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This paper aims to document a case study of a disaster in Bangladesh and the role of an information management system for disaster management planning.

The paper uses a methodology that considers perceptions or constructions – including the role of information systems – to be dependent on the social and cultural structures, which is helpful in reducing destruction in disaster‐prone areas.

Advances in information technology in the form of the internet, geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing, satellite communication, etc. are beneficial in many aspects of the planning and implementation of hazard reduction arrangements.

Natural disasters strike countries, both developed and developing, cause enormous destruction and create human suffering, and have negative impacts on national economies. Bangladesh suffers regularly and frequently from disasters like floods, cyclone storms, tidal surges, river bank erosion and earthquakes.

Incorporating knowledge of information management system is becoming increasingly important in the derivation of management solutions for disasters.

Information systems including GIS, communication technology, other information retrieval and information management systems should be maintained during natural disasters to reduce the cost and time for contingency. In this paper, an attempt is made to highlight the role of information technology in the management of natural disasters in Bangladesh.

The City of New York was suddenly and deliberately attacked on September 11, 2001, killing thousands of people and leaving unbelievable destruction. Thirty-eight buildings and structures were destroyed or damaged, including seven buildings in the World Trade Center site completely leveled. Almost five years later, two very large contaminated buildings, Deutsche Bank at 130 Liberty Street and Fiterman Hall of Borough of Manhattan Community College, have yet to be cleaned up and demolished. Some 30 million square feet of commercial space was lost. Transportation was disrupted, including the loss of the World Trade Center PATH station, the 1/9 subway line and portions of Route 9A and Church Street. Cars were not allowed south of Canal Street for a week. For Americans this was a terrorist attack and a crime. It was a time for mourning losses and responding to disaster. There was the shock that something like this could happen. And there was more. The destruction of the WTC also posed competing environmental, economic and social threats.

The purpose of this work is the development of a structured case study design process for developing case studies in humanitarian logistics, in particular for short-term predictable disaster situations like floods and hurricanes. Moreover, useful public sources are presented in order to enable researchers to find relevant data for their case studies more easily.

A structured framework for case study design is set up, splitting the process into different steps and phases.

The framework is applied to an illustrative example, where case studies with different numbers and levels of detail of scenarios are designed based on the three-day forecast for hurricane Harvey in 2017. The corresponding solutions demonstrate the relevance of using as much forecast information as possible in case study building, and in particular in scenario design, in order to get useful and appropriate results.

The case study design process is mostly suitable for short-term predictable disasters, but can also be adapted to other types of disasters. The process has been applied to one specific hurricane here which serves as an example.

Also for practitioners, the results of this work are highly relevant, as constructing realistic cases using real data will lead to more useful results. Moreover, it is taken into account in the case study design process that relief agencies are regularly confronted with disasters in certain areas and hence need to define the basic planning situation and parameters “once and for all” and on a long-term basis, whereas disaster specific data from forecasts are only available within a short time frame.

The new design process can be applied by researchers as well as practitioners, and the publicly available data sources will be useful to the community.

The purpose of this study is to draw lessons for logistics management in humanitarian disasters, using the earthquake in Haiti as a case study. In Haiti, there were problems with the logistical response. This study investigates the humanitarian logistics challenges faced by various stakeholders in Haiti during the disaster-relief operations.

In this exploratory case study, the central methodology used was data triangulation. Data triangulation involved interviews with respondents grouped into three categories, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the military establishment and the governmental agencies. Prominence is given to the common themes expressed by each group. These common themes are then compared to the themes of other groups to identify opportunities and problems for future disaster relief operations.

The study indicates that there is a clear gap in terms of how the humanitarian efforts were coordinated between different actors. Lack of civil–military cooperation and coordination was one of the findings from the interviews, and many of the resources and initiatives were overlapping or redundant. Timeliness and efficiency need to be at the forefront of all planning and would result in more saved lives and reduced human suffering. The key goal of humanitarian logistics stipulates is to form connections and relationships, which was well illustrated through the informants' interviews. It was found that organizing different stakeholders/actors to work together by sharing processes and distribution channels demands a vision that goes beyond logistics management. Government agencies, the military establishment, NGOs, locals and victims need to collaborate to create a synergy in generating solutions that are tailored to the shock of the disaster in the first place.

