Prioritizing disaster-prone areas for large-scale earthquakes' preparedness: Methodology and application

This paper presents a new hybrid fuzzy multi-attribute decision-making approach to prioritize disaster-prone areas which are known as potential demand points (PDPs) regarding their vulnerability under large-scale earthquakes. Significant criteria for prioritizing PDPs are first determined. Then, the fuzzy DEMATEL is applied to specify interrelationship between the criteria, and the weights of criteria are achieved by the fuzzy ANP. Finally, the fuzzy PROMETHEE II is used to rank the PDPs. The proposed methodology is validated using a conventional relief pre-positioning network design model. Numerical results demonstrate the applicability and usefulness of the presented approach in configuring a more responsive relief network in practice.