Humanitarian Logistics: Meeting the Challenge of Preparing for and Responding to Disasters

A range of recent disasters have demonstrated the critical role of effective logistics in disaster preparation and response in both developing and developed countries. Humanitarian Logistics provides thought provoking guidance and discussion of the core issues facing those who are involved in managing the logistics of disaster relief. Peter Tatham and Martin Christopher have assembled a broad ranging collection of thoughts, ideas, concepts and approaches contributed by both practitioners and academics that, together, provide an overview of some of the core challenges facing today's humanitarian logistician. With insights from world leading experts in the field, this multi-contributed book provides guidance for best practice and offers potential solutions for effective response in this crucial area. Each chapter of the 2nd edition has been updated to reflect the latest developments, improvements and emerging challenges that have been encountered in this important and rapidly-growing field. This new edition of Humanitarian Logistics also increases the level of input from the practitioner community and broadens the geographic coverage, by introducing new perspectives from Asia and Africa and a number of experienced field practitioners. There are also entire new chapters on: Quality and accountability; Lessons learned from the 2004 Thailand Tsunami and the April 2012 Tsunami warning; Emergency preparedness and the experience of international humanitarian organizations in South East Asia; What next for humanitarian logistics? It also includes chapters that focus on emerging areas of challenge that have attracted recent attention in both practitioner and academic circles, including training and education, inter-agency coordination and information systems management.