Research and Practice Highlights

While the number of older adults is projected to increase rapidly over the next few years, so is the frequency and intensity of natural hazards due to climate change. The research regarding how older adults make decisions during disasters is thin. Furthermore, the research that has been conducted has conflicting results as some assert that older adults are far more prepared than other demographics. In comparison, other research finds evidence that older adults are more vulnerable due to cognitive decline and the need for social support. Given the trends in population growth and the frequency of hazards, we must investigate and identify the individual decision-making factors that lead to appropriate hazard adjustments for older adult populations. Several broadband wireless devices for personal use have been developed to assist in disseminating warnings, disaster preparedness, or preparedness training among the broader population. In Japan, virtual reality has been used for disaster exercises among children or certain communities. This project uses a survey to assess disaster preparedness levels, disaster experience, and the willingness to use broadband wireless devices for disaster preparedness. The results will be used to make comparisons about the use of technology for disaster preparedness among older adults (ages 65 and older) and younger adults (ages 18 to 64). The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funded this research. Opinions expressed in this work are not necessarily the opinions of the FEMA.

Over the past four decades, wildfire frequency and intensity have surged, resulting in a doubling of the average annual burn area. This escalation is compounded by rapid population expansion into the wildland-urban interface (WUI). Our work focuses on the evacuation preparedness of households prior to wildfire events using the framework of the Protective Action Decision Model (PADM). Partnering with regional and city emergency managers, we will evaluate evacuation protocols and messaging strategies, informing the development of a FlamMap fire analysis application scenario designed to engage stakeholders in pivotal decision-making points during wildfire events. Based on key decision points, we will develop and share community-based wildfire evacuation scenarios with study area residents to explore the drivers of evacuation behavior and evacuation intentions. This social-behavioral data will then be integrated into agent-based models (ABMs) to explore the impact of decisions on evacuation time estimates and outcomes for each scenario. Collaboration with three WUI communities across two states enables us to identify factors influencing critical evacuation decision-making management action points for emergency personnel, explore resident evacuation intention between communities who have experienced a recent evacuation (City of Ashland, OR) relative to those who have not (Ada County, ID), and integrate social-behavioral data into wildfire evacuation scenarios using ABMs to assess various evacuation strategies. Our shared results will facilitate the refinement of pre-event hazard strategies used to foster greater community engagement and enhance local authorities’ preparedness and evacuation planning efforts. 

Our research aims to develop a novel method for improving small-scale river and stream flood prediction and warning systems. Flood risk in small rivers and streams is getting worse as torrential rains increase due to climate change. As many casualties occur as a result of flooding in small streams, it is urgent to develop an effective flood early warning system. Doing so, however, is difficult because of challenges associated with the high speed of flood wave propagation which creates insufficient calculation time to predict the risk area in small streams using a numerical model. In addition, to apply the existing numerical models, detailed information for determining optimal parameters is required to accurately represent small stream dynamics, and additional processes for predicting boundary such as flow and water surface elevations are required. Our research team developed a real-time prediction method by using the Manning formula to predict depth in unmeasured sections with predicted flow discharges from the Flood Early Warning Framework. To evaluate the novel method, our research team predicted the depth by using the hydrodynamic information measured in three test bed small streams in Korea—the Insu, Neungmac, and Jungsunpil streams—and compared the results with measured values. We also predicted depths in unmeasured sections by using the evaluated method for application test. For applicability evaluation the research predicts depth in unmeasured sections by using the evaluated method and comparing it to the embankment. The results show that the new method can closely represent real depth values measured in 2022. Our research confirmed the novel method’s potential utility in small-scale river flood prediction and warning systems.

From mass media to everyday experience, environmental disasters tend to be framed as singular events from which communities recover and rebuild. To speak with communities in the years after a disaster, however, reveals how the lasting impacts of these events change lives in culturally significant ways. As our two audio story series, Carried by Water and Archival Ecologies document, lived stories of disaster show that recovery has many meanings. Produced by Princeton’s environmental storytelling group Blue Lab, these podcasts traveled to two communities affected by major environmental disasters—one in Canada and the other in the Philippines. In Carried by Water, Mario Soriano examines prolonged displacements in communities devastated by Super Typhoon Haiyan in 2013. These upheavals stem from the storm’s destruction as well as from subsequent resettlement efforts that led to loss of neighborhood ties, customary livelihoods, and relations to nature. In Archival Ecologies, Jayme Collins traces cultural collections destroyed or damaged by a 2021 wildfire in Lytton, B.C., Canada. As they begin to rebuild, communities emphasize local knowledge and cultural memory and improvise new ways to carry forward the longstanding stories and practices that matter to them. Through our research-driven, human-centered approach to disaster storytelling, we found that the processes of listening and amplification that attend audio production provided methods for foregrounding community experiences and unveiling compounding vulnerabilities in ways that diverge from official narratives. Storytelling became a lens for transforming recovery discourse and for amplifying community frameworks for imagining futures in the wake of disruption.

