RAPID: Field Investigation on the Socio-Technical Features of Post-Disaster Re-sponse Logistics in the Aftermath of the Nepal Earthquake

灾害可能造成毁灭性的人员、社会和经济损失。这些事件的极端性和往往是突发性的，给参与运送重要救济物资的组织带来了重大挑战。毫无疑问，确保关键物资有效、及时地流向灾区是一项具有挑战性的奋进，会产生巨大的经济和社会影响。改进灾后人道主义物流的最新技术和实践极为重要。作为这项快速反应研究赠款资助的实地工作的一部分，该小组将研究当地社交网络-当地社区的一个组成部分-如何与救灾工作中的技术任务互动。这一点很重要，因为研究已经强调，PD-HL操作中社会和技术方面之间的相互作用的性质会影响灾害响应的有效性。这些“社会-技术交互”反映了技术任务的结构化方式，以及社交网络集成（或不集成）和执行技术任务的方式。在灾后环境中，整个社会系统都处于压力之下，PD-HL的社会方面变得非常重要，在决定努力的有效性方面发挥着巨大的作用。从实际的灾害应对中学习是帮助最大限度地减少灾害对我们公民和经济的负面影响的一个重要因素。该小组将研究社交网络识别、收集、运送和分发救援物资的机制。具体来说，该团队将收集有关组织参与、活动、角色、协作和位置的易逝数据。这些数据将用于测试从先前事件中得出的假设，并利用对社会-技术相互作用如何影响响应的洞察力。数据收集将包括对参与PD-HL工作的个人进行简短、非正式和深入的访谈，在所有行动层面（例如，国际、国家、区域、地方和社区各级），来自所有群体（例如，建立的，紧急的，扩展的），以及在所有级别的权力（例如，决策者、业务人员）。此外，还将收集以下方面的信息：关键和非关键供应流量估计数、救灾工作面临的挑战、为应对挑战而制定的解决办法以及关键供应品未满足需求的估计数。这项工作非常重要，因为加强对社会-技术相互作用的理解将有助于执行提高救灾效率和限制有问题的做法和行为的负面影响的程序。这样做将减少美国和国外灾害的总体影响。

Disasters can generate devastating human, social, and economic losses. The extreme and frequently sudden nature of these events poses significant challenges for the organizations involved in the delivery of critical relief supplies. Ensuring an efficient and timely flow of critical supplies to a disaster is, without any doubt, a challenging endeavor with huge economic and social impacts. Improving the state of the art and practice of post-disaster humanitarian logistics (PD-HL) is extremely important. As part of the fieldwork funded by this Rapid Response Research (RAPID) grant, the team will study how the local social networks - an integral part of the local community - interact with the technical tasks that are part of the relief effort. This is important because research has highlighted that the nature of the interactions between the social and the technical aspects in PD-HL operations influence disaster response effectiveness. These "socio-technical interactions" reflect the way in which the technical tasks are structured, and the way in which the social networks are integrated (or not) and perform the technical tasks. In post-disaster environments - where the entire social system is under stress, the social aspects of PD-HL acquire tremendous importance - playing a huge role in determining the effectiveness of the effort. Learning from actual disaster responses is an important to help minimize the negative impacts of disasters on our citizens and the economy.The team will study the mechanisms through which social networks identify, gather, deliver, and distribute relief supplies. Specifically, the team will collect perishable data on organizational involvement, activity, roles, collaboration, and location. These data will be used to test assumptions derived from pre-vious events taking advantage of the insight gained on how the socio-technical interactions influence the response. Data collection will include short and informal and in-depth interviews with the individuals involved in the PD-HL efforts, at all levels of action (e.g., international, national, regional, local, and community levels), from all groups (e.g., established, emergent, extending), and at all levels of power (e.g., decision-makers, operational personnel). Furthermore, information will be gathered on critical and non-critical supply flow estimates, challenges to the relief effort, solutions developed to contend with challenges, and estimates of unmet demands of critical supplies. The work is very important because an enhanced understanding of the socio-technical interactions will facilitate the implementation of procedures that foster disaster response effectiveness and limit the negative impacts of problematic practices and behaviors. Doing so would reduce the overall impacts of disasters in the United States and abroad.