Clearing the chaos: A systematic literature review on the disaster debris logistics impacts on humanitarian operations efficiency in post-disaster settings

This study aims to examine how disaster debris management affects the efficiency of humanitarian logistics operations and highlights the shared goal of humanitarian logistics and disaster debris management in alleviating distress and facilitating post-disaster recovery. Motivated by the debris-induced operational disruption reported following 2010 Haiti earthquake, a systematic literature review was conducted using PRISMA aligned procedures and ROSES informed reporting. Based on searches of Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar, a total of 348 records were identified. After identifying duplication and screening, 35 studies were included in the final synthesis. Within the retrieved records, the earliest eligible peer-reviewed study was published in 2016. The synthesis identifies five themes: (1) Disaster Debris Impact on Humanitarian Logistics; (2) Transporting Debris; (3) Temporary Storage and Sorting; (4) Multi-agency Coordination; and (5) Technology and Information Systems. The review indicates that inadequately managed debris can disrupt humanitarian logistics by delaying access to disaster-affected areas and constraining route feasibility, thereby potentially limiting the timely movement of responders and relief supplies. Without timely debris clearance and restoration of access corridors, relief distribution may face substantial operational bottlenecks. Streamlining transportation, routing, and temporary staging practices is therefore critical for improving operational efficiency and supporting safer, faster response and recovery. The review positions debris management as a humanitarian logistics enabling system and calls for future studies linking debris decisions to explicit humanitarian performance metrics using consistent transport datasets and implementable, governance-aware models.