Drought, compounded by climate and land use changes, has significantly impacted agriculture in the Mid-South since a historic drought in 2011. Excessive irrigation to mitigate crop production losses may strain water resources, leading to environmental and economic challenges. Thus, the primary aim of this project is to foster behavioral changes in water consumption amid escalating drought risks to promote regional environmental sustainability. Funded by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, researchers from Louisiana State University are working to achieve three project objectives: (1) develop and widely deploy a web-based, user-interactive decision support tool—or webtool—for agricultural irrigators that provides site-specific strategies reflective of drought risk, considering current hydrological conditions; (2) identify potential advisors, collaborators, and stakeholders for coordinating discussions on improving rapid responses by leveraging existing scientific advances; and (3) conduct a community design approach and aggressive outreach campaign focusing on mitigating drought risks through webtool adoption and encouraging the reduction of water footprints. By accomplishing these objectives, the project aims to empower agricultural stakeholders with the necessary tools and knowledge to effectively navigate drought challenges. By promoting informed decision-making and proactive water management practices, the project endeavors to contribute to the long-term sustainability of the region's water resources and agricultural sector. Through collaborative efforts and community engagement, the project seeks to foster resilience and adaptability in the face of evolving environmental conditions, ultimately ensuring the viability of agriculture in the Mid-South region.

An increasing number of extreme weather events—including storms and hurricanes—are now being live-streamed on websites such as YouTube. These streams often either (a) repurpose existing webcam infrastructure to generate channels that host footage of extreme weather and damage it causes (thus differing from storm-chaser footage), or (b) emerge from individuals using phones to stream their personal hazard experience. Despite evidence of increasing popularity—YouTube streams, for example, sometimes generate hundreds of thousands of simultaneous viewers—they are yet to be critically examined. My work is beginning to examine both the various forms and motivations of live-stream production as well as how they are consumed. In a recent paper published in Environmental Hazards, I examined how commentors utilized live-streams as opportunities for hazard engagement, sense-making, and witnessing. The study analyzed data from streams of three events: Hurricane Irma (2017), Hurricane Ian (2022), and the 2022 United Kingdom Storms (Dudley, Eunice, and Franklin). In doing so, I evidenced that these streams could operate as spaces where attachments and (dis)connections to affected places are imagined and performed. In particular, I drew attention to viewers who watch streams in their entirety (sometimes 8–24 hours), and whose commitments to the mundaneness of “weather watching” are considered as performances of support and solidarity. The paper concludes by calling for further research that examines the role of informal or ad-hoc virtual spaces that enable (a) engagement with changing places and/or (b) the sharing or contestation of risk communication messaging.

Addressing flood risk and enhancing community resilience pose significant challenges in flood-prone regions like Louisiana. Despite the apparent solution of implementing freeboard standards for existing homes, various factors complicate their adoption. With funding from Louisiana Sea Grant, our team is evaluating the social, economic, and policy pathways to freeboard implementation that reduce home flood risk and enhance community resilience for pre-existing homes in coastal Louisiana. This research seeks to provide actionable insights to enhance flood resilience in Louisiana's coastal communities. Our team consists of researchers from the University of New Orleans, Louisiana State University, and LaHouse Research and Education Center. Our four project objectives include: (1) build on its current research by discovering similarities and differences between barriers and incentives of freeboard for new construction vs. existing structures in Louisiana’s 20 coastal parishes through interviews and focus groups with stakeholders, and cross-parish data comparison; (2) collect baseline data and develop new economic risk models to estimate hazard code requirements, elevation cost, and flood insurance premiums; (3) conduct GIS-based flood loss and loss reduction analyses by expanding capabilities of the team’s “Flood Safe Home” web-based decision support tool (https://floodsafehome.lsu.edu/) to reflect the economic realities of existing homes across 20 coastal parishes; (4) document and delineate the social, economic, and policy pathways to the use of freeboard, and enhance understanding of the extent to which this information may change stakeholder and community perspectives regarding implementing freeboard for existing residences.

