Weather Ready Instrument and Data Publications
The Weather Ready Research Award Program supports the publication of social science and multidisciplinary data, data collection instruments, and research protocols for natural hazards and disaster research via the NHERI DesignSafe Cyberinfrastructure and through the CONVERGE facility. Citations as well as project summaries are included for each funded project below. You can click on the hyperlinks to review published data, instruments, and protocols, which was made possible with the support of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Weather Program Office and the National Science Foundation.
Call 2: Weather Ready Research Instrument and Data Publication
This second call for Weather Ready Research supported the publication of social science and multidisciplinary data, data collection instruments, and research protocols for natural hazards and disaster research. To learn more, read the full Call for Weather Ready Research.
Eric Best. (2021). “Three-Dimensional Property Flood Risk Visualization Using LIDAR Data.” DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-hy8t-0w64.
Date Awarded: May 21, 2021
Project Summary:
This project will compile and share instructions to combine data types to create three-dimensional flood hazard projections to improve risk perception and risk communication. This research uses data that already exists for many municipalities to more effectively show property owners and other stakeholders the outcomes of projected flood events on their properties of interest. This allows for improved flood risk communication, showing flood projections up the sides of realistically shaped structures instead of the conventional two-dimensional maps that usually simply show a property or building footprint in or out of a flood zone.
Lauren Clay. (2021). "PRJ-3018: Hurricane Florence Food Environment Study." DesignSafe-CI. https://www.designsafe-ci.org/data/browser/public/designsafe.storage.published/PRJ-3018.
Date Awarded: May 21, 2021
Project Summary:
This study explores issues related to food environment disruption following a hurricane event from a systems perspective using a quick response disaster research methodology. Through interviews and observations during the week following Hurricane Florence (2018) and follow-up data collected at 6-weeks, 4-months, and 1-year post-event, this study describes the impact of the hurricane on farmers, retail and emergency food systems, and households. Study findings shed light on how to bolster food system resilience and reduce health disparities to create more weather ready communities.
Project Publications:
Lauren Clay. (2021). "Data Collection Tools for Market Basket Assessment", in Hurricane Florence Food Environment Study. DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-18xj-z678.
Lauren Clay. (2021). "Data Collection Tools for Interviews and Observations", in Hurricane Florence Food Environment Study. DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-7eh2-0j40.
Lauren Clay. (2021). "Market Basket Assessment for all Waves", in Hurricane Florence Food Environment Study. DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-8ncj-ew49.
Sergio Garcia, Bensi Ghosh, and Michelle Nilanjana. (2021). “Leveraging Digital News to Create Databases of the Impacts of Small, Medium and, Large Disasters.” DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-29ee-1862.
Date Awarded: May 21, 2021
Project Summary:
This project consisted in the development of protocols to systematically collect, organize, analyze and tabulate information related to the impact of disasters of all scales (small, medium, and large) from printed and digital newspapers, particularly in places where the study of the impacts of disasters is neglected despite their high frequency of occurrence (e.g., Guatemala). Disaster impact measures were characterized in terms of human lives (i.e., deaths, injured, missing, directly and indirectly, affected, evacuated, relocated), economic (i.e., USD dollars and local currency), damage to infrastructure (e.g., education centers, hospitals, roads, bridges, energy, water supply, and sewage systems), industry (in Central America, mainly agricultural and livestock), different types of disruption caused by the disaster (e.g., school closure days, community isolation time), aid, and many others. The database includes measures of disaster impacts in Guatemala for the period from 2015 to 2021. The methodology for creating disasters dataset from printed and digital news media is not new and has been used by many multidisciplinary researchers worldwide. However, this project is unique in that it focuses mainly on streamlining archival processes through digital media. The data, instruments, and methodology developed in this project can help multiple researchers facilitate the processes related to digital archival methods as they relate to the occurrence of disasters and their impacts, particularly on locations where the study of small, medium, and large disasters is neglected. Thus, multidisciplinary natural hazard and disaster researchers will be the immediate beneficiaries of the dataset. Generating data from digital media has the potential to improve the quality, quantity, and speed of the study of disasters, in addition to other benefits such as an increase in victim-centered approaches and public awareness, or the possibility of including impacts on historically marginalized populations that have more frequent interactions with disasters of different scales and type. The final products of this project are specifically three different protocols to collect newspaper information from automated and manual methods, and one database of disaster impacts developed from analyzing digital news media publications.
