Decision Aid Models and Systems for Humanitarian Logistics. A Survey
Decision Aid Models and Systems for Humanitarian Logistics. A Survey
DOI: 10.2991/978-94-91216-74-9_2, Atlantis Press 2013
M.T. Ortuño1,∗, P. Cristóbal2, J.M. Ferrer1, F.J. Martín-Campo1, S. Muñoz1, G. Tirado1,
B. Vitoriano1
The number and impact of disasters seems to be increasing in the last decades, and their
consequences have to be managed in the best possible way. This paper introduces the main
concepts used in emergency and disaster management, and presents a literature review on
the decision aid models and systems applied to humanitarian logistics in this context.
Introduction
The number and impact of disasters seems to be increasing in the last decades, and
their consequences have to be managed in the best possible way. Recent years have seen
an explosion of literature regarding disaster and emergency management, as it is a topic
of high relevance in today’s world. Among this literature, there is an increasing amount
of research regarding mathematical models and systems which can help in the decision
aid processes developed when trying to respond to the consequences of a disaster. In this
introductory section the main definitions concerning disasters, emergencies and humanitarian
logistics are stated, which will allow to classify the research into the main phases of
disaster management.
Hazards and disasters
A hazard is a threatening event or probability of occurrence of a potentially damaging
phenomenon within a given time period and area. It can be both natural or human-made.
An emergency is a situation that poses an immediate risk to health, life, property or
environment.
A disaster is the disruption of the normal functioning of a system or community, which
causes a strong impact on people, structures and environment, and goes beyond the local
capacity of response. Sometimes, to declare or not an emergency as a disaster is a political
decision, because it has consequences for the involvement of third parties in the intervention
or for insurance, for example.
Catastrophe is another term used in disaster management. There is also a discussion
in the literature about the difference between disaster and catastrophe. Usually a catastrophe
is considered an extremely large-scale disaster. As stated in Quarantelli [74], just
as “disasters” are qualitatively different from everyday community emergencies, so are
“catastrophes” a qualitative jump over “disasters”. This qualitative jump is reflected in
several characteristics and results in important differences in the logistics of the intervention,
as discussed in what follows.
Disaster management and humanitarian logistics
Disaster response is a complex process that involves severe time pressure, high uncertainty
and many stakeholders. It also involves several autonomous agencies to collaboratively
mitigate, prepare, respond, and recover from heterogeneous and dynamic sets of
hazards to society.
The agents involved differ depending on the type of disaster (civil protection and local
security agencies usually manage technological disasters, while natural disasters normally
involve also NGOs and international agencies), the disaster consequences and the place
where it strikes, due to vulnerability.
The agents involved in disaster response can be classified into three levels, as involvement
in the operations depends on the consequences:
The decision making processes in disaster management are thus extremely difficult,
due to the multiple actors (decision-makers) which are involved, and the complexity of
the tasks addressed. Among those tasks, all the process of planning, implementing and
controlling the efficient, cost-effective flow and storage of goods and materials as well as
related information, from the point of origin to the point of consumption for the purpose of
meeting the end beneficiary’s requirements and alleviate the suffering of vulnerable people
is called humanitarian logistics, as defined in the Humanitarian Logistics Conference,
2004 (Fritz Institute).
