Valerie Belanger, PhD
Leveraging Optimization and Simulation to Support Wildfire Management
Associate Professor, Department of Logistics and Operations Management, HEC Montreal
Date:聽Wed, January 29, 2025
Time: 11:00 am - 12:00 pm (AST)
Venue: MS Teams
Abstract:
The recent fire seasons have been devastating, with unprecedented destruction to communities, ecosystems, and resources, highlighting the urgent need for a different approach to wildfire management. The disaster management cycle offers a comprehensive framework to address these challenges. Prevention focuses on reducing risks, such as creating firebreaks and enforcing fire-resistant building codes. Preparedness ensures readiness through evacuation plans, community training, and predictive modeling. Response involves immediate actions like deploying firefighters, helicopters, and water bombers to control fires and protect lives. Finally, recovery addresses the aftermath, including rebuilding homes, restoring forests, and supporting affected populations. By rethinking and strengthening each stage, we can mitigate the impacts of future wildfire seasons and build more resilient systems.
Operations research, through tools like optimization and simulation, has the potential to play an important role in supporting all stages of disaster management. In prevention, optimization can help design firebreaks and allocate resources to high-risk areas to reduce vulnerability. During preparedness, simulation models can test evacuation plans and predict fire behavior under various scenarios, enabling better readiness. In response, real-time optimization can allocate resources like firefighters and aircraft to maximize effectiveness while minimizing response times. This presentation will highlight three initiatives that leverage simulation and optimization to support the design of firebreaks, evacuation planning, and real-time resource allocation, showcasing their potential to enhance wildfire management.聽 聽
Speaker Biography:
Val茅rie B茅langer is an associate professor in the Department of Logistics and Operations Management at HEC Montreal. She holds a MSc in mechanical engineering (Universit茅 Laval), as well as a PhD in decision sciences (HEC Montr茅al). Her main research interests focus on health care and emergency logistics, both in the context of industrialized and developing countries. Her main methodological expertise is operations research. She is working actively with various organizations on projects related to patient and material transportation, emergency medical services, and network design. She has coauthored papers published in highly rated journal such as European Journal of Operational Research, Omega, Computers & Industrial Engineering, and International Journal of Production Research. Pr. B茅langer is a regular member of the Interuniversity Research Centre on Enterprise Networks, Logistics and Transportation (CIRRELT). She is also an invited researcher at Canadian Forest Services 鈥� Natural Resources Canada.
Industrial Engineering seminar series contact person:
Prof. Hamid Afshari
email: Hamid.Afshari@dal.ca
General Enquiry:
Ms. Susan Russell McGrath
Tel: 902.494.3125
email: iegrad@dal.ca