Mer fleksibel nødhjelp-kommunikasjon ved naturkatastrofer

Store og plutselige naturkatastrofer inntreffer i omgivelser og skaper utfordringer som er ulike fra katastrofe til katastrofe. I avhandlingen Hossein Baharmand forsvarer for doktorgraden foreslår han konkrete metoder for å forbedre fleksibiliteten i datanettverkene, slik at de enklere blir tilpasset den katastrofesituasjonen de blir brukt i.

Hossein Baharmand disputerer for ph.d.-graden med avhandlingen "Designing Flexible Relief Distribution Networks for Sudden-onset Natural Disaster Response" fredag 7. desember 2018.

Han har fulgt doktorgradsprogrammet ved Fakultet for teknologi og realfag med spesialisering i IKT.

Slik beskriver kandidaten selv essensen i avhandlingen:

Natural disasters affect more than 200 million people around the world every year!

Once a major sudden-onset natural disaster strikes a region and the impacts go beyond the local capacities to cope with, like the 2015 Nepal earthquake, humanitarian organizations deploy their teams to assist the affected people and distribute relief items (food, blanket, etc.).

However, it has been proven that distributing relief items in these contexts is extremely challenging due to high uncertainty about current and future situations, urgency, damaged infrastructure (roads, etc.), constrained resources, the presence of multiple actors, and the fairly unique nature of each disaster context.

To address such challenges, several researchers have studied relief distribution networks given the increasing number of devastating natural disasters over the last decade.

Research and advances in technology have not yet resulted in better response!

The gap between research and practice is mainly due to the lack of relevance.

Research proposals have often ignored the requirements for and constraints of practice.

Therefore, there is a need for research that addresses the challenges of relief distribution networks while considering the working environment and conditions of humanitarians.

Improving the network flexibility can increase the effectiveness and efficiency of response!

Network flexibility refers to the capacity to respond to foreseen and unforeseen changes of network promptly and effectively.

In my thesis, I combined a multitude of different qualitative and quantitative research methods to support “designing flexible relief distribution networks for sudden-onset natural disaster response”.

My dissertation includes validated proposals that can assist humanitarian decision-makers to:

• (a) assess the flexibility of relief distribution networks and develop an improvement strategy;
• (b) locate temporary centers to distribute relief items effectively and efficiently after sudden-onset disasters;
• (c) facilitate easier and quicker convergence in group decision-making (which is quite common in humanitarian operations); and
• (d) better understand the impacts of transportation risks in relief distribution networks.