Robust Emergency Management Strategies: Supporting Interdependent Decisions

Due to the complexity of emergencies, interdependencies between decisions are often neglected despite their importance. This paper aims at supporting decision makers in considering the interdependencies and addresses the problem of time: decisions depend on the time and information available, and the timing of decisions can influence on their consequences. To account for the requirements in different phases of an emergency, two approaches are presented. If the information is highly uncertain and time is critical, it can be advantageous to choose an easily adaptable option. To make the trade-off between choosing a seemingly optimal rigid solution and a flexible option transparent, an approach that is based on the value of flexibility is introduced. If better information and more time are available, a scenario based approach to sequential decision making is proposed, which supports decision makers in choosing robust alternatives while taking into account the goals of several organisations.