. In this study, we provide a dynamic vehicle routing model for emergency logistics operations in the occurrence of natural disasters. The aim of the model is to find optimal routes for a fleet of vehicles to give emergency commodities to a set of affected areas by considering the existence of more than one arc between each two nodes in the network (multi-graph network). Proposed model considers FIFO property and focused on minimization of waiting time and total number of vehicles. Various problem instances have been provided to indicate the efficiency of the model. Finally, a brief sensitivity analysis is presented to investigate the impact of different parameters on the obtained solutions.

The article analyses NATO’s role in humanitarian aid and disaster relief operations. It presents NATO structures, tools and examples of operations coordinated by NATO. It underlines the added value offered by NATO in the environment and in relation to other major humanitarian actors such as the United Nations and the European Union.

We consider a political economy in which government cares about risk-averse farmers' loss of income but incurs political cost if it provides monetary support to farmers. Farmers' expectations of government disaster aid and overconfidence (optimism bias) regarding their risk prevent farmers from purchasing full insurance under actuarially fair rates. Considering this conclusion, government prefers to subsidize farmers' purchases of insurance ex ante rather than solely relying on disaster aid ex post. The resulting subsidy rate depends on the political environment, the degree of systemic risk, the distribution of farmers' risk preferences, and the nature and distribution of farmers' risk perceptions.

This paper reviews some challenges faced by humanitarian logistics and supply chain organisations in the transportation of resources, evacuees, and emergency supplies for disaster relief operations in the SADC region. To identify the appropriate transportation to assist in the region, three models were reviewed and proposed: A typical transportation problem, a genetic algorithm based on a spanning tree, and a linear optimisation using Excel Solver. Reviewing the literature revealed that both man-made and natural disasters have caused over ninety thousand fatalities and affected millions just over the past three decades. A further review shows that most disaster deaths are the result of poor infrastructure, especially in populated areas. This presents a challenge to relief organisations in their efforts to provide on-time relief to victims in pre- and post-disaster periods. Although each proposed transportation problem has particular complexities, each of them could assist the region to decrease the relief operation response time and cost. This paper provides the reader with a greater understanding of the challenges faced by the humanitarian supply chain in the SADC region. This paper proposes a conceptual model based on an actual empirical case.

Iran is among the ten disaster-prone countries and, in terms of the earthquake, it has been ranked the sixth in the world. Although the damages caused by the disasters are not irreversible from different aspects, they could be minimized by performing appropriate preventions as well as preparing plans to counteract the impacts of such incidents. According to the increasing trend of disasters and crises, which hardly damage businesses and communities, providing relief supply chain for crisis situations (HDRSC) is necessary and vital in the wide field of supply chain management (SCM). Even though considerable attempts have been performed in the field of supply chain focusing on the disaster relief, few studies have addressed its complex features and properties. This paper concentrates on the activities such as demand determination and supply chain coordination by field study and best review of best-related research. This research provides a framework for supply chain managers in crisis, who face similar problems in other environments, with valuable insights.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a more complete understanding of logistics preparedness. By comparing extant research in preparedness and logistics with findings from empirical analysis of secondary data, the authors develop a definition of and framework for logistics preparedness, along with suggestions for future research agenda. Design/methodology/approach – The authors link the way in which humanitarian organizations define and aim to achieve logistics preparedness with extant academic research. The authors critically analyze public data from 13 organizations that are active in disaster relief and review papers on logistics preparedness and humanitarian logistics. Findings – The authors found that, despite the increased attention, there is no unified understanding across organizations about what constitutes logistics preparedness and how it can contribute to improvements in operations. Based on the review of the academic literature, the authors found that the same is true for humanitarian logistics research. The lack of a common understanding has resulted in low visibility of efforts and lack of knowledge on logistics preparedness. Research limitations/implications – On the basis of extant research and practice, the authors suggest a definition of and framework for logistics preparedness with related suggestions for future studies. Practical implications – Findings can help the humanitarian community gain a better understanding of their efforts related to developing logistics preparedness and can provide a better basis for communicating the need for, and results from, funding in preparedness. Social implications – Results can support improvements in humanitarian supply chains, thereby providing affected people with rapid, cost-efficient, and better-adapted responses. Originality/value – The findings contribute to humanitarian logistics literature, first by identifying the issues related to the lack of a common definition. Second, the authors extend the understanding of what constitutes logistics preparedness by proposing an operationalized framework and definition. Finally, the authors add to the literature by discussing what future topics and types of research may be required.