Based on this definition, humanitarian logistics also appears in contexts different from
disaster management; the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization
(WHO), for instance, develop many operations which can be considered humanitarian
logistics without being a response to a specific disaster. However, it is in disaster management
where the application of humanitarian logistics is more complex and difficult and
where more differences with business logistics appear. Therefore, our review is restricted
to this context. The main issues that differentiate humanitarian supply chains in the context
of disaster management from business supply chains are the following:
Phases, tasks and decisions of the disaster management cycle
In the decision making processes needed in humanitarian logistics for disaster management,
the context and the nature of the decisions to be made change over time as we move
from before to after the disaster event. Deciding about preventive actions to mitigate the
effects of a possible future earthquake is not the same as deciding about the precise actions
to undertake just after it strikes, or a month later. The context-related uncertainties and time
pressure may vary a lot from one situation to the other, as well as the nature of the decisions
and the criteria of the involved actors. This has led to distinguishing four successive phases
in the management of emergencies and disasters according to the main nature of the tasks
to be performed and their temporal location with respect to the disaster event:
DOI: 10.2991/978-94-91216-74-9_2, Atlantis Press 2013
M.T. Ortuño1,∗, P. Cristóbal2, J.M. Ferrer1, F.J. Martín-Campo1, S. Muñoz1, G. Tirado1,
B. Vitoriano1
The number and impact of disasters seems to be increasing in the last decades, and their
consequences have to be managed in the best possible way. This paper introduces the main
concepts used in emergency and disaster management, and presents a literature review on
the decision aid models and systems applied to humanitarian logistics in this context.
Introduction
The number and impact of disasters seems to be increasing in the last decades, and
their consequences have to be managed in the best possible way. Recent years have seen
an explosion of literature regarding disaster and emergency management, as it is a topic
of high relevance in today’s world. Among this literature, there is an increasing amount
of research regarding mathematical models and systems which can help in the decision
aid processes developed when trying to respond to the consequences of a disaster. In this
introductory section the main definitions concerning disasters, emergencies and humanitarian
logistics are stated, which will allow to classify the research into the main phases of
disaster management.
Hazards and disasters
A hazard is a threatening event or probability of occurrence of a potentially damaging
phenomenon within a given time period and area. It can be both natural or human-made.
- Natural: naturally occurring physical phenomena caused either by rapid or slow onset events which can be geophysical, hydrological, climatological, meteorological or biological (earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, volcanic activity, avalanches, floods, extreme temperatures, droughts, wildfires, cyclones, storm/wave surges, disease epidemics, animal plagues, etc.).
- Human-made or technological: events caused by humans and which occur in (or close to) human settlements, such as complex emergencies/conflicts, famine, displaced populations, industrial accidents (toxic dumps or radioactive escapes), catastrophic transport accidents, etc.
An emergency is a situation that poses an immediate risk to health, life, property or
environment.
A disaster is the disruption of the normal functioning of a system or community, which
causes a strong impact on people, structures and environment, and goes beyond the local
capacity of response. Sometimes, to declare or not an emergency as a disaster is a political
decision, because it has consequences for the involvement of third parties in the intervention
or for insurance, for example.
Catastrophe is another term used in disaster management. There is also a discussion
in the literature about the difference between disaster and catastrophe. Usually a catastrophe
is considered an extremely large-scale disaster. As stated in Quarantelli [74], just
as “disasters” are qualitatively different from everyday community emergencies, so are
“catastrophes” a qualitative jump over “disasters”. This qualitative jump is reflected in
several characteristics and results in important differences in the logistics of the intervention,
as discussed in what follows.
Disaster management and humanitarian logistics
Disaster response is a complex process that involves severe time pressure, high uncertainty
and many stakeholders. It also involves several autonomous agencies to collaboratively
mitigate, prepare, respond, and recover from heterogeneous and dynamic sets of
hazards to society.
The agents involved differ depending on the type of disaster (civil protection and local
security agencies usually manage technological disasters, while natural disasters normally
involve also NGOs and international agencies), the disaster consequences and the place
where it strikes, due to vulnerability.
The agents involved in disaster response can be classified into three levels, as involvement
in the operations depends on the consequences:
- Local level: the first response level, usually addressed by local agencies, civil society organizations and civil protection. Typically, this level of emergency is not declared as a disaster.
- National level: the army and national civil protection, governmental organizations and NGOs are usually involved when an emergency is defined as a disaster. Sometimes, international organizations with local offices also participate at this level.
- International level: foreign governments and inter-governmental organizations, international NGOs for disaster response and the United Nations Agencies. Coordination at this level is a crucial matter, usually performed by OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) of United Nations, and the IASC (Inter-Agency Standing Committee), primary mechanism for inter-agency coordination, including key UN and non-UN humanitarian partners. This level is reached when national capacity of response is not enough (due to the scale of the disaster and/or the vulnerability of the country) and the national government authorizes an international humanitarian operation.