The current study relies on a single case study approach as disaster scenarios are unique in terms of their impact, magnitude, timing and location. Despite these limitations, this study provides a detailed account of the logistical challenges in dealing with the disaster that took place in Haiti. The logistics-related lessons learned from this case study should be carefully applied in other settings, taken into consideration contextual differences.

One important aspect of measuring efficiency for any commercial logistics system is key performance indicators (KPIs) that indicate how well the firm is doing in managing its inbound and outbound operations. From a practical standpoint, the Haiti case raised a challenging concern with regard to how to measure the performance of humanitarian disaster logistics. This is a starting point to understand the dynamics of disaster system efficiency and logistics interplay and offers a few lessons to improve the resource availability in the case of future emergencies.

This study lays the groundwork for future researchers to explore and debrief on the topic once disaster relief draws to a close and time has allowed logisticians and relief workers to analyze the response mechanisms used in disasters.

This paper analyses and quantifies the relative level of risk in a geographical area that is vulnerable to natural phenomena and with a high proportion of its population in a situation of residential poverty. We deduce that the hazard in the area, composed of nine Central American and Caribbean countries, is significantly higher than the world average. The first aspect is covered in the sections Population at risk and Natural phenomena, which analyse the ‘study area’. The second aspect is covered by Poverty in the ‘study area’, various analyses of the physical situation in the target area, inhabited by almost 160 million people. Contrasted information is used as a basis for the concepts underpinning the extraordinary presence and seriousness of the socio-natural phenomena in this area. The interrelationship between the degree of vulnerability and poverty leads to the conclusion that these are the primary causes of disaster-related destruction, which in a 33 year period (1972 to 2005) has left an annual average of 20,000 human lives lost, 250,000 directly affected and approximately ten billion dollars in material damage.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the role of livelihood assets, strategies and local social networks in disaster response and recovery in post-disaster setting of 2013 Kedarnath disaster (India).

It identifies post disaster macro-spaces of Mandakini river valley (India) using change detection analysis and secondary data. Within these macro-spaces, the micro spaces of livelihood and social capital were assessed by selecting two villages for case study.

Most important issues faced by communities were loss of lives, livelihoods and access to relief aid. A shift in economic base of families suffering loss of livelihoods was observed as they switched from pilgrimage-based to skill-based opportunities. Geographical location and isolation play a crucial role in recovery trajectory of villages by influencing the social capital.

The paper being case study based deals two of the worst-affected villages; livelihood strategies adopted and social network may be influenced by the “victim” status of villages and may not be generalized for each disaster-affected area.

Bridging and bonding networks were significant in geographically isolated places, while “linkages” were beneficial in bringing new livelihood opportunities. Need to enhance the role of social capital by institutional intervention in form of capacity building was required.

The study suggests focus on human capital-based livelihood diversification programs taking geographical location and disaster context into account.

The purpose of this study is to develop a sense of urgency and utmost care for careful disaster management to encourage disaster preparedness for museums and archives.x In particular, this study examines the techniques and methods to be used for response and recovery from different disasters to save valuable resources.

A thorough review of literature was done to identify existing plans, strategies, preparedness and management of archives and museums. On the basis of the knowledge and experience gained, it was decided to use a descriptive method for this study. Among the different data collection modes available in the descriptive method, the study framed a structured questionnaire for the collection of data. Thereafter, the questionnaire was tested for loopholes by conducting a pilot study. The questionnaire evolved as such was used to collect data from select archives and museums. The collected data has been tabulated and analyzed in tune with the set objectives. The findings of this study have been correlated with relevant findings and conclusions of previous studies in this domain to provide a better overview and sanctify the revelations further.

From the current study, the authors find that the topological location of most of the institutions is near or on river banks which is the cause of concern at the time of heavy rains, after heavy snow fall and at the time of floods. It was also found that the majority of these institutions are located near highways which is also a serious concern in terms of noise, smoke, dust and vibrations produced by the plying of different types of transports on these highways. These kinds of unwanted disturbances create a negative atmosphere on the holdings, visitors and staff of these institutions.Although all of the institutions have apparently strong looking buildings that are made up of good material, the matter of concern is that only one institution (SPS museum) has a building which was specifically made for the purpose. As the state of Jammu and Kashmir is politically and geographically unstable, it is found that most of the institutions are prone to disasters like floods, earthquake and bomb threats which pose a threat to these valuable institutions and their valuable holdings.The most necessary and important parameter that is the training of the staff for disaster preparedness is not provided in majority of these institutions.Despite the fact that funds for majority of these institutions are provided by the government, the funds provided are insufficient for having fool-proof disaster preparedness and management.

