Shelter Selection Research Articles

Enhancing community resilience to urban heat waves: A simulation-based approach for volunteer management and shelter selection

This study proposes a novel approach to enhancing urban resilience and emergency management practices in the face of heatwave events, often exacerbated by the urban heat island effect. Recognizing the limitations of traditional government-led responses in shelter allocation—characterized by high costs, logistical challenges, and a lack of adaptability—this paper introduces an innovative framework that integrates community-based volunteer efforts with advanced simulation and stochastic modelling techniques. The primary objective is to optimize the allocation of resources and volunteers to improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of heatwave response mechanisms. Utilizing Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), the research identifies and enhances resource and volunteer distribution strategies, paving the way for more effective emergency services. A case study conducted in Blacktown City, Western Sydney, serves to demonstrate the practical application and implications of these strategies, underscoring the necessity for a paradigm shift towards more adaptable, volunteer-focused, and resource-efficient approaches in mitigating the impact of climate-change-induced heat waves on vulnerable urban populations. The anticipated outcomes include measurable improvements in response times, cost reductions, and enhanced volunteer mobilization efficiency.

Selection of urban flood shelter locations based on risk assessment

Within the framework of global climate change, there is a recurring occurrence of floods and waterlogging disasters, which pose significant risks to human lives and overall safety. The phenomenon of urbanization has led to an increased vulnerability of cities to flood disasters. Evacuation serves as a viable strategy for adapting to climate change, managing intense precipitation events, and mitigating the impact of flood disasters. Hence, the meticulous choice of shelters has emerged as a crucial element in enhancing the effectiveness of evacuations. Nevertheless, the process of choosing shelters sometimes neglects to consider the potential for flooding and has not undergone thorough testing. Hence, the objective of this research is to systematically choose shelters within the central metropolitan region, incorporate flood risk considerations into the shelter site model, and assist cities in mitigating the consequences of floods resulting from climate change. To begin with, employ a two-dimensional shallow water model in order to replicate instances of intense precipitation and produce data on flood inundation. Subsequently, the simulation results are utilized to assess the flood risk using the entropy weight approach. This risk is then incorporated into the multi-objective optimization model to determine the optimal shelter placement. Ultimately, the ABM model was employed to create a simulation of crowd evacuation in urban areas, confirming the efficacy of shelter selection and thoroughly examining the influence of various shelters on the efficiency of community emergency evacuation. The study's findings indicate that a total of 26 shelters were chosen within the study area using a multi-objective methodology, ensuring the inclusion of all affected populations. The utilization of multi-objective models in the selection of shelter places has been shown to enhance evacuation efficiency, as confirmed by the ABM model. The simulation findings indicate a decline in the population's death rate from 1.94% to 0.98%, an increase in the evacuation rate from 97.4% to 98.4%, and a reduction in the number of casualties by 133 individuals.

A study on siting of emergency shelters for dam failure floods considering population distribution and weather effects

In recent years, dam failures have occurred frequently because of extreme weather, posing a significant threat to downstream residents. The establishment of emergency shelters is crucial for reducing casualties. The selection of suitable shelters depends on key information such as the number and distribution of affected people, and the effective capacity and accessibility of the shelters. However, previous studies on siting shelters did not fully consider population distribution differences at a finer scale. This limitation hinders the accuracy of estimating the number of affected people. In addition, most studies ignored the impact of extreme rainfall on the effective capacity and accessibility of shelters, leading to a low applicability of the shelter selection results. Therefore, in this study, land-use and land-cover change (LUCC) and nighttime lighting data were used to simulate population distribution and determine the number and distribution of affected people. Qualified candidate shelters were obtained based on screening criteria, and their effective capacity and accessibility information under different weather conditions were quantified. Considering factors such as population transfer efficiency, construction cost and shelter capacity constraints, a multi-objective siting model was established and solved using the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA- II) to obtain the final siting scheme. The method was applied to the Dafangying Reservoir, and the results showed the following: (1) The overall mean relative error (MRE) of the population in the 35 downstream streets was 11.16 %, with good fitting accuracy. The simulation results truly reflect the population distribution. (2) Normal weather screening generated 352 qualified candidate shelters, whereas extreme rainfall weather screening generated 266 candidate shelters. (3) Based on the population distribution and weather factors, four scenarios were set up, with 63, 106, 73, and 131 shelters selected. These two factors have a significant impact on the selection of shelters and the allocation of evacuees, and should be considered in the event of a dam-failure floods.

