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Disaster and Emergency Logistics: Sustainable Solutions from a Social, Ecological and Economic Perspective

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Transportation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2019) | Viewed by 3488

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
School of Administrative Studies, York University, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada
Interests: humanitarian logistics; closed-loop supply chains

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

It is well known that disasters and disaster response activities usually generate massive amounts of waste. Contaminated debris and waste often exceed an affected area’s treatment capacity (e.g., the Asian tsunami in 2004, the Haiti earthquake in 2010, and the Japanese earthquake in 2011). Sometimes, waste and debris are just ignored without receiving proper management. Untreated debris and waste negatively impact current and future residents’ health, as well as the global environment. Post-disaster management includes reverse activities related to end-of-life and end-of-use relief goods and equipment. On the one hand, the disposal of relief goods and/or equipment is a predominant way of dealing with them (as there are often no alternatives); on the other hand, the reuse of relief equipment has started attracting stakeholders’ attention. Although a substantial number of research papers deal with debris management, previous academic literature that has shed light on aid agencies’ reverse logistics activities is scarce.

The research methodology for papers in this Special Issue includes but is not limited to analytical and/or simulation models, conceptual papers, empirical studies, and case studies. Analytical and/or simulation models should have a clear motivation in real problems and a solid practical foundation—for example using real-world data or showing evidence of communication with humanitarian practitioners. The topics of interest of this Special Issue include but are not limited to the following.

  • Factors which affect aid agencies’ choice of reuse, product recovery or disposal;
  • Comparison of reverse logistics management in the commercial and humanitarian sectors;
  • Coordination/collaboration mechanisms which enhance aid agencies’ end-of-use activities;
  • Product designs of relief items and/or equipment which facilitate stakeholders’ reverse flow management;
  • Health care waste management in disaster and emergency logistics;
  • Debris management in disaster and emergency logistics.

Prof. Dr. Toyasaki Fuminori
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Sustainability
  • Reverse logistics in disasters and emergencies
  • Sustainable partnership between the commercial and humanitarian sectors

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

21 pages, 2073 KiB  
Article
Two-Stage Covering Location Model for Air–Ground Medical Rescue System
by Ming Zhang, Yu Zhang, Zhifeng Qiu and Hanlin Wu
Sustainability 2019, 11(12), 3242; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11123242 - 12 Jun 2019
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 3108
Abstract
This study tackled the multimodal facility location problem in emergency medical rescue. First, an intermodal setting was suggested, i.e., considering cooperation between ground ambulances and helicopters in emergency medical rescues. Specifically, four scheduling modes were structured: air only, ground only, air-ground combined mode [...] Read more.
This study tackled the multimodal facility location problem in emergency medical rescue. First, an intermodal setting was suggested, i.e., considering cooperation between ground ambulances and helicopters in emergency medical rescues. Specifically, four scheduling modes were structured: air only, ground only, air-ground combined mode if landing and take-off site for helicopters near the wounded is available, and air-ground transshipment if the landing and take-off site for helicopters near the wounded is not available. Second, a two-stage covering location model was proposed. In the first stage, a set-covering model was developed to achieve maximum coverage and minimal total construction cost of emergency rescue facilities. The optimal mixed allocation proportion of helicopters and ground ambulances was then obtained to guarantee cohesion between the hierarchical models and covering characteristics and the economic efficiency of location results. In the second stage, for given emergency locations, an emergency scheduling mode matrix was constructed for meeting response time and total rescue time constraints. The proposed model obtains optimal results in terms of coverage, construction cost, and rescue time. A case study of Beijing, China validated the feasibility and efficiency of the two-stage covering location model for multimodal emergency medical rescue network. The proposed air-ground rescue system and two-stage covering location model can be extended and also used for large-scale disaster rescue management. Full article
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