The decision making processes in disaster management are thus extremely difficult,
due to the multiple actors (decision-makers) which are involved, and the complexity of
the tasks addressed. Among those tasks, all the process of planning, implementing and
controlling the efficient, cost-effective flow and storage of goods and materials as well as
related information, from the point of origin to the point of consumption for the purpose of
meeting the end beneficiary’s requirements and alleviate the suffering of vulnerable people
is called humanitarian logistics, as defined in the Humanitarian Logistics Conference,
2004 (Fritz Institute).
Based on this definition, humanitarian logistics also appears in contexts different from
disaster management; the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization
(WHO), for instance, develop many operations which can be considered humanitarian
logistics without being a response to a specific disaster. However, it is in disaster management
where the application of humanitarian logistics is more complex and difficult and
where more differences with business logistics appear. Therefore, our review is restricted
to this context. The main issues that differentiate humanitarian supply chains in the context
of disaster management from business supply chains are the following:
- Unpredictable demand in terms of timing, geographic location, type and quantity of commodity.
- Short lead time and suddenness of demand for large amounts of a wide variety of products and services.
- Lack of initial resources in terms of supply, human resources, technology, capacity and funding (see Balcik and Beamon [9]).
- Presence of multiple decision makers that can be sometimes difficult to identify.
Phases, tasks and decisions of the disaster management cycle
In the decision making processes needed in humanitarian logistics for disaster management,
the context and the nature of the decisions to be made change over time as we move
from before to after the disaster event. Deciding about preventive actions to mitigate the
effects of a possible future earthquake is not the same as deciding about the precise actions
to undertake just after it strikes, or a month later. The context-related uncertainties and time
pressure may vary a lot from one situation to the other, as well as the nature of the decisions
and the criteria of the involved actors. This has led to distinguishing four successive phases
in the management of emergencies and disasters according to the main nature of the tasks
to be performed and their temporal location with respect to the disaster event:
- Mitigation: all the middle and long-term actions and decisions aimed to prevent and mitigate the consequences of a future disaster, as long as it is not (known to be) imminent. Typical tasks of this phase are the identification of risk groups and vulnerability patterns and their treatment, or the development of prediction systems and emergency plans and the allocation of resources for them.
- Preparedness: all the short-term interventions once the available prediction systems have raised an alarm of an upcoming adverse phenomenon until it finally strikes. This includes setting off the emergency systems and evacuation plans, the real-time tracking of the hazard, the analysis of the most probable scenarios, the reinforcement of critical infrastructures, etc. This phase also includes some long-term decisions such as inventory prepositioning and network design.
- Response: this phase is focused on saving lives and it is characterized by a short duration with high emergency and high uncertainty. It is usually divided into a first response phase, devoted to the rescue and urgent medical assistance of injured and affected people (depending on the disaster scenario, it may last around one week from the moment of the disaster event), and a middle-term response phase, devoted to estimate and mitigate the potentially unattended first needs of the affected population as a result of possible damage to life-line infrastructures and resources (shelter, ordinary medical assistance, water and food supply, etc.). This middle-term stage usually involves the delivery of aid from outside of the affected zone and can last for weeks or even months from the moment of the disaster, depending on its nature and magnitude as well as on the economic and development circumstances of the affected country.
- Recovery: this phase is focused on achieving efficiency and it is characterized by its long duration with low emergency and low uncertainty. It refers to all the longterm actions and decisions aimed to recuperate the normal functioning of the affected community and the reconstruction of the social fabric, including life-line resources, services and infrastructure, and the necessary improvements in order not to repeat the specific vulnerabilities shown by the affected groups and places. Sometimes, after certain disasters, a periodic flow of humanitarian aid will be needed to support particularly vulnerable people, which is outside the scope of disaster management.
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