Technology, Weather Forecasts, and Warnings: Integrating the End-User Community

This collaborative and multi-disciplinary project focuses on emergency weather warnings, the development of new severe weather technologies, and their relationship to disaster preparedness and response. NSF recently funded the establishment of a new Engineering Research Center (ERC) -- the Center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere (CASA). This is a joint venture between engineers, meteorologists, computer and atmospheric scientists, and social scientists, with supporting partners drawn from government, industry, and other institutions of higher education. CASA is focusing its efforts on the development of revolutionary sensing technology that will enable earlier and more accurate forecasts of weather emergencies. Social Scientists in the CASA project are focusing their research efforts on examining how improved forecasting can reduce the exposure and vulnerability of individuals and property to every-day and extreme weather events and their response to warnings. Through the use of survey methodology, in-depth interviews, and focus groups we are examining how the end-user communities, particularly emergency managers, access, utilize, and respond to weather forecasts. Students will be able to utilize the data generated through these diverse mechanisms to focus on disaster warnings, organizational preparedness and response to disasters, and the needs, interests and recommendations of end-users in order to enhance disaster management and planning.

FEMA's USAR Task Force Deployment

This NSF-funded project examines the operation of Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) task forces during various disaster-related deployments to determine the extent to which they have been impacted by the problems known to be characteristic of search and rescue operations, the solutions they have developed in response to these problems, and the ways that these task forces foster relationships with volunteers and local, state, and federal organizations during major disaster-related deployments. The objective of this research is to examine the relationships among USAR taskforces, FEMA support personnel, local responders, state emergency managers, other responders, and volunteers actively involved in search and rescue efforts. Students engaged in this project will be able to participate in focus group discussions with their faculty mentor and conduct secondary data analysis to explore the role, problems, and limitations that urban search and rescue teams confront when responding to disasters.

Quantitative Models of Social and Economic Consequences
While a significant literature exists on the social and economic impacts of natural disasters, this knowledge has not been translated into quantitative models that can be used to predict the level of consequences that are likely to result from events of different magnitudes. To model the social and economic consequences of earthquakes will require the development of models that are driven by the physical damage estimates produced by engineering models. The Mid-America Earthquake (MAE) Center has generated significant research which has resulted in robust models to predict physical damage to buildings, transportation networks, and infrastructure systems. This project will extend those models to predict the social and economic consequences that are often the most salient concerns of decision makers. Major social impacts that have been identified include short- and long-term shelter needs, short- and long-term job loss, business failures, number of casualties, direct dollar losses, and business interruption losses. The project team will compile an exhaustive list and identify those that can be effectively modeled. The project goals and objectives include: 1) to advance the state-of-the-art of social science research on earthquake hazards to be better aligned and integrated with the quantitative modeling approach that characterizes current research in the geophysical and engineering areas; 2) the development of a set of quantitative models to estimate the social and economic consequences that result from the physical damage produced by earthquake of various sizes; and 3) the development of a cross-hazard metric to characterize the damage produced by a hazard event (earthquake, flood or hurricane). This is a collaborative and interdisciplinary project which includes the participation of Steve French (PI, Georgia Institute of Technology), Walt G. Peacock (Co-PI, Texas A&M University), Havidan Rodriguez (Co-PI, DRC - University of Delaware), Ed Feser (Co-PI, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), and Ricardo Lopez (Co-PI, University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez).

Perceptions of Earthquake Impacts and Loss- Reduction Policy Preferences Among Community Residents and Opinion Leaders

This study, which is being conducted under the National Science Foundation’s US/Japan “Common Agenda” collaborative research program on urban earthquake hazards, focuses on public and stakeholder views of the potential consequences of major earthquakes, their support for loss-reduction policies, and their attitudes with respect to acceptable levels of risk. The study site for this project is Alameda County, in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area. In 1999, in the first phase of the study, DRC conducted a mail survey with a representative sample of over 700 households in Alameda County/ Oakland, California. In the second phase f the project, eight focus group discussions were carried out to obtain information on the risks perceptions and seismic policy views of members of four East Bay stakeholder groups: public officials, community residents, business owners, and practicing engineers. DRC is collaborating on this project with investigators from the Center for Disaster Reduction Systems at Kyoto University’s Disaster Prevention Research Institute.

Hurricane Katrina
Following the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast, DRC deployed eight researchers to various places in the impacted region for between 5 and 10 days per team, to engage in several forms of data collection, including interviews (n=150), participant observations, and systematic document gathering. Field teams visited a variety of locations including Houston, Texas (the Astrodome and the Reliant Arena), Mississippi (including Biloxi, Gulfport, Long Beach, and Pass Christian), and Louisiana (including Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and St. Tammany). Specific sites visited included the Joint Field Office (JFO) - the headquarters for the federal response to Katrina in Louisiana - and shelters in the three states. Extensive field observations were also conducted at local response centers, Disaster Recovery Centers, and impacted zones. DRC teams talked to local, state, and federal officials, relief workers, evacuees, and others that responded to the hurricane and the consequent flooding. DRC faculty members were also part of the American Sociological Association’s (ASA) Task Force designed to generate a social science research agenda following the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

In addition to the aforementioned projects, DRC has additional ongoing projects and data sets - derived from previously funded research projects - that focus on: risk perceptions of and response to earthquake threats in California and Tennessee ; community-based factors that are related to successful mitigation efforts; and economic and social disaster impacts on businesses and their ability to recover. Students will also be granted access to these data sets and will be allowed to carryout research using the same if they are compatible with student's research interests. Through the aforementioned projects, students should be able to identify a topic that is intellectually stimulating while allowing them to conduct a research project from their own disciplinary backgrounds under the guidance of a faculty mentor.