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

应对重大灾害和灾难是一项极其困难的奋进。这一挑战是灾害可能对社会造成的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各个方面。必须改进减灾、备灾和救灾计划，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。救灾后勤工作应该是一项全社会的努力，由民间和公共部门参与，以尽量减少灾害的负面影响。灾害研究人员已经确定，民间社会在应对极端事件的各个方面都发挥着重要作用，从搜索和救援以及救济品分发到重建工作。他们往往被认为是第一个响应者，因为他们接近受影响的地区。这些团体是各种各样的正式和非正式组织的集合，在救灾方面具有不同的结构和专门知识水平。以往的实地工作还表明，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，从而为其社区提供有效的应对措施。这些团体经常比任何大型救济组织更快、更有效地运送救济物资。另一方面，一些团体的活动可能会造成麻烦，例如收集非优先供应品的捐赠。现实情况是，到达灾害现场的大多数捐款都是非优先物资，这使救灾工作严重复杂化。该项目的主要目标是找出灾难社区应该从公民社会在应对飓风哈维、艾尔玛和玛丽亚期间的经验中吸取的积极和消极的教训。确定这些经验教训将有助于未来的救灾人员开展更有效的行动，减少灾害对当地社区、经济和环境的影响。本项目研究妨碍非常设救济团体的工作与外来援助的救济工作相结合的社会技术因素。此外，该研究还提供了关于NERG在人道主义后勤中发挥的作用的重要知识，以及如何最好地构建既定团体，官方反应和NERG之间的互动，以实现最大的效率。收集到的关于救济团体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害中发生的机制。该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，并使未来能够根据这些不同的救济方法开发模型。这些发现增强了对参与这些极端事件环境的组织的理论理解。研究重点是正式和非正式的机制，通过这些机制，NERG识别，收集，交付和分发救济物品。数据收集包括对参与后勤工作的个人进行简短、非正式和深入的访谈，包括在所有行动层面（例如，国际、国家、地区、地方和社区各级），来自NERG，以及各级权力。为了更好地了解实物捐赠背后的动机，该团队创建了一个美国各地为支持救援工作而进行的捐赠活动的目录。我们的目标是对其运营进行纵向跟踪，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，并传播和整合研究成果到灾害课程。改善人道主义后勤行动可以减少灾难中的人类痛苦和生命损失。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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 disasters.This 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.