Assessing potential tsunami vertical-evacuation practices: A study of four cases in Chile using virtual reality and GIS

Tsunami vertical-evacuation (TVE) can save numerous human lives when horizontal evacuation is not feasible. A key topic in TVE planning is the optimal placement of shelters, which is typically studied using a top-down approach. Recently, virtual reality (VR) has become an emerging tool to support disaster risk reduction and emergency response training. While VR has been applied to visualise tsunami flood zones and evacuation routes, no studies have used VR to assess the evacuees' shelter choices during emergencies or to examine the optimal 'siting' of TVE buildings. To address this gap, this study introduces a user-focused VR evacuation experiment to automatically collect the shelter preferences of 435 participants regarding existing buildings that might serve as TVE shelters in four case studies in Chile. Complementary, we used questionnaires to collect information about the participants' tsunami evacuation expertise, awareness, and the factors that led to their shelter selection. Lastly, we used GIS to examine the location characteristics of the selected buildings. The results showed that 50 buildings gathered at least two preferences, with a large diversity of heights (five to 34 storeys) and placements (from 52 to 2774 m from the coast). Height is the most critical factor when choosing a building for TVE (53.1 % of the preferences), and most of them are residential (62.7 %). Additionally, 67.2 % of the participants had experienced real-world evacuations, and the average evacuation rate during the last emergency in each of the case studies was 43.8 %. While most participants declared affirmative response rates about the perceived tsunami threat (above 60 %), low specific knowledge regarding evacuation plans might discourage protective actions in future tsunami emergencies.

An Extended TODIM Method and Applications for Multi-Attribute Group Decision-Making Based on Bonferroni Mean Operators under Probabilistic Linguistic Term Sets

Due to the complexity and uncertainty of decision-making, probabilistic linguistic term sets (PLTSs) are currently important tools for qualitative evaluation of decision-makers. The asymmetry of evaluation information can easily lead to the loss of subjective preference information for decision-makers, and the existing operation of decision-maker evaluation information fusion operators is difficult to solve this problem. To solve such problems, this paper proposes some new operational methods for PLTSs based on Dombi T-conorm and T-norm. Considering the interrelationships between the input independent variables of PLTSs, the probabilistic linguistic weighted Dombi Bonferroni mean Power average (PLWDBMPA) operators are extended and the properties of these aggregation operators are proposed. Secondly, the PLWDBMPA operator is used to fuse the evaluation information of decision-makers, avoiding the loss of decision information as much as possible. This paper uses social media platforms and web crawler technology to obtain online comments from users on decision-making to obtain the public’s attitude towards decision events. TF-IDF and Word2Vec are used to calculate the weight of alternatives on each attribute. Under traditional group decision-making methods and integrating the wisdom of the public, a novel multi-attribute group decision-making method based on TODIM method is proposed. Finally, the case study of Turkey earthquake shelter selection proves this method is scientific and effective. Meanwhile, the superiority of this method was further verified through comparisons with the PL-TOPSIS, PLWA, SPOTIS and PROMETHEE method.

A Resource-Saving Shelter Selection Approach for Large-Scale Area Emergency

Most disaster evacuation approaches prioritize the best possible shelters for people based on their escape time. However, it is observed that lots of people continuously try to contact or travel to their relatives and friends after they safely arrived at shelters. This results in the occupation of communication and transportation resources and causes traffic congestion and internet blocking. Resources in disaster are insufficient and should be reserved for emergencies. This article proposed a resource-saving approach, resource-saving shelter selection approach (RSSA) in short, which determines shelters for people by considering their relationships and locations. In other words, people are gathered with whom they care to the same shelter to maximize the resource-saving for disaster relief. In addition, RSSA is designed standalone on mobile devices to cope with the inevitable network failures. The simulation results reveal that 23% of traveling costs are saved by RSSA compared to other approaches.

