GIS and optimisation: potential benefits for emergency facility location in humanitarian logistics

Research output: Contribution to journalSpecial issuepeer-review

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.

Original languageEnglish
Article number18
Number of pages34
JournalGeosciences
Volume6
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 29 Mar 2016

Bibliographical note

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Keywords

  • disaster management
  • floods
  • geographical information systems
  • humanitarian logistics

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