Disaster management and emerging technologies: a performance-based perspective

Abstract

Purpose – This paper aims to analyse how emerging technologies (ETs) impact on improving performance in disaster management (DM) processes and, concretely, their impact on the performance according to the different phases of theDM cycle (preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation). Design/methodology/approach – The methodology is based on a systematic review of the literature. Scopus, ProQuest, EBSCO and Web of Science were used as data sources, and an initial sample of 373 scientific articles was collected. After abstracts and full texts were read and refinements to the search were made, a final corpus of 69 publications was analysed using VOSviewer software for text mining and cluster visualisation. Findings – The results highlight how ETs foster the preparedness and resilience of specific systems when dealing with different phases of the DM cycle. Simulation and disaster risk reduction are the fields of major relevance in the application of ETs to DM. Originality/value – This paper contributes to the literature by adding the lenses of performance measurement, management and accountability in analysing the impact of ETs on DM. It thus represents a starting point for scholars to develop future research on a rapidly and continuously developing topic.