A burgeoning literature on disaster evacuation is now a relatively well-established field, with a comprehensive set of theories and practices regarding human behavior, modeling techniques, and spatial analysis. However, knowledge is still lacking in the area of evacuation research concerning informal urban settlements (urban kampongs), in which the urban poor often reside in disaster-prone areas and in a maze-like spatial setting that can impede evacuation. This paper aims to develop a conceptual framework for the development of plans for informal settlement evacuation by systematically reviewing the theory, empirical evidence, and approaches to understanding evacuation route decision-making that apply in informal settlements. To achieve this, the authors reviewed 71 articles published between 1970 and 2021 and applied the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) technique. The conceptual framework described in this paper identifies a range of internal and external factors that each govern and determine evacuation route choice behavior. These factors encapsulate the individual characteristics of the informal urban settler, path risk elements, and path network configurations that compound the difficulties of evacuation observed in most informal settlements. This study also draws conclusions about the limitations of its framework and suggests some avenues for future research on emergency evacuation planning for informal urban settlements.
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