Since around the turn of the millennium, the field of humanitarian logistics has been the
focus of an increasingly broad range of research aimed at improving the ability of both
individual countries and the international community as a whole tomeet the challenges of
preparing for, and responding to, natural and man-made disasters. This interest has
manifested itself in the publication of papers in a range of journals, in special editions such
as this, and in a number of conferences devoted to the subject (Kova´cs and Spens, 2009).