Wind hazards account for the majority of natural hazard-induced economic losses in the United States. Despite the availability of proven materials and techniques to mitigate wind losses, multiple barriers hinder their widespread adoption. With funding from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, our team is working to enhance wind resilience throughout Louisiana by bolstering extension capacity to develop and implement impactful education and outreach strategies based on sound scientific information, with a specific focus on FORTIFIED® wind mitigation strategies. These efforts will provide more effective weather preparedness techniques and resources to Louisiana residents. Our team consists of researchers from multiple institutions, including LaHouse Research and Education Center at Louisiana State University Agricultural Center, Southern University, and Louisiana State University. Our three project objectives include: (1) Train a statewide extension resilience educator and the project team on FORTIFIED® requirements and best practices for wind and weather resilience/preparedness; (2) Implement stakeholder focus groups and training sessions that help the project team learn community needs regarding resilient construction practices, and educate government leaders and professional stakeholders about resilient new and retrofit construction practices, their benefits, and their costs. (3) Conduct a statewide education and outreach campaign that enhances equity through training programs, demonstration projects, youth weather preparedness curriculum development, 4-H volunteer and club leader training, and educational outreach materials focused on underserved communities. Additionally, to ensure accessibility and user-friendliness for the target audience, all curricular materials will also be made available in an online format.

With funding from the National Science Foundation, the Cascadia Region Earthquake Science Center (CRESCENT) was launched in October 2023 to advance scientific knowledge and public awareness of the geohazards in the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ). Subduction zones are known for producing the world’s largest, most devastating earthquakes; moreover, their strong shaking is often accompanied by cascading effects, such as tsunamis, landslides, liquefaction, and fire. In the Pacific Northwest, the CSZ could unleash a catastrophic magnitude 8+ earthquake and tsunami at any moment, yet there is relatively low public awareness and preparedness in the region, because the last megathrust event was over 300 years ago and background seismicity is low. CRESCENT's mission is to advance our understanding of CSZ earthquake and tsunami hazards and to improve regional resilience. With input from 12 academic institutions, the center’s work is structured around three pillars: (1) Science Planning: This pillar aims to close CSZ knowledge gaps. Five initial working groups are dedicated to characterizing Earth properties and fault structures to help identify past and future potential earthquake and tsunami behavior. (2) Geoscience Education and Inclusion: This pillar is committed to five educational programs that address skill shortages and lack of diversity in geosciences. Designed to serve high school students and early career professionals from minoritized groups, these programs aim to diversify and train the next generation of geoscientists. (3) Partnerships and Applications: This pillar works towards translating the center’s research and products to practical applications, enhancing societal resilience to earthquake hazards. A committee is tasked with building relationships with federal, state, and municipal agencies, utilities, educational institutions, and community leaders. Learn more at: cascadiaquakes.org

Energy-efficient technologies and design strategies provide resilience benefits for buildings and the energy system before, during, and after major disruptive winter storms and extreme heat events. Louisiana did not keep up with building energy code policy, including updates made to the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) between 2013 and 2021. This decision significantly weakened the ability of buildings in Louisiana to withstand extreme weather events as well as increased building energy consumption. This resulted in Louisiana having one of the lowest building energy performance levels in the nation. In 2022, the state's energy code authority took a crucial step by adopting the 2021 IECC. This shift presents substantial opportunities for resilience and energy savings enhancement. The transition to the 2021 IECC is projected to reduce statewide carbon emissions by nearly 10 million metric tons over 30 years. Funded by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the team at the LaHouse Research and Education Center at Louisiana State University Agricultural Center is undertaking a project with dual objectives. First, we are conducting a thorough Life-Cycle Cost Assessment to analyze the energy savings and resilience effectiveness of building upgrade measures tailored for Louisiana's needs. Second, we are leading a statewide Education and Outreach Campaign for Enhanced Equity. This initiative encompasses adult and youth education programs, outreach projects, youth energy-efficiency curriculum development, 4-H volunteer and club leader training, extension publications, and industry resources, all aimed at addressing the needs of underserved communities.