Because of tremendous significance of archives and museums in propagation and preservation of historical and cultural identity of any nation, culture, ethnicity or nation state, the current study sheds light on the status of these important institutions in a very important part of Central Asia. Kashmir in past has been the cradle of knowledge evolution and sharing in the region. As such, it possesses some of the very rare manuscripts and artifacts preserved in her archives and museums.

As this study is limited to select archives and museums of Jammu and Kashmir, the findings of this study may or may not represent the wider region of Central Asia.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the short-run monetary policy response to five different types of natural disasters (geophysical, meteorological, hydrological, climatological and biological) with respect to developed and developing countries, respectively.

An augmented Taylor rule monetary policy model is estimated using systems generalized method of moments panel estimation over the period 2000–2018 for a panel of 40 developed and 77 developing countries, respectively.

In the case of developed countries, the greatest nominal interest rate response originates from geophysical, meteorological, hydrological and climatological disasters, whereas for developing countries the nominal interest rate response is the greatest for geophysical and meteorological disasters. For both developed and developing countries, the results suggest the monetary authorities will pursue expansionary monetary policies in the short-run to lower nominal interest rates; however, the magnitude of the monetary response varies across the type of natural disaster.

First, unlike previous studies, which focused on a specific type of natural disaster, this study examines whether the short-run monetary policy response differs across the type of natural disaster. Second, in relation to previous studies, the analysis encompasses a much larger panel data set to include 117 countries differentiated between developed and developing countries.

This paper aims to critically examine the post-disaster emergency response amongst marginalised and disadvantaged social groups following the 2015 Nepal Earthquake (7.8 Mw).

A qualitative research method was employed by conducting interviews with disaster survivors from marginalised and ethnic social groups, humanitarian aid workers and government officials in the four districts worst hit by the 2015 Nepal Earthquake.

This research found that community members demonstrated remarkable cooperation in the aftermath of the disaster; however, caste-based discrimination still manifested in post-earthquake emergency environments. Further, this research showed that the engagement of government and local and international humanitarian organisations was noteworthy in the earthquake emergency response in Nepal as it localised relief packages and adapted the assistance corresponding to the fast-changing post-disaster environments. However, some relief materials were culturally inappropriate and climatically unsuitable. This paper also shows that the poor dissemination of relief distribution plans, resource duplication and ineffective targeting disproportionately impacted the oppressed and marginalised households in receiving humanitarian assistance.

Studies have been undertaken on the emergency response to the 2015 Nepal Earthquake, however, few have focussed on the lived experience of marginalised and disadvantaged social groups. Further, this research builds on, and contributes to, the humanitarian mobile sovereignty discourse.

Cloud computing promises dependable services offered through next-generation data centres based on virtualization technologies for computation, network and storage. Big Data Applications have been made viable by cloud computing technologies due to the tremendous expansion of data. Disaster management is one of the areas where big data applications are rapidly being deployed. This study looks at how big data is being used in conjunction with cloud computing to increase disaster risk reduction (DRR). This paper aims to explore and review the existing framework for big data used in disaster management and to provide an insightful view of how cloud-based big data platform toward DRR is applied.

A systematic mapping study is conducted to answer four research questions with papers related to Big Data Analytics, cloud computing and disaster management ranging from the year 2013 to 2019. A total of 26 papers were finalised after going through five steps of systematic mapping.

Findings are based on each research question.

A specific study on big data platforms on the application of disaster management, in general is still limited. The lack of study in this field is opened for further research sources.

In terms of technology, research in DRR leverage on existing big data platform is still lacking. In terms of data, many disaster data are available, but scientists still struggle to learn and listen to the data and take more proactive disaster preparedness.

This study shows that a very famous platform selected by researchers is central processing unit based processing, namely, Apache Hadoop. Apache Spark which uses memory processing requires a big capacity of memory, therefore this is less preferred in the world of research.