RAPID/Collaborative Research: Capacity Adjustment, Resilience and Information Sharing in a Network for Good (CARING)

This Rapid Response Research (RAPID) project will support data collection efforts to capture the after-effects of Hurricane Florence on the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina (FBCENC). Food Banks operate a unique supply chain network to support people in hunger need in their service region. Natural disasters like hurricanes disrupt the normal operation of a food bank causing a sudden increase in demand, damaging sources of local supplies and upsetting the regular food delivery system. During Hurricane Florence, FBCENC operations were severely disrupted as more than 50 percent of their service network including two branch locations were affected by the storm. Immediately after the storm, FBCENC needed to respond to the disruption caused by Florence while keeping the regular business of satisfying dynamic hunger need. This RAPID NSF project will collect data on the challenges encountered by FBCENC after Hurricane Florence to provide insight for how nonprofit food distribution organizations can prepare, respond, and recover from disruptions to their network. This scientific research contribution thus supports NSF's mission to promote the progress of science and to advance our national welfare. In this case, the benefits will be insights to improve management of humanitarian logistics post disaster which can save lives and reduce economic losses.

This RAPID project will collect time sensitive operational information and data related to a food bank network's preparation, incident management and recovery for Hurricane Florence. The research objectives of the project are to: (i) study the decisions taken by a food bank having its operational network undergoing a natural disaster; (ii) scrutinize the responses of the human components (donors, food bank personnel, agency owners, clients) in the disrupted network; (iii) characterize the impact on demand and supply before, during and after a disaster; (iv) identify the optimal trade-offs between equity, efficiency, and effectiveness for disaster preparation and recovery; and (v) distinguish the disaster-related parameters impacting food demand. The project will facilitate the study of how the differences in organizational characteristics and structure affect the ability of food banks (and agencies) to be resilient to the impact of disasters like hurricanes. This project will collect the data necessary to develop smart recommendations for disaster preparedness and response based on field data collected from a large-scale network disruptive event.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.