2011年度土木計画学研究委員会第1回国際セミナー
Jose Holguin-Veras先生 特別講演会

日時：2011年5月23日 10時～12時

場所：京都大学桂キャンパスCクラスター 314号室

題目：WHAT PREVIOUS DISASTERS TEACH US: THE HARD LESSONS OF KATRINA
AND HAITI FOR POST-DISATER HUMANITARIAN LOGISTICS

講師：Jose Holguin-Veras 教授

Abstract
Extreme events pose serious logistical challenges to emergency and aid organizations active in preparation, response and recovery operations, as the disturbances they bring about have the potential to suddenly turn normal conditions into chaos. Under these conditions, delivering the critical supplies (e.g., food, water, medical supplies) urgently required becomes an extremely difficult task because of the severe damages to the physical and virtual infrastructures and the very limited, or non-existent, transportation capacity. In this context, the recovery process is made more difficult by the prevailing lack of knowledge about the nature and challenges of emergency supply chains. As a result, the design of reliable humanitarian logistic systems is hampered by the lack of: knowledge about the particulars of how formal and informal (emergent) supply chains operate and interact; methods to properly analyze and coordinate the flows of both priority and non-priority goods; and, in general, scientific methods to analyze logistic systems under extreme conditions.

This presentation is based on the quick response field work conducted by the author and his colleagues on New Orleans and Haiti. The presentation provides a succinct description of the key logistical issues that plagued the Katrina response, and then discusses preliminary observations concerning the response to the Port au Prince earthquake. These cases provide an example of the need to significantly improve the efficiency of humanitarian logistics. The paper is based, to a great extent, on public accounts of the event and the interviews conducted by the authors during a number of field visits to the impacted sites, as part of research projects funded by the National Science Foundation. Then, in the second part of the presentation, he will discuss policy implications of relevance to ensure an efficient flow of critical supplies to a site impacted by a natural or a man-made disaster.

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation’s grants entitled NSF-RAPID 1034365: “Field Investigation on the Comparative Performance of Alternative Humanitarian Logistic Structures;” “DRU: Contending with Materiel Convergence: Optimal Control, Coordination, and Delivery of Critical Supplies to the Site of Extreme Events” (National Science Foundation CMMI-0624083); and “Characterization of the Supply Chains in the Aftermath of an Extreme Event: The Gulf Coast Experience,” (NSF-CMS-SGER 0554949).
This support is both acknowledged and appreciated.