Organizational Features in Disaster Risk Management Systems

Abstract

In recent years, the fields of humanitarian logistics and attention to natural disasters have been focused on identifying the needs of the communities that go through some type of crisis, with the purpose of optimizing mitigation, prevention and response to emergencies processes. Today, problems have become more frequent and devastating; globalization, environmental damage and climate change have made our planet vulnerable. The social, economic and even political impact that have generated these events, has placed them in the crosshairs of governs. This article aims to conduct a systematic review of the literature about systems that address natural disasters and emergencies; its structures and structural features that characterize them. The structure includes, but is not limited to aspects such as the distribution of information, interaction patterns between the parties, the roles played by team members, among others. In this way we seek to highlight how the decision-making processes are carried out, and how these factors affect the outcome of the emergency. As a research proposal in the first part, the review process carried out and the definition of important terms are described. Then, some cases of emergency care are identified and selected, in which the stages from the declaration of the emergency to the results obtained can be recognized and the definition of four common structural elements in each situation can be defined: coordination mechanisms; information flows; structural flexibility; and roles and authority within the organization.