Indonesia is a region that disaster-affected which often arise, it is because of Indonesia is an equatorial boundary is the line where a slab of earth impact of catastrophes. Against such conditions it is with the frequent disasters continue to occur so it is necessary prepared in disaster response. So far it has provided device regulatory disaster management, namely Law No. 24 of 2007 which provides a framework for disaster management, including pre-disaster, emergency response and post-disaster. Indonesia is a country that is very rich, dazzling beauty of the panorama, so many interesting foreign tourists to come and see the beauty. In addition, Indonesia is a country that often mengalmi natural disasters, ranging from floods, volcanoes to the tsunami, Indonesia is a disaster-prone geographical location. Disasters can be caused by natural factors and due to the irresponsible behavior of the use and management of natural resources (SDA) and the environment. Although the law has outlined a comprehensive disaster management provisions, so far the response is still focused on emergency response issues. Further action such as mitigation, rehabilitation and reconstruction seems not be the main priority of disaster management activities. Another problem that is still experiencing problems is coordination, speed of relief, aid accuracy and evenness of distribution logistics. Institutional: On the mandate of Law 24/2007 also institutional been formed National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) at the regional level throughout and Indonesia. BNPB also formed a technical executing unit area (UPTD) 12 units. BNPB Institution supported by trained human resources (HR) who are ready to be deployed to the hardest terrain even though this certainly must be supported by adequate and measurable funding in the APBN (state budget) and APBD (regional budget). Institutional Strengthening: Grand designs required in order to strengthen institutional capacity and disaster management standard that is fast, responsive, and professional in accordance with international standards. Key words: Policy, Disaster Relief, On Target

Purpose: : Discuss on the disaster-related nursing competency training of Chinese emergency nurses. Methods: : By retrieving concerned literatures, summarize the current situation of disaster responses of Chinese emergency nurses and the impact factors of disaster-related nursing competencies. Results: : The disaster preparedness of emergency nurses in China is at a medium level and must be improved. The impact factors include the educational degree, gender, disaster relief experience, training, and mechanisms for domestic disaster relief. Conclusion: : As a direct response to disaster, emergency nurses should improve the comprehensive ability of disaster nursing by systematic disaster nursing education and professional training

Disasters have been striking human-beings from the beginning of history and their management is a global concern of the international community. Minimizing the impact and consequences of these disasters, both natural and human-made, involves many decision and logistic processes that should be optimized. A crucial logistic problem is the evacuation of the affected population, and the focus of this paper is the planning of supported evacuation of vulnerable people to safe places when necessary. A lexicographic goal programming model for supported evacuation is proposed, whose main novelties are the classification of potential evacuees according to their health condition, so that they can be treated accordingly; the introduction of dynamism regarding the arrival of potential evacuees to the pickup points, according to their own susceptibility about the disaster and the joint consideration of objectives such us number of evacuated people, operation time and cost, among which no trade-off is possible. The performance of the proposed model is evaluated through a realistic case study regarding the earthquake and tsunami that hit Palu (Indonesia) in September 2018.

