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Individually, both droughts and pandemics cause disruptions to global food supply chains. The 21st century has seen the frequent occurrence of both natural and human disasters, including droughts and pandemics. Together their impacts can be compounded, leading to severe economic stress and malnutrition, particularly in developing countries. Understanding how droughts and pandemics interact, and identifying appropriate policies to address them together and separately, is important for maintaining a robust global food supply. Hereinwe assess the impacts of each of these disasters in the context of food and agriculture, and then discuss their compounded effect.
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This content will become publicly available on July 1, 2025
Preparedness and Response in the Century of Disasters Overview of Information Systems Research Frontiers
The Century of Disasters” refers to the increased frequency, complexity, and magnitude of natural and man-made disasters witnessed in the 21st century: the impact of such disasters is exacerbated by infrastructure vulnerabilities, population growth/urbanization, and a challenging policy landscape. Technology-enabled disaster management (TDM) has an important role to play in the Century of Disasters. We highlight four important trends related to TDM, smart technologies and resilience, digital humanitarianism, integrated decisionsupport and agility, and artificial intelligence–enabled early warning systems, and how the confluence of these trends lead to four research frontiers for information systems researchers. We describe these frontiers, namely the technology-preparedness paradox, socio-technical crisis communication, predicting and prescribing under uncertainty, and fair pipelines, and discuss how the eight articles in the special section are helping us learn about these frontiers.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2020252
- PAR ID:
- 10520934
- Editor(s):
- Sarker, S
- Publisher / Repository:
- INFORMS
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Information systems research
- Edition / Version:
- 1
- Volume:
- 35
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 1526-5536
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 460-468
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- information systems research • technology-enabled disaster management • preparedness
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: 2MB Other: pdf
- Size(s):
- 2MB
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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