Jennifer Henderson and Erik Nielsen. (2021). "PRJ-3179: Compound Wind and Water Hazards Embedded in Landfalling Hurricanes and Continental Convection." DesignSafe-CI. https://www.designsafe-ci.org/data/browser/public/designsafe.storage.published/PRJ-3179.
Date Awarded: May 21, 2021
Project Summary:
This project was designed to better understand how different experts and publics attended to, experienced, and made decisions about compound wind and water hazards before and during hurricanes. We collected two sets of data: Twitter data that captures mention of wind and water threats over the lifecycle of Hurricanes Florence and Harvey and interviews with National Weather Service Forecast meteorologists who issued warnings for wind and water threats before and during the storms. This project is unique in its triangulation of data from social media, which function as a digital ethnography of both different experts' and publics' reported experiences with compound wind and water threats, overlapping warning data collected for each storm, and from semi-structured interviews with five NWS Weather Forecast Offices a year after the storm. The audience for this data includes those desire to understand multiple perspectives on compound hurricane hazards and who conduct qualitative and social media analysis.
Project Publications:
Jennifer Henderson, Melissa Bica, Leysia Palen, Jennifer Spinney, Erik Nielsen, Joy Weinberg, Holly Obermeier, Ken Anderson, and Jennings Anderson. (2021). “Hurricane Florence Twitter Data,” in Compound Wind and Water Hazards Embedded in Landfalling Hurricanes and Continental Convection. DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-qy0d-wv59.
Jennifer Henderson, Erik Nielsen, and Hannah Gartner. (2021). “Semi-Structured Interviews with National Weather Service Forecasters Impacted by Hurricane Harvey,” in Compound Wind and Water Hazards Embedded in Landfalling Hurricanes and Continental Convection. DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-1fb5-kn59 .
Jennifer Henderson, Erik Nielsen, Jennifer Spinney, Holly Obermeier, and Allie Mazurek, Leysia Palen, Ken Anderson, and Gerard Saez. (2021). “Hurricane Harvey Twitter Data,” in Compound Wind and Water Hazards Embedded in Landfalling Hurricanes and Continental Convection. DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-3rc2-qy38.
Jennifer Henderson, Jennifer Spinney, Melissa Bica, and Hannah Gartner. (2021). “Semi-Structured Interviews with National Weather Service Forecasters Impacted by Hurricane Florence,” in Compound Wind and Water Hazards Embedded in Landfalling Hurricanes and Continental Convection. DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-x89q-y798.
Jennifer Henderson, Jennifer Spinney, Erik Nielsen, and Melissa Bica. (2021). “Semi-Structured Interview Protocol,” in Compound Wind and Water Hazards Embedded in Landfalling Hurricanes and Continental Convection. DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-vzpa-a735.
Erik Nielsen and Russ Schumacher. (2021). “Overlapping Tornado and Flash Flood Warnings for the US,” in Compound Wind and Water Hazards Embedded in Landfalling Hurricanes and Continental Convection. DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-1vwk-rp47.
David Hondula, Erin Epel, Ariane Middel, Jennifer Vanos, Florian Schneider, David Sailor, Mary Wright, Kamil Kaloush, Jose Medina, Johny Cordova Ortiz, Brendan Rice, Ruth Garcia, Kelly Turner, and Bill Campbell. (2021). "Phoenix Cool Pavement Resident Survey," in City of Phoenix Cool Pavement Evaluation (COPE). DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-jj0p-6y17.
Date Awarded: May 21, 2021
Project Summary:
Many cities around the world, including the City of Phoenix, are experiencing elevated temperatures due to the built environment that are exacerbated by climate change. Paved surfaces with impervious materials, such as asphalt concrete (roads, sidewalks, parking lots, etc.), absorb and store heat during the day and release this heat overnight creating higher temperatures than surrounding rural areas. This phenomenon is known as the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. With paved surfaces comprising about 40% of the urban land area in Phoenix, they are often considered one of the primary causes of the UHI. One of many strategies to mitigate increased temperatures and reduce heat storage in pavements is the use of coatings that reflect (rather than absorb) solar radiation to reduce the heat absorbed by the pavement, thus reducing surface temperatures. Lowering surface temperatures and the heat retained in the built urban environment may help reduce elevated day and nighttime air temperatures. Such reflective coatings are easy to apply to existing paved surfaces and, in most cases, use light-colored pigments and materials to increase reflectivity compared to traditional asphalt concrete roads. The City of Phoenix recently initiated the Cool Pavement Pilot Program in which the City applied the product CoolSeal by GuardTop® to 36 miles of residential neighborhood roads and one public parking lot. This effort resulted in the most miles of road surface coverage with a reflective coating of any municipality globally. It is designed to achieve lower pavement surface temperatures through its lighter color and reflectivity. One neighborhood in each of the eight council districts of Phoenix was chosen for application of CoolSeal in consultation and with the support of the City Council Offices. Data from the Phoenix Cool Pavement Pilot Program are shared through the DesignSafe Data Depot to be accessed by researchers, municipal officials, and other stakeholders seeking to understand the impacts of this particular heat mitigation strategy and/or who may be considering a similar implementation in their jurisdiction.