Optimizing Emergency Shelter Selection in Earthquakes Using a Risk-Driven Large Group Decision-Making Support System

This study presents a novel risk-based decision support system for helping disaster risk management planners select the best locations for emergency shelters after an earthquake. The system starts by identifying 18 criteria, based on stakeholder analysis, that are important for selecting shelter sites. These criteria are then standardized to reflect their importance in the site selection process. Next, a Large Group Decision-Making (LGDM) model is used to determine the weight of each criterion based on collective intelligence. Finally, the Ordered Weighted Average (OWA) method is used to assess the suitability of different geographical locations for emergency shelters, resulting in a suitability map. The factors that were most significant for selecting the best emergency shelters were the distance from the fault, population density, access to green spaces, and building quality. The area of the optimal sites for emergency shelters in the region varied depending on the decision-maker’s risk attitude, ranging from 4% in an extremely pessimistic scenario to 28% in an extremely optimistic scenario. This system combines Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and LGDM to help decision-makers identify the optimal sites for emergency shelters under different risk levels, which can contribute to better-informed decision-making regarding disaster resilience.

Shelter selection in the kissing bugs Triatoma infestans and Rhodnius prolixus: Intra- and inter-specific interactions and quality evaluation.

Triatomines display most of their activities during the night. Before sunrise, they search, select and occupy adequate shelters to stay during the photophase, avoiding exposure to diurnal predators. In this work, we first explored the interactions between individuals of the same or different species in the shelter selection process of Triatoma infestans (Klug 1834) and Rhodnius prolixus (Stål 1859). When two groups of insects (either of different nutritional status, nymphal instar or species) were released together over an experimental arena containing two identical shelters, all nymphs were distributed randomly, suggesting the absence of intra- and inters-pecific interactions. Secondly, we analysed their preferences for particular features of shelters by releasing one group of insects (either T. infestans or R. prolixus) over an arena containing two different refuges. Nymphs exhibited preferences for darker shelters with a vertical orientation of its substrate and elevated from the ground, highlighting the importance of such features in a shelter selection context. We conclude that these species disregard the presence of other individuals but evaluate certain characteristics of the shelters to choose them. This information may contribute to understanding the colonization/recolonization dynamic processes of these Chagas disease vectors.

Shelter selection by intertidal amphipods: the role of UVR and photoprotective compounds

Shelter selection by intertidal amphipods: the role of UVR and photoprotective compounds

Large-Scale Evacuation Shelter Selection Method Through Iterations of Pedestrian Simulations With Dynamic Congestion Reproduction

It is necessary to optimize evacuation guidance to shelters in short evacuation time. The state-of-the-art method based on an idea of combinatorial optimization problems related to evacuees’ locations and the capacities of nearby shelters has been developed, while it cannot mitigate the effect of congestion on roads/streets after evacuation starts. In this study, to cover this problem, we develop a new method that utilizes simulations for estimating the effect of congestion on roads/streets during evacuation and reassigning shelters to evacuees based on the simulation results. By iterating this step, our method derives the congestion-aware solutions for shelter selection that can realize more smooth evacuation. To evaluate our method, we conducted multi-agent simulations assuming a disaster situation in a sightseeing spot. Specifically, we examined a hypothetical case scenario involving the evacuation of 30,000 visitors from the Gion Festival. We compared the proposed method with conventional methods, such as the nearest shelter selection method and our previous method. We found that our proposed method reduced average and total evacuation time and congestion on roads compared to the conventional methods including the nearest shelter selection method and our previous method that only employs combinatorial optimization without estimating congestion. From this result, our idea of simulation-based congestion estimation has an impact of easing congestion during evacuation and preventing overcapacity of shelters at the same time. It shows the possibilities of help in developing congestion-aware evacuation strategies in emergency situations of crowded areas like huge cities or sightseeing spots.

