Quantitative modeling in disaster management: A literature review

Abstract

The number, magnitude, complexity, and impact of natural disasters have been steadily increasing in various parts of the world. When preparing for, responding to, and recovering from a disaster, multiple organizations make decisions and take actions considering the needs, available resources, and priorities of the affected communities, emergency supply chains, and infrastructures. Most of the prior research focuses on decision-making for independent systems (e.g., single critical infrastructure networks or distinct relief resources). An emerging research area extends the focus to interdependent systems (i.e., multiple dependent networks or resources). In this article, we survey the literature on modeling approaches for disaster management problems on independent systems, discuss some recent work on problems involving demand, resource, and/or network interdependencies, and offer future research directions to add to this growing research area.