Elizabeth Kurtz, David Hondula, Paul Chakalian, and Mary Wright. (2021). “Assesssing Risks and Impacts of Simultaneous Extreme Heat & Power Outage in 3 Cities - Instrumentation.” DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-mzrs-f510.
Date Awarded: May 21, 2021
Project Summary:
3Heat is a NSF-funded study of extreme heat and large-scale power outage. 3Heat incorporates multi-scale simulation accompanied by survey and interview data with residents and emergency management professionals in the Phoenix, AZ area to assess the impact of a simultaneous heat wave and power outage on human health. Due to privacy concerns, this repository contains interview instrumentation, a methodology overview, a project description, and a qualitative analysis codebook. Scenario-based interviews about simultaneous extreme heat and power outage were conducted in English and Spanish with 42 residents in Phoenix. 18 additional interviews were conducted with practitioner stakeholders who might be tasked with responding to a combined extreme heat and power outage event, such as emergency managers, public health officials, public administrators, first responders, and community-based organization leaders. The interview protocol and qualitative analysis codebook were designed to explore respondents’ assessment of personal and general health risk, their estimate of health, economic, and physical impacts to the metro area, and their personal and professional adaptations and responses to the hypothetical event. The instruments here are non-specific to Arizona and may be adapted to other settings for use by researchers, emergency managers, or other disaster management professionals. For detailed presentation and discussion of project results, please see related works. The project is jointly supported by research teams from Arizona State University, the University of Michigan, and the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Manyu Li and Theresa Wozencraft. (2021). "Flood/Hurricane Victims' Social, Community, and Psychological Experiences." DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-8q1f-wx13.
Date Awarded: May 21, 2021
Project Summary:
Using a survey methodology, this study applies survey instruments to assess flood/hurricane victims in Lafayette, Louisiana and surrounding areas. Participants were asked to recall one of the floods/hurricanes they experienced in the past 15 years. Most participants named the 2016 Louisiana Flood and 2005 Hurricane Katrina as their major storms in the past 15 years. Then, participants were asked to respond to instruments measuring various aspects of their post-disaster psychological state. Instruments and protocols of the study are shared; however, the data of this study is restricted (see the Social Science Collection - Restricted Survey Data for details). The study took an interdisciplinary approach of environmental, social, community, and counseling psychology. The primary research question was to understand how community support during disasters might buffer the negative role of damages and loss during disasters in victims’ post-disaster recovery. Additionally, we were also interested in how coping skills played a role in victims’ short-term and long-term recovery. Psychological variables examined include psychological place attachment (and displacement), community engagement, migration intention, well-being, and symptoms of mental illness.
Tara Pozzi and Vicken Hillis. (2021). “Drivers of Lidar Adoption,” in Facilitators and Barriers of Lidar Adoption for Flood Risk Management in the Pacific Northwest, US. DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-3p1m-dr64.
Date Awarded: May 21, 2021
Project Summary:
Flood risk and damage are expected to increase in the Pacific Northwest due to climate change. Light Detection and Ranging (lidar) is a remote sensing technology that provides high-resolution topographic data and can therefore produce higher accuracy floodplain maps, an important tool that communities use to assess their flood risk spatially. While availability of lidar data varies across the U.S., uptake also varies even when lidar is available. Our research asked what factors influence variable lidar adoption and how can we use those factors to increase uptake. Previous research investigated important factors in the role of technology adoption in reducing long-term environmental risk; however, the current literature infrequently examined the social processes that impact an individual’s choices about how to manage risk. We used a mixed-methods approach to examine the adoption of lidar by flood managers for risk mitigation, as a function of individual (e.g., risk perception, direct experience) and collective predictors (e.g., peer influence, peer expertise). We conducted eight interviews with flood risk managers in Idaho and gathered 232 survey responses from flood risk managers in Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. We envision our semi-structured interview instrument and survey instrument to be useful for social scientists interested in researching stakeholder decision-making processes. Additionally, the survey instrument is an example of how to employ an ego network analysis, a technique that is useful for identifying the role of social processes in a complex system. Finally, we envision our dataset to be useful for future research regarding flood risk management (e.g., discrepancy of risk perception and physical flood risk) due to the breadth of empirical data regarding flood risk manager experiences in the Pacific Northwest.