Consensus reaching process in large-scale group decision making based on opinion leaders

With the development of science and technology, large-scale group decision making based on social network has become a crucial issue, and opinion leaders play an increasingly important role in the process of opinion dissemination and information transmission by virtue of their own influence, even affect the direction of decision-making. This paper proposes a framework of consensus reaching process for large-scale groups based on opinion leaders. In this framework, we first use the fast unfolding algorithm to divide the large-scale group into several small sub-clusters, and identify the opinion leaders of each sub-cluster. Then, we aggregate the opinions of the opinion leaders in each sub-cluster and construct the group decision matrix with the opinions of each sub-cluster as a new whole. A feedback mechanism based on opinion leaders is developed to help the opinion leaders who do not reach a consensus change their opinions to promote consensus. Finally, a numerical example about emergency shelter selection is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Evacuation Shelter Decision Method Considering Non-Cooperative Evacuee Behavior to Support the Disaster Weak

In disaster situations, special support for the disaster weak are crucial to keep them safe. Common evacuation strategies guide individuals to the shelters closest to their present locations. If evacuees are unevenly distributed across areas, some shelters will not be able to accommodate all arriving evacuees due to the limited capacity of shelters. To tackle this, the existing method decides the destinations for each evacuee considering congestion in disaster areas. However, this method does not consider the disaster weak and can be burdensome for them. Giving that the priority to the disaster weak for shelter decision would be effective to lessen burdens for them, but not all evacuees follow the guidance. When a shelter accepts arriving evacuees unconditionally, some evacuees are rejected, causing a delay in evacuation. If the disaster weak are rejected, the delay will be increased. In this paper, we propose two evacuation shelter decision methods considering the capacity of shelters, the disaster weak, and evacuees’ selfish behavior to realize quick evacuation for the disaster weak: (1) Fixed-rate Reduction Method (FRM), which reduces the assignment number of evacuees less than the capacity at the same percentage to all shelters. (2) Simulation-based Reduction Method (SRM), which reduces the assignment number to shelters that will be crowded based on simulation of an evacuation scenario. Then, these methods decide the destinations for evacuees, with the priority given to the disaster weak. To evaluate the efficiency of the proposed methods, we conducted multi-agent simulation assuming the scenario of evacuation of 30,000 visitors for the Gion Festival including the disaster weak. Through the simulation, we compared our methods with conventional methods including the nearest shelter selection method and the exiting method. As a result, our methods can reduce evacuation time of the disaster weak compared to conventional methods with sufficient cooperation by evacuees.

Diurnal sheltering preferences and associated conservation management for the endangered sandhill dunnart, Sminthopsis psammophila.

Dasyurids are small mammals that can conserve energy and water by using shelters that insulate against extreme conditions, prevent predation, and facilitate torpor. To quantify the diurnal sheltering requirements of a poorly known, endangered dasyurid, the sandhill dunnart, Sminthopsis psammophila, we radiotracked 40 individuals in the Western Australian Great Victoria Desert between 2015 and 2019. We assessed the effect of habitat class (broad habitat features), plot-level (the area surrounding each shelter), and shelter characteristics (e.g., daily temperature ranges), on shelter selection and sheltering habitat preferences. Two hundred and eleven diurnal shelters (mean of 5 ± 3 shelters per individual) were located on 363 shelter days (the number of days each shelter was used), within mature vegetation (mean seral age of 32 ± 12 years postfire). Burrows were used on 77% of shelter days and were typically concealed under mature spinifex, Triodia spp., with stable temperature ranges and northern aspects facing the sun. While many burrows were reused (n = 40 across 175 shelter days), spinifex hummock shelters typically were used for one shelter day and were not insulative against extreme temperatures. However, shallow scrapes within Lepidobolus deserti hummock shelters had thermal advantages and log shelters retained heat and were selected on cooler days. Sminthopsis psammophila requires long-unburned sheltering habitat with mature vegetation. Summer fires in the Great Victoria Desert can be extensive and destroy large areas of land, rendering them a key threat to the species. We conclude that the survey and conservation of S. psammophila requires attention to long-unburned, dense lower stratum swale, sand plain, and dune slope habitats, and the tendency of S. psammophila to burrow allows the species to survive within the extreme conditions of its desert environment.

