disaster response Articles

Disaster management: an ethical review and approach

There has been a great deal of research devoted to the general topic of disaster response. Not surprisingly, the bulk of this research has been conducted by researchers in the fields of emergency medicine, emergency response, and public policy. While a great deal of useful clinical and applied knowledge has been obtained from these studies, this paper is focused more narrowly on the ethics of ...

Jul. 18, 2013

By Inderscience Publishers
An assessment of geo-information use during the 2005 Kashmir earthquake response and recommendations to improve future use

The destructive effects of disasters on vulnerable populations will continue to increase as global inhabitants grow in numbers and occupy marginal, often hazard-prone areas. Recent experience has shown that there is a gap between available Geographic Information System technologies and geo-information management tools and their employment during disaster response operations. The goal of this ...

May 26, 2011

By Inderscience Publishers
Improving disaster response efforts with decision support systems

As evidenced by Hurricane Katrina in August, 2005, disaster response efforts are hindered by a lack of coordination, poor information flows, and the inability of disaster response managers to validate and process relevant information and make decisions in a timely fashion. A number of factors contribute to current lacklustre response efforts. Some are inherent to the complex, rapidly changing ...

Nov. 15, 2006

By Inderscience Publishers
A disaster response management system based on the control systems technology

A networked Critical Infrastructure (CI) system performs functions critical to national economy and security. It is a complex system in the sense of a social-technical system with time-varying boundary and topology, and there are dynamic, uncertain and stochastic factors throughout a whole disaster management process. In this paper, we first present a study aimed at developing a general ...

Mar. 10, 2008

By Inderscience Publishers
Brokerage roles in disaster response: Organisational mediation in the wake of Hurricane Katrina

When one organisation serves as an intermediary for twoother organisations which are not in direct contact, that organisation is saidto engage in brokerage behaviour. Using the case of the Hurricane Katrinadisaster, this study demonstrates the use of formal brokerage measures to studycommunication among the responding organisations. We apply the brokeragerole typology put forth by Gould and ...

Jul. 20, 2009

By Inderscience Publishers
Reduction techniques in modelling critical infrastructures under the infrastructure interdependencies simulator framework

Modern, urban population centres are comprised of highly interdependent networks of infrastructures. In normal operating conditions, these interdependencies can be neglected without much trouble, however, in times of emergency, these same interdependencies, often hidden, can debilitate relief efforts. The effects are often noted in disaster response post–mortems as poor distribution of resources ...

Jun. 26, 2013

By Inderscience Publishers
Emergency management and ethics

Though ethics underlie emergency management in important ways, they have received insufficient attention in the mainstream academic and professional literature. This has led to the problem of people being insufficiently addressed as beings of moral worth in disasters, in spite of the overall claim that the responses are for their benefit. In the emergency field they can instead be treated as ...

Mar. 18, 2014

By Inderscience Publishers
Disaster preparedness and response: a challenge for hospitals in earthquake-prone countries

An effective and immediate response from hospital personnel is critical to meet the needs of affected populations at the time of an earthquake disaster. Hospitals need to develop, practise and continuously update an effective disaster/emergency medical response plan. Communities and impacted regions cannot depend on immediate medical and humanitarian aid from other outside sources to meet medical ...

Nov. 22, 2010

By Inderscience Publishers
Structure versus freedom of action: leadership during the rescue operation following the 2004 tsunami

The purpose of this study was to develop a theoretical understanding of leadership during a complex rescue operation following a major disaster in a foreign country. The analysis followed a grounded theory approach. Seventeen informants from three Swedish authorities were interviewed on leadership in the emergency handling of the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia. A theoretical conceptualisation was ...

Nov. 22, 2010

By Inderscience Publishers
After the disaster: the first things that wastewater system managers should do after disasters

ABSTRACT Hurricane Katrina in 2005 served as a wake-up call for many agencies, including local wastewater systems. That event provided some new lessons in utility disaster preparedness, but primarily provided reminders of previously-known lessons. That event and others have dramatized the potential impact of natural and man-made disasters on utility infrastructure. Wastewater systems have proven ...