Humanitarian logistics in response to large scale disasters entails decisions that must be taken urgently and under high uncertainty. In addition, the scarcity of available resources sometimes causes the involved organizations to suffer assaults while transporting the humanitarian aid. This paper addresses the last mile distribution problem that arises in such an insecure environment, in which vehicles are often forced to travel together forming convoys for security reasons. We develop an elaborated methodology based on Ant Colony Optimization that is applied to two case studies built from real disasters, namely the 2010 Haiti earthquake and the 2005 Niger famine. There are very few works in the literature dealing with problems in this context, and that is the research gap this paper tries to fill. Furthermore, the consideration of multiple criteria such as cost, time, equity, reliability, security or priority, is also an important contribution to the literature, in addition to the use of specialized ants and effective pheromones that are novel elements of the algorithm which could be exported to other similar problems. Computational results illustrate the efficiency of the new methodology, confirming it could be a good basis for a decision support tool for real operations.

Social media data have emerged as a new source for detecting and monitoring disaster events. A number of recent studies have suggested that social media data streams can be used to mine actionable data for emergency response and relief operation. However, no effort has been made to classify social media data into stages of disaster management (mitigation, preparedness, emergency response, and recovery), which has been used as a common reference for disaster researchers and emergency managers for decades to organize information and streamline priorities and activities during the course of a disaster. This paper makes an initial effort in coding social media messages into different themes within different disaster phases during a time-critical crisis by manually examining more than 10,000 tweets generated during a natural disaster and referencing the findings from the relevant literature and official government procedures involving different disaster stages. Moreover, a classifier based on logistic regression is trained and used for automatically mining and classifying the social media messages into various topic categories during various disaster phases. The classification results are necessary and useful for emergency managers to identify the transition between phases of disaster management, the timing of which is usually unknown and varies across disaster events, so that they can take action quickly and efficiently in the impacted communities. Information generated from the classification can also be used by the social science research communities to study various aspects of preparedness, response, impact and recovery.

This study details how ready-to-eat (RTE) rice and rice-cornstarch noodle (bihon) product formulations of the College of Home Economics (CHE) of the University of the Philippines Diliman (UPD) were used to produce emergency relief foods for the survivors of super typhoon Yolanda (international name: Haiyan) in the Philippines. The RTE products were developed using established pasteurization technologies covered with commercial sterility test certifications from the Pilot Food Plant (PFP) of UPD-CHE and published food safety considerations for acidified foods. They do not require any cooking or reheating before consumption. They were prescribed with a one-month shelflife at ambient storage temperature (28±2°C) during deployment as relief foods. About 5,000 and 3,000 production units of the RTE cooked rice (200 g/pack) and bihon (150 g/pack), respectively, were produced at the PFP. Around 300 volunteers composed of faculty, staff, alumni, students, and acquaintances of UPD-CHE’s departments and organizations manned the two-week staggered production, scheduled from late November to the f irst week of December 2013. In cooperation with organizations and private entities, the RTE products were deployed without cost from UPD to the stricken areas of Aklan, Iloilo, and Leyte. Feedback from the recipients of the products was favorable, indicating that the RTE foods are useful as emergency relief ration.

We analyse both theoretically and empirically, the factors that influence the amount of humanitarian aid received by countries which are struck by natural disasters, particularly distinguishing between immediate disaster relief and long term humanitarian aid. The theoretical model is able to make predictions as well as explain some of the peculiarities in the empirical results. We show that both short and long term humanitarian aid increases with number of people killed, financial loss and level of corruption, while GDP per capita had no effect. More populated countries receive more humanitarian aid. Earthquake, tsunami and drought attract more aid.

Transportation system disruption due to a disaster results in "ripple effects" throughout the entire transportation system of a metropolitan region. Many researchers have focused on the economic costs of transportation system disruptions in transportation-related industries, specifïcally within commerce and logistics, in the assessment of the regional economic costs. However, the foundation of an assessment of the regional economic costs of a disaster needs to include the evaluation of consumer surplus in addition to the direct cost for reconstruction of the regional transportation system. The objective of this study is to propose a method to estimate the regional consumer surplus based on indirect economic costs of a disaster on intermodal transportation systems in the context of diverting vehicles and trains. The computational methods used to assess the regional indirect economic costs sustained by the highway and railroad system can utilize readily available state departments of transportation (DOTs) and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) traffic models allowing prioritization of regional recovery plans after a disaster and strengthening of infrastructure before a disaster. Hurricane Katrina is one of the most devastating hurricanes in the history of the United States. Due to the significance of Hurricane Katrina, a case study is presented to evaluate consumer surplus in the Gulf Coast Region of Mississippi. Results from the case study indicate the costs of rerouting and congestion delays in the regional highway system and the rent costs of right-of-way in the regional railroad system are major factors of the indirect costs in the consumer surplus.