Elaina Sutley. (2021). "PRJ-3298: Local Perceptions on Building Safety and Building Performance after the 2019 EF4 Linwood, Kansas Tornado." DesignSafe-CI. https://www.designsafe-ci.org/data/browser/public/designsafe.storage.published/PRJ-3298.
Date Awarded: May 21, 2021
Project Summary:
Kansas has the second-highest frequency of reported tornadoes in the U.S., yet, most counties and many local jurisdictions lack modern building codes with basic lateral force system requirements, thereby minimum levels of protection against tornadic winds. On May 28, 2019, an EF4 tornado struck north-eastern Kansas; the 32-mile long path destroyed approximately 40 building structures and damaged nearly 200 building structures. A post-tornado investigation by the researchers revealed a lack of continuous load path, and in some cases, lacking even basic structural elements, such as anchor bolts or mechanically fastened walls to foundations. These statistics and observations led the research team to question what were local perceptions on building safety and expectations of building performance during tornadoes, what would happen if a tornado were to hit closer to the University of Kansas (KU) campus, and what types of better designs are known of or offered by local contractors. This research project includes two survey efforts addressing research questions on local perceptions on building safety and expectations of building performance during tornadoes. The first survey effort documented local contractors’ perceptions of tornado-resistant residential building design. The first survey effort utilized a convenience sample of local contractors attending a continuing education course on how to provide a continuous load path. The survey was administered in person; no personally identified information was collected. The convenience sample size was 45 and resulted in a response rate of approximately 60%. The second survey effort was initiated as part of a senior capstone project. The capstone project assessed the risk perception and sheltering decision of the KU campus community after the EF4 Linwood tornado. It was administered online using email listservs for KU’s Schools and Colleges for recruitment, inviting participants to complete a short Qualtrics survey. The response rate was low, with only 228 responses. This publication contains the Institutional Review Board Protocols, two Survey Instruments, which included in-person, and virtual surveying modes and questions on tornado risk perception, and, as well as the data for the contractor survey and the capstone project.
Project Publications:
Meredith Dumler, Elaina Sutley, Remy Lequesne. (2021). "Contractor’s Perceptions of
Tornado-Resistant Building Design," in Local Perceptions on Building Safety and Building Performance after the 2019 EF4 Linwood, Kansas Tornado. DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-f9db-p423.
Ram Krishna Mazumder, Elaina Sutley, and Meredith Dumler. (2021). "Data Report on Local Perceptions on Building Safety and Building Performance after the 2019 EF4 Linwood Tornado," in Local Perceptions on Building Safety and Building Performance after the 2019 EF4 Linwood, Kansas Tornado. DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-hkcv-xp72.
Tina Wang, Meredith Dumler, Ram Krishna Mazumder, Elaina Sutley. (2021). "Tornado Risk Perception of University of Kansas Campus Community," in Local Perceptions on Building Safety and Building Performance after the 2019 EF4 Linwood, Kansas Tornado. DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-dw38-z509.
Elaina Sutley, Haiyang Chao, ZhiQiang Chen, and Jian Li. (2021). "PRJ-2397: StEER - 28 May 2019 Linwood, KS EF4 Tornado: Field Assessment Structural Team 1 (FAST-1). DesignSafe-CI. https://www.designsafe-ci.org/data/browser/public/designsafe.storage.published/PRJ-2397.