Oct. 13, 2007

By Water Environment Federation (WEF)
Long term recovery from mega–disasters: regional and business recovery periods, differential vulnerability, and business continuity

Understanding the underlying variables that contribute to the economic impact of large scale disasters is crucial to mitigating the effects on regions and businesses. However, depending on the approach used - secondary research on regions, using macroeconomic variables, vs. primary, survey–based business research - contradictions exist on the extent and nature of the recovery, and on the ...

Jun. 18, 2014

By Inderscience Publishers
An international tabletop exercise on critical infrastructure protection: the lessons identified

In 2007, a TableTop eXercise (TTX) on Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) was held in Sofia, Bulgaria. It was organised by the Civil Protection Committee (CPC) of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC). The aim of the TTX was to identify gaps in existing policies and capabilities for the protection of the civil population and Critical Infrastructures (CIs) and to provide nations and ...

Jun. 2, 2010

By Inderscience Publishers
Dynamic recovery of critical infrastructures: real-time temporal coordination

This paper takes a systems engineering approach to the problem of operations coordination among multiple infrastructures to minimise the impact of large disasters on human lives. Temporal coordination is essential to avoid bottlenecks in the simultaneous recovery of multiple infrastructures systems. A solution framework is presented in terms of multiple-delay difference equations which bring out ...

Jan. 14, 2008

By Inderscience Publishers
Modelling of cascading effects and efficient response to disaster spreading in complex networks

In order to assess cascading effects in directed networks, we present a model for the dynamics of failure spreading. The model combines network nodes as active, bistable elements and delayed interactions along directed links. Through simulations, we study the dynamics behaviour of generic sample networks. Besides evaluating the failure cascades, for which we observe a critical threshold for the ...

Jan. 14, 2008

By Inderscience Publishers
Emergency logistics and risk mitigation in Thailand following the Asian tsunami

A series of recent natural disasters (earthquakes, floods, droughts) and man-made crises (civil unrest, war, political disturbance) have highlighted the vulnerability of communities to unstable conditions. Reaching displaced people in crisis conditions is heavily dependent on the effectiveness of the supply chain and its management systems. Disaster responses have been modelled into, for example, ...

Jun. 10, 2009

By Inderscience Publishers
Disaster response: Community mental health service capacity in the USA

Following a natural disaster such as a major hurricane or flood, the ability of community mental health facilities to respond during the recovery stage of the disaster with adequate resources and capacity to meet community needs is critical to the recovery process. Community mental health agencies have a critical role to play in preparing for and responding to large-scale disasters, such as ...

Jul. 20, 2009

By Inderscience Publishers
An information management system for the emergency management of hurricane disasters

Access to accurate and comprehensive information for a wide spectrum of topics to support hurricane disaster planning and response is of critical importance to emergency managers. This paper presents the development of IMASH, an Information Management System for Hurricane disasters. IMASH is an intelligent integrated dynamic information management tool, capable of providing comprehensive data ...

Feb. 10, 2004

By Inderscience Publishers
An examination of interdependencies among major barriers to coordination in disaster response

This paper reports two exploratory research studies conducted to identify major barriers to coordination in disaster response and to understand causal relationships among those barriers. In the first study, two expert panels (emergency operations centre directors and firefighters) participated in a Delphi survey to identify and prioritise major barriers. In the second study, five focus group ...

Jan. 28, 2013

By Inderscience Publishers
Exploring emergency response: theories of communities of practice, safety cultures, situation awareness and tacit knowledge

This paper discusses theoretical constructs from various domains to explore emergency response management. Using the Piper Alpha disaster as an example, we argue that applying a communities of practice lens can inform understandings of safety cultures, shared situation awareness, and tacit knowledge. First, we briefly outline the Piper Alpha event and detail communities of practice theory with a ...

May 23, 2013

By Inderscience Publishers
Rhode Island disaster initiative

The Rhode Island Disaster Initiative (RIDI) is providing research in the areas of readiness, technology and training to address the significant gaps that remain in real-time medical response to events involving the use of weapons of mass destruction; terrorist use of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive devices; mass casualty incidents and toxic industrial chemical and ...

Sep. 23, 2008

By Inderscience Publishers

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