Localization technologies play an important role in disaster management and emergence response. In areas where the environment does not change much after an accident or in the case of dangerous areas monitoring, indoor fingerprint-based localization can be used. In such scenarios, a positioning system needs to have both a high accuracy and a rapid response. However, these two requirements are usually conflicting since a fingerprint-based indoor localization system with high accuracy usually has complex algorithms and needs to process a large amount of data, and therefore has a slow response. This problem becomes even worse when both the size of monitoring area and the number of reference nodes increase. To address this challenging problem, this paper proposes a two-level positioning algorithm in order to improve both the accuracy and the response time. In the off-line stage, a fingerprint database is divided into several sub databases by using an affinity propagation clustering (APC) algorithm based on Shepard similarity. The online stage has two steps: (1) a coarse positioning algorithm is adopted to find the most similar sub database by matching the cluster center with the fingerprint of the node tested, which will narrow the search space and consequently save time; (2) in the sub database area, a support vector regression (SVR) algorithm with its parameters being optimized by particle swarm optimization (PSO) is used for fine positioning, thus improving the online positioning accuracy. Both experiment results and actual implementations proved that the proposed two-level localization method is more suitable than other methods in term of algorithm complexity, storage requirements and localization accuracy in dangerous area monitoring.

Natural disturbances in forested landscapes are increasing in frequency. Hurricanes and flooding events can cause extreme damages to forested ecosystems and the forest products industry. The state of South Carolina experienced four major hurricanes and flooding events between 2015 and 2018. A survey was sent out to the members of the American Tree Farm System (ATFS) in South Carolina in 2017 to better understand the impact of two of these events—the historical flood of October 2015 and hurricane Matthew in October 2016—on family forest operations. Forty-eight percent of surveys were returned. Surveys were received from all counties except one. Average losses of $6.21/acre and $6.48/acre for flood and hurricane damage, respectively, were reported across all of the respondents. Major damage from the flood was reported to be on forest roads, while uprooted and broken trees were the most reported damage from the hurricane. Extrapolating damages to the state level indicated total estimated damages that were in excess of $80 million for each event. The responses also showed that only one-third of respondents were aware of disaster relief programs and less than 2% actually received financial aid. The results from this survey provide forest managers, policy makers, and extension personnel with information regarding the damages that were associated with the 2015 flood and the 2016 hurricane. Events such as these are bound to happen again in the future and information from this survey may allow foresters, policy makers, and forestry associations to refine the ways that financial aid information is distributed to increase the awareness of these programs.

When studying natural disasters, it is necessary to analyze the circumstances with a comprehensive approach that focuses on relief and moving the affected area from development to sustainability. Thus, it is imperative to consider all social, environmental, and psychological factors when addressing the complex needs of disaster response from a social work perspective. To establish immediate and long-term support networks, it is also necessary to bring together interdisciplinary teams to assist in disaster relief efforts. In the past decade, a number of devastating natural disasters have managed to cause death, destruction, and disease within the populations of a vast number of countries. This paper examines global disaster relief efforts for three major natural disasters of the past decade through a review of the literature and from observations made in the field.

Disaster management has begun to examine the unique role of the private sector in disaster relief. The hotel and lodging industry is an especially critical infrastructure for community disaster relief and resilience, providing many lifeline services in addition to core skills and competencies contributing to the community’s social and human capital. Social and human capital empower the community to better cope with disturbance, and companies’ efforts to build social and human capital are often tied to their corporate social responsibility (CSR) management systems. A framework was developed to evaluate the management system maturity of the hotel and lodging industry’s CSR management for disaster relief and resilience. An analysis of three hotel and lodging corporations was performed to understand the current state of the industry. While many hotel properties are engaging in CSR activities during disaster relief, the analysis revealed that corporate management systems have room for maturation and growth to support the resilience of their community.

