Debris removal during disaster response: A case for Turkey

Abstract

Debris occurs from the ruin and wreckage of structures during a disaster. Proper removal of debris is of great importance because it blocks roads and prohibits emergency aid teams from accessing disasteraffected regions. Poor disaster management, lack of efficiency and delays in debris removal cause disruptions in providing shelter, nutrition, healthcare and communication services to disaster victims, and more importantly, result in loss of lives. Due to the importance of systematic and efficient debris removal from the perspectives of improving disaster victims quality of life and allowing the transportation of emergency relief materials, the focus of this study is on providing emergency relief supplies to disasteraffected regions as soon as possible by unblocking roads through removing the accumulated debris. We develop a mathematical model for the problem that requires long CPU times for large instances. Since it is crucial to act quickly in an emergency case, we also propose a heuristic methodology that solves instances with an average gap of 1% and optimum ratio of 80.83%.

Post-disaster assessment routing problem

“…Campbell et al [22] No D Houming et al [23] No D Ozkapici et al [24] No D Camacho-Vallejo [25] No D Tzeng et al [26] Yes D Yuan and Wang [27] Yes D Yan and Shih [28] Yes D Ozdamar [29] No D Nafaji et al [30] Yes S Debris Removal Sahin et al [31] No D Berktas et al [32] No D Akbari and Salman [33] No D Hua and Sheu [34] Yes S Celik et al [35] No D Table 3.2. Next, we will examine the pioneering studies that mainly focus on GRP and its variants.…”

An updated annotated bibliography on arc routing problems

“…Including turn penalties [69,194] WRPP 69,85,104,105] No fixed depot [80] M roads linking those areas [171] Min(time to reach N R ) [37] Min(weighted sum of visiting times)…”

“…Debris clearance in an arc routing context is also addressed in references [3,4,37,117,153,171,199], as detailed below.…”

“…Sahin et al represent the first areas to be serviced, such as schools, hospitals, etc., as critical nodes, and they consider blocked roads connected to those areas as links needing service, thereby adapting a GRP. The objective is the minimization of the total effort to visit all critical nodes, measured by both travel and debris removal times.…”

Robust post-disaster route restoration

“…Robust post-disaster route restoration areas to clear roads. A general routing problem is considered for debris removal in Sahin et al (2016) and a constructive heuristic based on Dijkstra's shortestpath algorithm is proposed to close optimality gaps. The work in Yan and Shih (2009) takes a multi-objective approach to optimize route restoration.…”