Date Awarded: May 21, 2021
Project Summary:
On May 28, 2019, a destructive EF4 tornado struck north-eastern Kansas, resulting in severe damage in Leavenworth County and surrounding areas. The tornado travelled 31.8 miles in 55 minutes and had a maximum width of one mile. There were 18 injuries but no fatalities. The Structural Extreme Events Reconnaissance (StEER) funded a quick response field study, referred to here as Wave 1, to document post-tornado damage to building structures along the tornado path. The Wave 1 survey documented initial building damage, aerial imagery of the tornado path and provides an essential baseline for subsequent impact and recovery studies. A second and third wave of data collection were funded by PI Sutley’s fellowship funding from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine Gulf Research Program, and were executed six months and twelve months after the tornado, respectively. The Wave 2 and 3 teams consisted of structural engineering professors and students, behavioral economics professor and students, and public administration and urban planning students from the University of Kansas. Goals for Wave 2 and Wave 3 were to: (1) document risk perception, sheltering behavior, impact, and recovery experience of households during and since the May 2019 tornado, and (2) document the repair progress for homes along the tornado path six and twelve months after a major tornado in rural Kansas. This project achieves collected data from Waves 1, 2, and 3. This collection also archives survey instruments and Institutional Review Board protocol approved by the University of Kansas IRB office for Waves 2 and 3.
Project Publications:
Ram Krishna Mazumder, Elaina Sutley, and Meredith Dumler. (2021). "Data Report on Household Impact and Recovery Assessment: A longitudinal Investigation after the 2019
EF4 Linwood, Kansas Tornado," in StEER - 28 May 2019 Linwood, KS EF4 Tornado: Field Assessment Structural Team 1 (FAST-1). DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-87ne-d742.
Elaina Sutley, Meredith Dumler, Ram Krishna Mazumder, Remy Lequesne, Jian LI, William Kirkham, Derek Reed, Jae Kim, and Tyler Thompson. (2021). "One-Year Post-Tornado Repair Progress: Wave 3," in StEER - 28 May 2019 Linwood, KS EF4 Tornado: Field Assessment Structural Team 1 (FAST-1). DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-5ysj-a554.
Elaina Sutley, Derek Reed, Remy Lequesne, William Kirkham, Jian LI, Jae Kim, Brett Gelino, Seyyed Amin Enderami, Meredith Dumler, Sdiq Taher, Alok Bhatta, Karen Vazquez, and Lane Caraway-Short. (2021). "Six-Month Post-Tornado Repair Progress: Wave 2," in StEER - 28 May 2019 Linwood, KS EF4 Tornado: Field Assessment Structural Team 1 (FAST-1). DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-an2v-2c39.
Kelly Turner, Emma French, and David Hondula. (2021). “How are U.S. Cities Planning for Heat?” DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-xc9j-3054.
Date Awarded: May 21, 2021
Project Summary:
The aim of this project is to determine the prevalence and nature of urban heat management goals and interventions in municipal planning documents. To do this, a research team comprised of students and faculty at UCLA and Arizona State University developed a database of 175 adopted plans from the 50 most populous cities in the United States. Each document was then scanned for references to 50 original heat content variables and 25 secondary social and environmental variables pertaining to heat. Heat-specific clauses were coded for heat framings, hard and soft interventions, references to equity, and data sources. The occurrence and frequency of the heat content variables in each plan are available at the clause and plan scale and all variables are available at the city scale.
Olivia Vila, Gavin Smith, Christopher Galik, Nancy Henkel, Samiksha Bhattarai, and Samata Gyawali. (2021). “Interview Guide,” in Policy Innovation in Local Housing Acquisition (Buyout) Programs. DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-en7t-5t68.
Date Awarded: May 21, 2021
Project Summary:
Hazard-prone housing acquisition or “buyout” programs are among the most effective hazard mitigation measures. However, these programs are notoriously difficult to administer and communities in the United States (US) routinely struggle to develop and implement them in a timely and well-planned manner. In addition, the sharing of lessons learned (or not learned) among those engaged in housing acquisition programs remains underemphasized. This work explores innovative practices adopted within local housing acquisition programs across diverse US communities, and more specifically, the factors that helped facilitate the implementation of those practices. The results are based off of interviews with 25 local housing acquisition program administrators involved in different housing acquisition programs across US. Results focus on the factors that contribute to housing acquisition policy innovation across all phases of the housing acquisition process, including planning, financing, grant writing, implementation, community relocation, and open-space management. In the context of this study, we define innovation as a practice implemented as part of a housing acquisition program that is new to the community adopting that practice. Lessons highlight the prevalence of policy diffusion, and the importance of community and political motivation, and various community characteristics (such as access to data and technical expertise, staff, partnerships and collaborations, leaders and advocates) in promoting innovation.