Rapid manufacturing using 3-D printing is a potential solution to some of the most pressing issues for humanitarian logistics. In this paper, findings are reported from a study that involved development of a new type of 3-D printer. In particular, a novel 3-D printer that is designed specifically for reliable rapid manufacturing at the sites of humanitarian crises. First, required capabilities are developed with design elements of a humanitarian 3-D printer, which include, (1) fused filament fabrication, (2) open source self-replicating rapid prototyper design, (3) modular, (4) separate frame, (5) protected electronics, (6) on-board computing, (7) flexible power supply, and (8) climate control mechanisms. The technology is then disclosed with an open source license for the Kijenzi 3-D Printer. A swarm of five Kijenzi 3-D printers are evaluated for rapid part manufacturing for two months at health facilities and other community locations in both rural and urban areas throughout Kisumu County, Kenya. They were successful for their ability to function independently of infrastructure, transportability, ease of use, ability to withstand harsh environments and costs. The results are presented and conclusions are drawn about future work necessary for the Kijenzi 3-D Printer to meet the needs of rapid manufacturing in a humanitarian context.

When it comes to disasters, people have to be careful about making sweeping generalizations, because they will not necessarily be evaluated for their validity. Myths of all kinds, like unfounded rumors, are very misleading and can have dangerous long-lasting consequences for societies, as well as for the victims of natural hazard-related disasters in the distant, as well as near-term, future.

In this paper, we optimize the search and rescue (SAR) in disaster relief through agent-based simulation. We simulate rescue teams’ search behaviors with the improved Truncated Lévy walks. Then we propose a cooperative rescue plan based on a distributed auction mechanism, and illustrate it with the case of landslide disaster relief. The simulation is conducted in three scenarios, including “fatal”, “serious” and “normal”. Compared with the non-cooperative rescue plan, the proposed rescue plan in this paper would increase victims’ relative survival probability by 7–15%, increase the ratio of survivors getting rescued by 5.3–12.9%, and decrease the average elapsed time for one site getting rescued by 16.6–21.6%. The robustness analysis shows that search radius can affect the rescue efficiency significantly, while the scope of cooperation cannot. The sensitivity analysis shows that the two parameters, the time limit for completing rescue operations in one buried site and the maximum turning angle for next step, both have a great influence on rescue efficiency, and there exists optimal value for both of them in view of rescue efficiency.

The Focused logistics has been developed in order to respond to the asymmetric, uncertain and variable environments characteristics for the actual military scenes. Military scenes have many similarities with the scenes generated in natural disasters events. The aim of the work is to show, from the conceptual perspective, how focused logistics principles can be applied to the logistics operations in natural disasters relief. First an analysis and comparison between military and humanitarian operations was developed. This allowed us to establish which concepts of the focused logistics can be applied to humanitarian logistics problems. Second a comparison between the basic structures of the military logistic system operations and humanitarian logistics systems operations was used to identify potential quantitative models that can be transfer between the systems. Because of the similarity between the operations in military and humanitarian logistics systems, we concluded that focused logistics concepts can be applied in both. So, functional and emerging concepts, besides the principal goals and basic capabilities can be applied successfully. The new knowledge developed in this work is the use of focused logistics concepts as tool to improve response times and efficiency in humanitarian disaster relief.

The paper discusses required knowledge in preparation for a disaster relief. The author shares her experience of the Great East Japan Earthquake and reviews how she went through the post-disaster phase as a music therapist. The author has made three suggestions for change in music therapy as a disaster relief. First, specific topics on disaster relief should be included in music therapy educational courses. This should cover general information regarding natural and human-made disasters and disaster relief. Second, making connections with related organizations, both the individual and national level is also suggested. Third, the further accumulation of studies on music therapy as a disaster relief service is needed.