Abstract for: Design Structure Matrices in System Dynamics: Modeling Community Disaster Recovery

Disasters disrupt infrastructure service delivery in a community, leading to a need for a quick recovery with limited resources. Effective resource allocation to improve recovery is dependent on the capacities of various sectors, including public utility, transportation, tourism, businesses, public health, and residents. These community sectors interact through multiple delayed feedback loops creating complex dynamics that must be considered when developing recovery resource allocation strategies. The multitude of sector interactions makes modeling using traditional system dynamics tools and methods difficult. This research uses system dynamics and design structure matrix modeling to develop a feedback theory of community disaster recovery for resource allocation. The model is calibrated using Hurricane Katrina data from New Orleans and highlights the significance of restoration speed and sector dependencies in developing resource allocation policies. A recovery resourcing matrix is developed that can improve recovery time by 55% and reduce performance loss by 53%.