A hierarchical flood shelter location model for walking evacuation planning

ABSTRACT Prior planning of shelters and evacuation routes is the foundation of effective and safe post flood management. In this study, a hierarchical model for emergency shelter location selection in preparation for immediate, short-term, and long-term floods was developed. To ensure the safety of evacuation routes, levels of walking evacuation risk were classified based on inundation depth and flow rate, and high-risk areas were set as barriers in the network analysis. Accessibility, safety from inundation, service accessibility, and facility capacity were set as criteria for location selection to ensure evacuation safety and the capacity to provide the services necessary to maintain the lives of evacuees in shelters. Candidate locations in a flood shelter case study area were selected, and their characteristics compared with those of existing designated shelters via a grading system. The candidate shelters were found to be preferable in terms of safety and service capacity. The model presented here considers the viability of walking evacuation on flooded roads and a selection of methodologies for each type of flood shelter, thereby providing insight into the design of an integrative model to address the complex decision-making processes involved in flood shelter selection and post-flood management.

Probabilistic Linguistic Term Set With Interval Uncertainty

The probabilistic linguistic term set (PLTS), composed by linguistic terms and their probabilities, is effective to represent uncertain evaluations. Considering that interval probability is more powerful than the precise form in describing uncertainty, this study introduces the PLTS with interval probabilities. Based on belief and plausibility measures, in this article, we discuss how to translate complex qualitative evaluations, which may be composed by both interval probabilities and interval linguistic terms, to the PLTS with interval probabilities. Utility-based translation approaches are proposed, which further shows the ability of the PLTS with interval probabilities in representing quantitative information. In addition, a probabilistic linguistic dominance method is developed to compare PLTSs. Integrating optimization models with the Dempster–Shafer theory, we present an aggregation method to estimate the maximum and minimum PLTSs obtained from the combination. Furthermore, a multicriteria decision-making method is introduced considering both the comprehensive evaluations of alternatives and the ability to achieve the tolerance and expectation values of criteria. The applicability of the proposed approach is illustrated by a case study of shelter selection.

Shelter selection by juvenile Pacific abalone ( Haliotis discus hannai Ino) as a function of food distribution and water flow velocity

Juvenile Pacific abalone (Haliotis discus hannai Ino) are currently reared in land-based aquaculture systems until they reach the necessary size for seeding in the sea. One problem that this industry faces is that an uneven distribution of juveniles in tanks can lead to variations in the growth rate. Understanding the cues that affect the sheltering behaviours exhibited by juvenile Pacific abalone—namely, the food distribution and the water flow velocity—will help optimize abalone culture settings. In this study, a group of 1,000 juvenile Pacific abalone (distributed across three tanks) was visually observed and enumerated during six experiments that were conducted over a 5-month study period. It was found that juvenile Pacific abalone preferred to shelter close to food sources when the food was unevenly distributed. When the food was evenly distributed, the juveniles tended to avoid areas of rapid water flow and distributed evenly across the sheltered areas receiving the equal water velocity. This distribution might be the confounding effects between water flow velocity and food stimulus. Based on these findings, it was recommend that the food and water velocity be evenly distributed in an abalone aquaculture system.

