An Integrated Location-Allocation Model for Temporary Disaster Debris Management under an Uncertain Environment

Abstract

Natural disasters always generate an overwhelming amount of debris. Reusing and recycling waste from disasters are essential for sustainable debris management. Before recycling the debris, it is necessary to sort this mixed waste. To perform the sorting process efficiently, a Temporary Disaster Debris Management Site (TDDMS) is required, and the selection of TDDMS is a multi-criteria decision-making problem due to its numerous regional and municipal constraints. This paper provides a two-phase framework for sustainable debris management during the response phase of disasters. In the first phase, a methodology for TDDMS selection is proposed that consists of Analytical Network Process (ANP) and a fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). In the second phase, a debris allocation optimization model is developed to allocate the debris from disaster-affected regions to the selected TDDMS. A city prone to hurricane damage is selected to illustrate the proposed framework. For the debris allocation purpose, five TDDMS are chosen, among which three sites are selected using the proposed methodology. To illustrate the utilization of the proposed study, a numerical example with two different scenarios is provided. Numerical outcomes prove that the model results in a sustainable debris management system for disasters.