Meta-Network Framework for Analyzing Disaster Management System-of-Systems

The objective of this paper is to establish a meta-network framework to identify constituents in Disaster Management System-of-Systems (DM-SoS), conceptualize relationships and interactions among the constituents, and formulate quantitative measurements of DM-SoS performance for achieving network-centric operation and coordination in the context of disasters. With increasingly serious impacts of disasters on interdependent and heterogeneous systems, the improvement of effective and integrative disaster response and coordination is needed. However, some existing literature only proposed some frameworks for modeling disaster management systems, while another stream of studies only examined the social network analysis (SNA) for understanding the interactions between stakeholders. Thus, quantitative and integrative measurements in DM-SoS are missing. To address this knowledge gap, the authors created and discussed a meta- network framework integrating various types of entities and relationships for quantitatively analyzing the performance of DM-SoS. First, this framework defined nodes and links in meta-metrics for abstracting constituents in disaster management. Second, some performance indicators (e.g., effectiveness, the extent of information sharing, and the extent of self-organization) were created to show the capacities of disaster systems, and the potential perturbations in disaster environment were translated by network theory. Finally, we examined the impacts of perturbations on the indicators and assessed the performance by integrating overall indicators. This study highlighted the significance of quantitative measurements and an integrative perspective on analyzing efficiency and effectiveness of disaster response and coordination. The study also provides implications for making comparisons of different response strategies for decision makers to achieve resilient disaster management systems.