RAPID: Field Investigation on Post-Disaster Humanitarian Logistic Practices under Cascading Disasters and a Persistent Threat: The Tohoku Earthquake Disasters

目标：日本东北地区的灾难在灾难史上几乎是史无前例的。四个具体特征使它成为一场非常独特的灾难：触发和级联灾难的严重性和普遍性，地理覆盖范围以及核威胁的持久性。由于这些因素，灾难及其反应为今后的救济行动提供了有益的重要经验。在此背景下，该项目的主要目标是：(1)研究影响东北地区的级联灾害对人道主义后勤响应的影响；(2)研究灾后人道主义后勤（PD-HL）系统如何应对灾害；(3)研究持续核威胁对PD-HL整体工作的影响；(4)确定响应中出现的各种PD-HL结构的初步拓扑结构和特征；（五）深入了解其工作成效、正反两方面的特点、所提供的人手、工作范围和范围；(5)收集关键/非关键供应的流动数据及其随时间的动态模式；(6)收集灾前状况对灾后救援能力影响的数据；(7)记录吸取的教训，包括积极的和消极的。知识价值和更广泛的影响：即将进行的研究对PD-HL和灾害研究的新兴领域非常重要，因为它将为实际/新兴的PD-HL实践提供急需的基于证据的见解，以及对未来救援行动有益的正面和负面经验。在这种情况下，重要的是要强调，PD-HL反应的现实并没有被灾难研究界很好地理解。这是因为：(1)灾害发生率相对较低；(2)专业和研究型PD-HL群体规模极小；第三，数据的短暂性。该项目将首次对持续核威胁的级联灾难后出现的PD-HL过程进行系统表征。这种特征所产生的发现将：(1)加强对灾害环境中组织和组织的理论理解；(2)为这些方法的高级建模奠定了基础。该研究将：(1)促进人道主义物流研究的多学科合作；(2)将学生整合到多学科和国际研究过程中，特别强调代表性不足的学生；(3)产生将被纳入灾害和后勤课程的研究结果；(4)产生具有应用效益的发现，这些发现将广泛传播给从事人道主义后勤的组织，包括日本的利益相关者。

Objectives: The Tohoku disaster(s) is an event almost without parallels in disaster history. Four specific features make it a very unique disaster: severity and pervasiveness of the trigger and cascading disasters, geographic coverage, and persistence over time of the nuclear threat. As a result of these factors the disaster and its response offer important lessons of benefit to future relief operations. In this context, the main objectives of the project are: (1) to study the impacts on the humanitarian logistic response produced by the cascading disasters that impacted Tohoku; (2) to study how the post-disaster humanitarian logistic (PD-HL) system responded to the disasters; (3) to study how the persistent nuclear threat impacted the overall PD-HL effort; (4) to identify a preliminary topology and features of the various PD-HL structures that emerged in the response; (5) to gather insight into their level of effectiveness, positive and negative characteristics, manpower provided, coverage and extent of their operations; (5) to gather data about the flows of critical / non-critical supplies, and their dynamic patterns over time; (6) to gather data about the impact of preexisting conditions on post-disaster relief capacity; and, (7) to document lessons learned, both positive and negative.Intellectual merit and broader impacts: The research to be conducted is important to the nascent field of PD-HL and disaster research because it will provide much needed evidence-based insight into actual/emerging PD-HL practices, and lessons both positive and negative that could benefit future relief operations. In this context, it is important to highlight that the realities of PD-HL response are not well understood by the disaster research community at large. This is because of: (1) the relatively low occurrence of disasters; (2) the extremely small size of the professional and research PD-HL communities; and (3) the ephemeral nature of the data. The project will provide the first systemic characterization of the PD-HL process that emerged after cascading disasters with a persistent nuclear threat. The findings produced by such characterization would: (1) enhance theoretical understandings of organizations and organizing in disaster environments; and (2) set the stage for advanced modeling of these approaches. The research will: (1) promote multidisciplinary collaboration on humanitarian logistics research; (2) integrate students to a multidisciplinary and international research process, with a particular emphasis on underrepresented students; (3) generate findings that will be integrated into disaster and logistics courses; (4) generate findings with applied benefits that will be broadly disseminated to organizations engaged in humanitarian logistics, including stakeholders in Japan.