Lance Watkins. (2021). "Personal Heat Exposure." DesignSafe-CI. https://www.designsafe-ci.org/data/browser/public/designsafe.storage.published/PRJ-3324.
Date Awarded: May 21, 2021
Project Summary:
This project was a component of the larger NSF funded Three City Heat and Electrical Failure AdapTation (3HEAT) Study, which aimed to assess the health impact of a simultaneous city-wide power outage and heatwave in the cities of Phoenix, Arizona; Detroit, Michigan; and Atlanta, Georgia. This subset of the larger 3HEAT project aimed to measure the personal heat exposure of Phoenix residents. Additionally we related residents' personal heat exposure profiles to their daily activities, cooling methods, and thermal comfort. The data from this project could be reused to better understand the relationship between heat exposure, thermal comfort, and daily activity at an individual scale. This data could also be used in combination with similar datasets to explore these relationships across different cities or to compare different methods of assessing personal heat exposure.
Project Publications:
Lance Watkins, Mary Wright, and David Hondula. (2021). "Time-Activity Diary Instrument," in Personal Heat Exposure. DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-c3q7-vv73.
Lance Watkins and Mary Wright. (2021). "iButton Instrument," in Personal Heat Exposure. DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-c5db-q090.
Lance Watkins, Mary Wright, Paul Chakalian, Elizabeth Kurtz, and David Hondula. (2021). "Hygrochron Temperature and Humidity iButton and Time Activity Diary - Wave 1," in Personal Heat Exposure. DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-rakj-a122.
Xilei Zhao, Yiming Xu, Ruggiero Lovreglio, Erica Kuligowski, and Daniel Nilsson. (2021). "A Highway Vehicle Routing Dataset During the 2019 Kincade Fire Evacuation," in A Highway Vehicle Routing Dataset During the 2019 Kincade Fire Evacuation. DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-9v8w-y830.
Date Awarded: May 21, 2021
Project Summary:
As wildfires become increasingly more prevalent and severe in California, it is imperative to study how people respond to wildfire events. To support wildfire evacuation research, this project publishes the first dataset to capture highway vehicle routing behavior during the 2019 Kincade Fire, Sonoma County, California. The dataset is completely anonymous and includes a total of 22,215 highway trips from October 16, 2019 to November 13, 2019. Fields of the new dataset include anonymous user ID, latitude of a vehicle’s entrance of a highway, longitude of a vehicle’s entrance of a highway, timestamp of a vehicle’s entrance of a highway, entrance highway, latitude of a vehicle’s exit of a highway, longitude of a vehicle’s exit of a highway, timestamp of a vehicle’s exit of a highway, exit highway. This highway vehicle routing dataset is presented in comma-separated values (CSV) format. We also provide a shapefile of the highways included in the dataset (i.e., U.S. Highway 101, State Highways 1, 12, 37, 116, 121, and 128). This new dataset can be used to better analyze a householder’s evacuation departure time and route choice and to validate the existing evacuation simulation models. This dataset can also serve as an educational instrument to train the next-generation disaster scientists and engineers who can leverage big data analytics for weather-ready research.
Lisa Zottarelli, David Bugg, and Erin Rider. (2021). "Survey Instrument: Law Enforcement First Responder Experiences During and After a Large-Scale Hurricane Evacuation" in Law Enforcement First Responder Experiences During and After the Hurricane Rita Evacuation. DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-ccq2-my26.
Date Awarded: May 21, 2021
Project Summary:
This project focused on evacuation response work of law enforcement first responders. Law enforcement first responders often remain within or adjacent to the evacuation zone and have duties such as directing traffic, responding to community safety needs, and preparing for response activities. At the same time, first responders are often less able to support their own family’s evacuation response. In meetings with law enforcement officers and other first responders after Hurricane Rita, it became clear that experiences of first responders in their work environment and family-to-work conflict needed to be examined. The instrument was developed through consultation with first responders, including law enforcement officers, with direct experience during the Hurricane Rita evacuation. The instrument question sets cover a variety of issues commonly encountered by first responders during evacuations including work-related experiences, adverse events, sheltering, and support. Additionally, the instrument has questions related to family evacuation planning and preparedness and perceptions of family expectations of first responders during an evacuation. This instrument could be used to collect data from law enforcement first responders after a large scale evacuation in a manner similar to how it was used after Hurricane Rita. Additionally, components of the instrument could be used to collect data on law enforcement knowledge and attitudes about evacuation response and post-disaster work and family conflict. Finally, this instrument could be modified for use in research with other first responder populations and/or other essential workers who prepare for and respond to hurricanes and other large-scale disasters.
