Multi-Criteria Location Model of Emergency Shelters in Humanitarian Logistics

Shaoqing Geng, Hanping Hou and Shaoguang Zhang
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Shaoqing Geng: School of Economics and Management, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China
Hanping Hou: School of Economics and Management, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China
Shaoguang Zhang: School of Artificial Intelligence, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300401, China

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 5, 1-21

Abstract: Natural disasters can cause serious casualties and economic losses, and emergency shelters are effective measures to reduce disaster risks and protect lives. At present, the location models of refuge facilities often ignore the diversion of shelter from the perspective of humanitarian logistics and the needs of victims. Such models also seldom consider the impact of the pre-storage of relief materials on the location of shelters. In this study, on the basis of the different needs of disaster victims, shelters are divided into two types—basic life and psychological medical service guarantees. While considering the full coverage of shelter needs, capacities, and budget constraints, the shelter distance, the optimized distribution of refugees, and the pre-stock quantity of goods are optimized. The facility service quality is optimized on the basis of qualitative factors. This study proposes a multi-standard constrained site selection model to optimize the pre-disaster shelter site-allocation problem. The model is helpful for decision makers to influence shelter siting and victims’ allocating process through their expertise and to obtain a solution that compromises multiple objectives. In this study, several basic cases are generated from the actual data of certain areas in Sichuan Province, a disaster-prone region in China, to verify the effectiveness of the model.

Keywords: fuzzy numbers; multi-standard decision optimization; shelter location; material storage; humanitarian logistics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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