Disaster supply chain: a comparison between developing and developed

Abstract

Millions of people are affected by natural disasters every year, with a significant impact on people’s lives and livelihoods as well as the infrastructure of the affected countries. This research explores the similarities and differences between sudden-onset natural disaster supply chain networks in developing and developed countries. This is achieved through a thorough investigation of the available literature in the form of a structured literature review, followed by a holistic multi-case study where four comparable disaster events were investigated. The identified events are the Iran (2012), Italy (2016), Nepal (2015), and Japan (2011) earthquakes, respectively. Finally, a cross-case analysis of the four identified cases was conducted. Notable findings from the study are first, that the disaster relief effort can be classified as a supply network, secondly that there are three distinct sub-phases during disaster response namely: search and rescue, relief and recovery and finally it can be concluded that disaster response supply chain networks are different in developing and developed countries