Multi-objective optimization for temporary housing arrangements after natural disasters

Natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, and tsunamis cause casualties as well as significant property damage and large-scale displacement of families in the affected areas. First, a novel socioeconomic model is developed to quantify and minimize the level of social and economic disruptions experienced by displaced families while residing in temporary housing. This model incorporates a number of newly developed socioeconomic disruption metrics, including (1) employment and educational opportunities; (2) displacement distance between each temporary housing location and the preferred locations of displaced families; (3) temporary housing quality; (4) temporary housing delivery time; (5) capacity of the assigned temporary housing location to support the healthcare and safety needs for both the displaced families and host communities; and (6) access to essential utilities and services. These metrics are aggregated in a newly developed socioeconomic disruption index, which quantifies the level of social and economic disruptions for displaced families. The socioeconomic model is implemented using weighted integer programming, and is capable of effectively and efficiently generating optimal tradeoffs between socioeconomic disruptions and public expenditures on temporary housing. Second, an innovative public safety model is developed to identify the extent of expected damage in temporary housing in the presence of multiple potential post-disaster hazards in order to quantify and maximize temporary housing safety. The safety model incorporates a weighted integer programming model which is capable of generating optimal tradeoffs between maximizing the safety of temporary housing and minimizing public expenditures. Third, a new environmental impact model is developed to assess and minimize the environmental impact of temporary housing plans on host communities in compliance with the Programmatic Environmental Assessment performed by FEMA. The model enables emergency management agencies to set constraints on the environmental impacts of temporary housing projects on various environmental areas, and ensures that all feasible temporary housing alternatives are complying with the specified environmental constraints. In addition, the model computes an environmental impact index for each temporary housing alternative, and accordingly assigns displaced families to temporary housing facilities that generate the least negative environmental impact on host communities. Fourth, a comprehensive cost model is developed to compute and minimize total public expenditures on temporary housing. The model considers all costs related to providing and sustaining temporary housing projects during their life cycle, in addition to their potential use after possible future disasters. The model computes the net present value of costs for each temporary housing alternative to account for the time value of money, and then computes its equivalent monthly costs accordingly. The model assigns displaced families to the least expensive housing alternatives to minimize total public expenditures on temporary housing. The study also developed a robust multi-objective optimization model for large-scale temporary housing arrangements. The model enables the simultaneous optimization of all temporary housing objectives in a reasonable computational time. An innovative sustainability model is also developed to quantify and maximize the sustainability of integrated housing recovery efforts, which comply with the Alternative Housing Pilot Program (AHHP) proposed by FEMA and aims at developing innovative alternative housing projects to serve both as temporary and permanent housing. To this end, the study developed (1) a set of sustainability metrics to quantify the social, environmental, economic, and public safety impacts of decisions on the integrated housing recovery efforts; (2) a sustainability index to measure the level of sustainability of various integrated housing recovery plans; (3) an optimization model to maximize the sus ainability of integrated housing recovery efforts. (Abstract shortened by UMI. )