Supply Chain Management in Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Relief

Abstract

Humanitarian aid and disaster relief are delivered in times of crises or natural disasters, such as after a conflict or in response to a hurricane, typhoon, or tsunami. Different from regular aid programs, aid and relief are provided to deal with emergency and immediate local areas, and to shelter affected people and refugees impacted by sudden traumatic events. There is evidence that natural and man-made disasters are increasing in numbers all around the world, affecting hundreds of millions of people every year. In spite of this fact, only in recent years – beginning in 2005 – has management of the supply chain of resources and materials for humanitarian aid and disaster relief been a topic of interest for researchers. Consequently, the academic literature in this field is comparatively new and still sparse, indicating a requirement for more academic studies. As a key part of the C-Change International Community-University Research Alliance (ICURA) project for managing adaptation to environmental change in coastal communities of Canada and the Caribbean, this thesis develops a framework and analytical model for domestic supply chain management in humanitarian aid and disaster relief in the event of severe storm and flooding in the Canadian C-Change community of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. In particular, the focus includes quantitative modeling of two specific aspects during the preparedness phase for emergency management: (1) inventory prepositioning and (2) transportation planning. In addition, this thesis proposes and analyses the characteristics of an effective supply chain management framework in practice to assist Canadian coastal communities in improving their preparation and performance in disaster relief efforts. The results indicate Charlottetown system effectiveness and decreased time to assist affected people are improved by distributing central emergency supply among more than one base station.