Integrating post-event very high resolution SAR imagery and machine learning for building-level earthquake damage assessment

Earthquakes have devastating effects on densely urbanised regions, requiring rapid and extensive damage assessment to guide resource allocation and recovery efforts. Traditional damage assessment is time-consuming, resource-intensive, and faces challenges in covering vast affected areas, often limiting timely decision-making. Space-borne...

Quantitative assessment of earthquake-induced building damage at regional scale using LiDAR data

Regional-scale assessment of the damage caused by earthquakes to structures is crucial for post-disaster management. While remote sensing techniques can be of great help for a quick post-event structural assessment of large areas, currently available methods are limited to the detection of severely-damaged buildings. Furthermore, remote...

Equitable post-disaster relief distribution: a robust multi-objective multi-stage optimization approach

Purpose: This paper aims to address a location-distribution-routing problem for distributing relief commodities during a disaster under uncertainty by creating a multi-stage model that can consider information updates during the disaster. This model aims to create a relief network that chooses distribution centers with the highest value while...

Mapping the knowledge domain of soft computing applications for emergency evacuation studies: A scientometric analysis and critical review

Emergency evacuation is viewed as a common strategy adopted during the disaster preparedness stage of evacuation to ensure the safety of potentially affected populations. In emergency evacuation studies, soft computing approaches and methodologies have been widely used to support effective decision-making, providing robust and low-cost solutions...

Designing a sustainable water management strategy including disaster management

This paper presents preliminary results on the application of a water management approach that includes the principles of Build Back Better (BBB) and explicitly considers the performance of a water system during the different phases of the disaster management cycle. As a case study, a small touristic island was taken that is faced with...

Meeting at the crossroads? Developing national strategies for disaster risk reduction and resilience: Relevance, scope for, and challenges to, integration

Increasing impacts from disasters and climate hazards have prompted international efforts to promote the development of national disaster risk reduction and resilience (DRRR) strategies intended to reduce mortality and other losses. The development of such strategies is the subject of target E of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk...

Pandemic programming: How COVID-19 affects software developers and how their organizations can help

Context: As a novel coronavirus swept the world in early 2020, thousands of software developers began working from home. Many did so on short notice, under difficult and stressful conditions.<br/><br/>Objective: This study investigates the effects of the pandemic on developers’ wellbeing and productivity.<br/><br/>Method: A questionnaire survey...

A research agenda for information quality assurance in public safety networks: Information orchestration as the middle ground between hierarchical and netcentric approaches

One of the key challenges in public safety networks is to ensure a high level of information quality (IQ) during disaster response. Since many evaluation reports on disaster response efforts have revealed instances of poor IQ, both academics and practitioners are in search of information architectures that assure IQ. This article focuses on the...

Advances in multi-agency disaster management: Key elements in disaster research

Multi-agency disaster management requires collaboration among geographically distributed public and private organizations to enable a rapid and effective response to an unexpected event. Many disaster management systems often lack the capability to cope with the complexity and uncertainty. In this introduction to the special issues on advances...