RAPID: Collaborative Research: Role of Extending, Expanding, and Emergent Groups in Relief Distribution Efforts in the Aftermath of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria

应对大灾难和大灾难是一项极其困难的工作。这一挑战是灾害可能对社会造成破坏性影响的直接后果。这些影响影响到作为现代生活核心的社会技术进程的方方面面。必须改进减灾、准备和响应计划，以最大限度地减少脆弱性，并确保可以利用已知的信息来提高未来工作的有效性。灾害物流应该是一项全社会的努力，公民和公共部门参与进来，将灾害的负面影响降至最低。灾害研究人员已经确定，公民社会在应对极端事件的所有方面都发挥着重要作用，从搜救和救济分配到重建工作。他们经常被认为是第一批受访者，因为他们离受影响的地区很近。这些小组是一个非常不同的正式和非正式组织的集合，它们在救灾方面具有不同的结构和专门知识水平。以往的实地工作也表明，民间社会可以通过利用其关系获得后勤资源和有效应对灾害，向其社区提供有效的应对措施。这些组织经常比任何大型救援组织更快、更有效地运送救援物资。另一方面，一些团体的活动可能证明是麻烦的，例如收集非优先物资的捐赠。现实情况是，抵达受灾现场的大部分捐款都是非优先物品，这严重加剧了救灾工作的复杂性。该项目的主要目标是找出灾难社区在应对哈维、伊尔玛和玛丽亚飓风期间应从民间社会的经验中吸取的积极和消极的教训。找出这些教训将有助于未来的灾难应对人员进行更有效的行动，并减少灾难对当地社区、经济和环境的影响。该项目研究阻碍尚未成立的救济团体(NERGs)努力和来自外部援助的救济努力相结合的社会技术因素。此外，这项研究还提供了关于NERG在人道主义后勤中的作用的重要知识，以及关于如何最好地组织现有群体、官方反应和NERG之间的互动，以实现最大效力的知识。收集到的关于救援组织运送物资困难的数据将有助于确定防止这些问题在未来灾难中发生的机制。这项研究记录了在重大极端事件发生后为支持救济/早期恢复工作而出现的后勤结构，并使未来能够基于这些不同的救济方法开发模型。这些发现加强了对参与这些极端事件环境的组织的理论理解。研究的重点是非正式和非正式机制，NERG通过这些机制识别、收集、运送和分发救援物资。数据收集包括在各级行动(如国际、国家、区域、地方和社区各级)、全国应急小组和各级权力机构对参与后勤工作的个人进行的简短和非正式的以及深入访谈。为了更好地了解实物捐赠背后的动机，该团队创建了一个在美国各地开展的捐赠活动目录，以支持救援工作。目标是对他们的运营进行纵向跟踪，并深入研究这些努力是如何创建的、它们的演变以及它们的决策模式。这一努力为更深入的行为研究奠定了基础。研究人员促进多学科合作，吸引本科生和研究生，并将研究成果传播和整合到灾难课程中。改进人道主义后勤行动可以减少人类在灾难中的痛苦和生命损失这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Responding to large disasters and catastrophes is an extremely difficult endeavor. This challenge is a direct consequence of the devastating effects that disasters can produce on societies. These effects impact all facets of the socio-technical processes at the core of modern life. Disaster mitigation, preparedness, and response plans must be improved to minimize vulnerabilities, and to ensure that what is known can be leveraged to improve the effectiveness of future efforts. Disaster logistics should be a whole-society effort, where the civic and public sectors participate to minimize the negative impacts of disasters. Disaster researchers have already established that the civic society plays a major role in all aspects of the response to extreme events, from search and rescue and relief distribution, to rebuilding efforts. They are often credited with being the first respondents due to their proximity to the impacted area. These groups are a very heterogeneous collection of formal and informal organizations with different structures and levels of expertise in disaster response. Previous field work has also shown that the civic society can provide effective response to their communities by means of leveraging their connections to access logistical resources and efficiently respond to the disaster. Frequently, these groups delivered relief supplies faster, and more effectively, than any of the large relief organizations. On the other hand, the activities of some groups can prove troublesome, such as the gathering of donations of non-priority supplies. The reality is that the majority of the donations that arrive at a disaster site are non-priority goods that severely complicate disaster response efforts. The main goal of this project is to identify lessons, both positive and negative, that the disaster community should learn from the experiences of the civic society during the responses to Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. Identifying these lessons will help future disaster responders to conduct more effective operations, and reduce the impacts of disasters on local communities, the economy, and the environment. This project studies the socio-technical factors that hamper the integration of Non-Established Relief Groups (NERGs) efforts and that of relief efforts that come from the outside to help. In addition, the research provides crucial knowledge about the role that NERGs play in the humanitarian logistics, and about how best to structure the interactions among the established groups, the official response and the NERGs, for maximum effectiveness. The data collected about the difficulties of relief groups to deliver supplies will help identify mechanisms to prevent these problems from happening in future disasters. The research documents the logistic structures that emerge in support of relief/early recovery efforts after a major extreme event and enable future model development based on these different relief approaches. The findings enhance theoretical understandings of organizations participating in these extreme event environments. The research focuses on both formal and informal mechanisms through which NERGs identify, gather, deliver, and distribute relief items. Data collection includes short and informal as well as in-depth interviews with individuals involved in the logistics efforts, at all levels of action (e.g., international, national, re-gional, local, and community levels), from NERGs, and at all levels of power. In order to gain better understandings about the motivations behind physical donations, the team creates a directory of donation drives taking place across the US to support the relief efforts. The goal is to conduct longitudinal tracking of their operations, and perform in-depth studies of how these efforts are created, their evolution, and their decision-making patterns. This effort serves as the basis for more in-depth behavioral research. The researchers promote multidisciplinary collaboration, engages undergraduate and graduate students,and disseminate and integrate research findings into disaster courses. Improving humanitarian logistics operations can reduce human suffering and loss of life in disastersThis award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.