Abstract
Floods are one of the most dangerous and common disasters worldwide, and these disasters are closely linked to the geography of the affected area. As a result, several papers in the academic field of humanitarian logistics have incorporated the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for disaster management. However, most of the contributions in the literature are using these systems for network analysis and display, with just a few papers exploiting the capabilities of GIS to improve planning and preparedness. To show the capabilities of GIS for disaster management, this paper uses raster GIS to analyse potential flooding scenarios and provide input to an optimisation model. The combination is applied to two real-world floods in Mexico to evaluate the value of incorporating GIS for disaster planning. The results provide evidence that including GIS analysis for a decision-making tool in disaster management can improve the outcome of disaster operations by reducing the number of facilities used at risk of flooding. Empirical results imply the importance of the integration of advanced remote sensing images and GIS for future systems in humanitarian logistics.
Highlights
According to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, from 1992 to 2012 4.4 billion people were affected by disasters with almost 2 trillion USD in damages and 1.3 million people killed worldwide [1]
The purpose of this article is to show the importance of incorporating Geographical Information Systems (GIS) along with optimisation for location and distribution decisions in cases of flood
The goal of this paper is to investigate analytically the way the use of GIS to analyse the flood situation could affect decision-making for facility locations
Summary
According to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, from 1992 to 2012 4.4 billion people were affected by disasters with almost 2 trillion USD in damages and 1.3 million people killed worldwide [1]. Different types of disaster require different types of response [4,5] given the varying features of each type of hazard. Over 100 floods occur on average per year, and more than 150 occurred each year between 2007 and 2012 [1]. These disasters provide more time to react [10] because floods are more predicted and prevented compared to other disasters [11]. The use of systems for monitoring and analysis can improve preparedness and response
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