The Post-Disaster Debris Clearance Problem Under Incomplete Information

What is it about?

Following a catastrophic disaster, debris management is one of the most time consuming and complicated activities among post-disaster operations. In this paper, we develop solution approaches for post-disaster debris clearance when resources are extremely limited and debris amounts are only partially known.

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Why is it important?

Using structural analysis and real-life based disaster scenarios, our research shows the trade-off between taking clearance actions that bring the most immediate benefit and learning the network structure to take more informed actions in the future. We also introduce a number of information update mechanisms into the network optimization literature.