Observations on habitat preference of juvenile eastern hellbender salamanders (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis)

Laboratory experiments have provided a wealth of knowledge on antipredator responses and habitat preference in both terrestrial and aquatic salamanders, many of which are difficult to study under natural conditions. However, there remains a dearth of carefully designed experiments to elucidate habitat preferences of aquatic salamanders, many of which are of growing conservation concern. This experimental study evaluated shelter selection of nearly threatened larval eastern hellbender salamanders, Cryptobranchus alleganiensis, in North Carolina. We performed three experiments: 1) ability to burrow under 50% embedded cobble, 2) preference for cobble (~ 120–150 mm) versus gravel (~ 30–60 mm) in an aquarium (ex situ), and 3) preference for cobble over gravel in a natural stream setting (in situ). We found that salamanders (N = 11) showed a preference for cobble (~ 135–137 mm) in both aquarium and in-stream testing environments (87.7% and 88.5% of time, respectively) over gravel and burrowed under cobble in 95% of aquarium and in-stream trials. Moreover, salamanders were unable to burrow under 50% embedded cobble and were actively moving 38.1% of the time in our burrowing experiment, highlighting the potential for larvae to remain exposed to predators if streams contain buried substrate. Our study provides preliminary evidence on the behavior of these cryptic larval salamanders, suggesting that they prefer cobble substrate and are unable to utilize embedded cobble. These findings have management implications for juveniles of this species, particularly in areas where prolonged sedimentation has the potential to make cobble unavailable for larvae.

Development of a Multi-Criteria Evaluation Framework and Its Application for Earthquake Shelter Selection

The importance of designated earthquake shelters has been emphasized in South Korea. However, the lack of an appropriate evaluation process for shelter candidates often leads to an ad-hoc selection of earthquake shelters, resulting in inefficient disaster management. To address this issue, this study proposes an evaluation framework based on multi-criteria decision-making to measure the suitability of earthquake shelters quantitatively. First, available indicators for shelter evaluation are extracted from the relevant literature, which are then streamlined and grouped using text mining to represent evaluation areas. Next, the selected indicators are standardized to the same value scale, and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used to derive the relative importance of each evaluation area to compute the weighted sum total score of each candidate. The developed evaluation framework is applied to a case study of earthquake shelter selection in the city of Songdo-dong. The results show that there are additional shelter candidates suitable for earthquake evacuation in addition to the current designated shelters. This study can serve as a basis for objective shelter selection that would improve the identification and utility of designated shelters.

A Typhoon Shelter Selection and Evacuee Allocation Model: A Case Study of Macao (SAR), China

Typhoon disaster represent one of the most prominent threats to public safety in the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China and can cause severe economic losses and casualties. Prior to the landing of typhoons, affected people should be evacuated to shelters as soon as possible; this is crucial to prevent injuries and deaths. Various models aim to solve this problem, but the characteristics of disasters and evacuees are often overlooked. This study proposes a model based on the influence of a typhoon and its impact on evacuees. The model’s objective is to minimize the total evacuation distance, taking into account the distance constraint. The model is solved using the spatial analysis tools of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). It is then applied in Macao to solve the evacuation process for Typhoon Mangkhut 2018. The result is an evacuee allocation plan that can help the government organize evacuation efficiently. Furthermore, the number of evacuees allocated to shelters is compared with shelter capacities, which can inform government shelter construction in the future.

Conflictual influence of humidity during shelter selection of the American cockroach (Periplaneta americana)

In collective decision-making, when confronted with different options, groups usually show a more marked preference for one of the options than do isolated individuals. This results from the amplification of individual preferences by social interactions within the group. We show, in an unusual counter-example, that when facing a binary choice between shelters with different relative humidities, isolated cockroaches of the species Periplaneta americana select the wettest shelter, while groups select the driest one. This inversion of selection results from a conflictual influence of humidity on the probabilities of entering and leaving each shelter. It is shown that the individual probability of entering the wettest shelter is higher than the group probability and is increased by previous entries and exits. The probability of leaving each shelter decreases in the population due to social interactions, but this decrease is less pronounced in the wettest shelter, suggesting weaker social interactions. A theoretical model is developed and highlights the existence of tipping points dependent on population size, beyond which an inversion of selection of a resting place is observed.