Disaster Management Capacity Building at Airports and Seaports

Hellingrath Bernd, Babun Teo A., Smith James F., Link Daniel

Abstract

Ports – i.e., airports and seaports – are the main points of entry through which foreign intervention delivers aid into a country that is affected by a disaster. Affected countries are often developing nations, where transport infrastruc-ture is limited and disaster management capacity is considerably lower than in industrialized countries. When developing countries’ ports suffer direct dam-age from a disaster or their processes are unable to handle the increased flow of needed goods in an effective and efficient manner, humanitarian aid deliv-ery is delayed and disaster recovery is slowed down. This chapter examines the state of the art of port preparedness in research and practice, identifies gaps and suggests the Mission Dependency Index as a tool to address them.