Call 4: Wildfire Ready Quick Response Research and Data Publication
The fourth call for Weather Ready Research is focused on advancing wildfire and fire weather research and data publication. The intent of this call is to help advance knowledge regarding how diverse community members perceive wildfire risk, prepare for wildfire threats, understand fire weather observations and forecasts, receive fire weather alerts and warnings, make evacuation decisions, and respond to and recover from the impacts of a wildfire. To learn more, read the full Call for Wildfire Ready Quick Response Research and Data Publication.
Deserai Crow, Katherine Dickinson, Rick Devoss, Elizabeth Albright, and AndrewRumbach. (2022). "PRJ-3580: RAPID: Can Big Ideas About Resilience Survive the Reality of a Disaster? Built Environment Policy and Recovery After the Marshall Fire." DesignSafe-CI. https://www.designsafe-ci.org/data/browser/public/designsafe.storage.published/PRJ-3580.
Date Awarded: October 10, 2022
Project Summary:
On December 30, 2021, the climate-enabled and weather-driven Marshall Fire destroyed 1,084 homes and damaged 149 more in the communities of Louisville, Superior, and unincorporated Boulder County, becoming the most destructive fire in Colorado’s history. This project focuses on regulations that contribute to disaster and climate resilience of communities through interviews with local officials and document analysis along with a thorough survey of residents to examine risk perceptions, emotional and physical health impacts, evacuation, recovery decisions, and local government participation. The survey is a three-wave panel survey with wave 1 complete and waves 2/3 expected late 2022/early 2023. De-identified datasets from the surveys will be available at https://www.marshallresilience.com/.
Project Publications:
Dickinson, Katherine, Rick Devoss, Elizabeth Albright, Deserai Crow, Andrew Rumbach, Hamilton Bean, Tim Fraser, Colleen Reid, Azadeh Bolhari, Courtney Welton-Mitchell, Casara Andre, Daniel Aldrich, Rebecca Morss, Andrew Whelton, Amy Javernick-Will, Leslie Irvine, Meg du Bray, Sasha Rubenfeld, and Shelby Tillema. (2022) "Marshall Fire Unified Survey", in RAPID: Can Big Ideas About Resilience Survive the Reality of a Disaster? Built Environment Policy and Recovery After the Marshall Fire. DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-0yc8-4h27
Rumbach, Andrew, Nathan Jeschke, and Deserai Crow. (2022) "Interviews with local officials", in RAPID: Can Big Ideas About Resilience Survive the Reality of a Disaster? Built Environment Policy and Recovery After the Marshall Fire. DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-n3bd-ab90
Errett, Nicole, Cat Hartwell, Juliette Randazza, Gregory Bratman, David Eisenman, Blake Ellis, Eli Goodsell, and Chaja Levy. (2023). "PRJ-3883: Forest Therapy as a Trauma-Informed Approach to Disaster Recovery." DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-sffr-0489.
Date Awarded: February 28, 2024
Project Summary:
Wildfires and other disasters resulting from climate-sensitive hazards have been associated with negative mental health outcomes. Previous research has found that nature-based therapy and interaction with nature are associated with a variety of physical and mental health benefits. This dataset is the product of 11 semi-structured interviews with members of a cohort of forest therapy guides who were part of a community recovery pilot program created after the 2018 Camp Fire in Butte County, an area of Northern California that is increasingly impacted by severe wildfires. The research explored if and how forest therapy can serve as a trauma-informed approach to disaster recovery. Interviews lasted between 46 and 81 minutes and took place between October 14, 2021 and January 4, 2022, via Zoom. Eleven of the fourteen forest therapy guides who were certified as part of the pilot program at the time were interviewed. Interview transcripts have not been made public because complete de-identification is not possible, due to the small study population sample and the personal nature of the conversations. This data publication includes the analytic matrix, which contains summarized, de-identified data from the individual interviews used for analysis. The key informant interview guide has also been shared, along with the documentation of University of Washington’s Human Subjects Division exempt determination. Researchers interested in accessing the restricted data can review the information in the Design Safe Restricted Data Use Protocol document. Funding for this research was provided by the University of Washington Interdisciplinary Center for Exposures, Diseases, Genomics and Environment (NIEHS Grant #: P30ES007033 to Nicole Errett) and a gift to the Chico State Ecological Reserve (Blake Ellis, Elli Goodsell).
