Famine as a spatial crisis: programming food to the Sahel.

Abstract

The ability to respond effectively to severe drought conditions with emergency food supplies depends, in large part, on an effective description of the transportation system under varying environmental, political, and technological conditions. Using the Sahel droughts as examples, a pedagogic introduction to linear and goal programming models is provided, and the results of several pilot models discussed. The assignments of emergency food supplies under changing conditions of network structure raise questions about contingency computer models and plans in the future, and the need for monitoring a complex and rapidly changing man-environmental system. -Authors