Rodolfo Hernandez, Marcela Ortiz Cardona, Kari Hines, Alexander Bregenzer, and Reilly Ruggiero. (2024) "Wildfire Vulnerability of Hispanic & Latino Communities in Texas: A Bilingual Survey Instrument," in Social-Wildfire Vulnerability Affecting Spanish-Speaking Populations in the Texas Wildland Urban Interface. DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-n5hb-ff16.
Date Awarded: January 17, 2024
Project Summary:
Texas has become a hotspot for large wildfires in the U.S. due to a growing population, changes in land use, and weather patterns. National and state data has shown that Hispanic-Latino communities are twice as likely to live in areas most threatened by wildfires relative to the overall U.S. population. They are also affected disproportionately by socioeconomic disparities, linguistic-cultural legacies, historical marginalization, and systemic exclusion. In 2023, Texas officially declared the Hispanic-Latino population the largest ethnic group, therefore, complex and uncertain issues regarding wildfire and social vulnerability are expected, especially in areas with higher exposition to wildfire hazard potential and wildfire severity, such as the Wildland–Urban Interfaces (WUIs). WUIs are geographical units (lines, areas, or zones) where human development, such as homes, meet or mix with wildland or vegetative fuels that convert human settlements to at-risk communities. There are over 14,500 communities at risk of wildfire in Texas, the second highest number of any state in the country, representing between 30% to 45% of the total houses in Texas.
The instrument published as part of this project will gather crucial insights of the Hispanic/Latino population in Texas by comprehensively assessing their social and wildfire vulnerability within Wildland-Urban Interfaces (WUIs). Tailored for Spanish-speaking and bilingual respondents, the survey instrument can capture linguistic-cultural and socioeconomic aspects influencing wildfire preparedness and contribute to strengthen targeted strategies, interventions, and policies aimed at enhancing readiness and resilience within these communities.
Call 6: Tornado Ready Research and Data Publication
The sixth call for Weather Ready Research is focused on advancing tornado research and data publication in the social, behavioral, and economic sciences. The intent of this call is to improve mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery for socially marginalized places and populations, such as schools or childcare centers; hospitals; nursing homes or other eldercare facilities; faith-based organizations; correctional facilities; or mobile and manufactured homes. These settings—and the people who work and live in these spaces—play an integral role in the safety of some of society’s most at-risk populations. To learn more, read the full Call for Tornado Ready Research and Data Publication.
Amy Hyman and Joseph Richmond. (2023). "College Students’ Risk Perceptions and Behaviors During Tornadic and Severe Weather Events." DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-y3za-8092.
Date Awarded: May 23, 2023
Project Summary:
This quantitative study examines college students' risk perceptions and protective action behaviors during the March 31, 2023 tornadic events in Arkansas. On March 31, 2023, two EF3 tornadoes occurred in Little Rock and Wynne, Arkansas. Both regions are home to higher education institutions. This study surveyed college students in the two regions affected by the tornadic events. The NOAA Tornado Post-Event Survey was utilized for the first part of the questionnaire, and other measurements were utilized for the second portion of the questionnaire that examined risk perception, risk assessment, and preparedness actions along with prior tornado experience.
Sangwon Lee and Jennifer First. (2024). “Enhancing Tornado Preparedness and Protective Action for Persons with Disabilities: Addressing Barriers and Facilitators,” in Identifying Tornado Warning Needs and Barriers to Protective Action for Individuals with Disabilities. DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-xvm4-d037
Date Awarded: September 10, 2024
Project Summary:
This project investigates how individuals with disabilities (PWDs) received and responded to tornado hazard information during the December 10–11, 2021 tornado outbreak. The study identifies the barriers PWDs faced in accessing warning information and taking protective actions, as well as the resources that facilitated their ability to act. Using a survey instrument designed specifically for this purpose, the research collects empirical data on topics such as tornado risk perception, protective behaviors, and barriers to action, emphasizing the unique challenges experienced by PWDs in their physical and social environments during severe weather events.
Acknowledgements
The Weather Ready Research Award program is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF Award #1635593) through supplemental funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Weather Program Office. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of NSF, NOAA, or the Natural Hazards Center.