As water-related hazards become increasingly prevalent, communities rely on water data and information to improve their decision-making and increase their resilience. Climate data services, especially those that are provided for free by reputable sources, can provide valuable information. One such tool is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Water Model (NWM), which shows where water has been in the past, where it is presently, and where it is predicted to be in the future. A recent study by Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science (CUAHSI) and the Global Resilience Institute at Northeastern University revealed that 65% of the stakeholders who are involved in resilience-related planning had never previously heard of the NWM. Moreover, while the study showed these stakeholders were frequent users of water science data and information, few of them were trained hydrologists. While the NWM’s use in emergency management has been traditionally explored, there was a gap between the NWM and its potential use in resilience planning. This study has since co-developed use cases with stakeholders that leverage the NWM in their resilience-related work. These use cases include one team that used the NWM as an educational outreach tool to combat flood amnesia among municipal leaders. Another use case describes a team using the NWM’s retrospective data to create maps of previous flood events, which will inform planning in data-limited areas. Our project defines the NWM’s value as compared to other information sources. It also provides lessons learned for coastal and emergency managers and others involved in forward-looking decision-making as it relates to water and leveraging the NWM in resilience planning. For more information, please visit: https://globalresilience.northeastern.edu/project/cooperative-institute-for-research-to-operations-in-hydrology-ciroh/   

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Center for Environmental Health Outreach and Emergency Communications team is launching an updated version of its e-learning course, “Preparedness and Safety Messaging for Hurricanes, Floods, and Similar Disasters Virtual Workshop.” (https://www.train.org/cdctrain/course/1111271/compilation) The hour-long course is designed for state and local health department communicators as well as others who talk to the public about health hazards related to natural disasters. Learners will receive an overview of CDC's Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication Curriculum and be walked through how to use and adapt CDC's prepared messaging to reach multiple audiences before, during, and after a disaster. The updated class will launch in September and includes updated messaging for priority populations. 

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted capacity challenges within nation’s charitable food systems. The confluence of these health-related issues and the increasing frequency and intensity of climate-related disasters continue to alter the landscape of risk across the country. It is also altering the populations who are most vulnerable in times of disaster, putting untold pressures on food banks that support their needs. The pandemic has uniquely exposed populations not typically considered vulnerable in the hazard and disaster literature—those we refer to in this project as the “New Vulnerable.” This group includes individuals that have experienced unanticipated economic hardship due to mitigation measures taken at local, state, and federal levels to stop the spread of the virus, as well as financial pressures that continue to manifest themselves in rising rates of inflation and the challenges of housing affordability. This project has three primary elements: (1) identify vulnerable populations and the existing capacity of Feeding America food banks to meet the needs of this population; (2) examine factors influencing food bank capacities including social equity considerations and uptake of disaster planning tool resources by local food banks; and (3) assess the perspectives of representatives of food banks and other local agencies on the “new vulnerable” populations. The anticipated outcomes of the work will ensure that Feeding America and its national network of food banks have a comprehensive understanding of community needs and assets for leveraging more responsive and best practices in disaster preparedness, response, and recovery. 

Timely information provided by rapid needs assessments—also known as RNAs—can improve situational awareness and guide disaster response and recovery efforts. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response (CASPER) is a household-based RNA designed to provide information about a community, allowing public health leaders and emergency managers to make informed decisions. While CASPERs have a proven success record over the past decade, there are situations in which the traditional CASPER 30x7 design is not feasible or ideal. This is often evident, for example, when disasters affect smaller areas (e.g., tornados), more rural or frontier communities, and jurisdictions with less resources or staffing. Further, as CASPER is designed for the whole community, new methodological approaches are needed that are tailored to the contexts of specific populations including, persons experiencing homelessness and other groups more at risk for negative health impacts during disasters (e.g., those with higher social vulnerability, children, older adults). Therefore, CDC is developing new guidance on disaster-related public health RNA methodologies as alternatives to CASPER. Thus far, four methods have been field tested: a combined stratified systematic and purposeful sampling approach in a frontier county, a simple random mail-based sample where fieldwork was denied, a targeted sample based on damage assessment data, and a combined 1- and 2-stage cluster sample method for a rural community impacted by a tornado. While CASPER is successful in several regards, there is a current gap for when CASPER may not be the best fit or most appropriate method. Therefore, CDC is currently developing and piloting new RNA guidance.

Since 1987, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and American Red Cross (Red Cross) have collaborated to monitor and characterize the health of sheltered populations during disasters to help guide response and recovery efforts. Disaster-related shelters provide an important refuge for displaced persons in need of temporary housing, medical assistance, and community support. Previously, Red Cross disaster health services volunteers collected data using a paper-based aggregate morbidity form (“tally form”) that gathered information on client reasons for visit every 24 hours. In Summer 2022, CDC and Red Cross updated the paper-based form to a mobile app to allow for near real-time data collection. Red Cross volunteers have used the new app during 32 incidents since August 2022. Overall, the app is user-friendly and well-received. The transition eliminated several issues with the paper tally form, including inconsistent completion, missing data points, illegible handwriting, and blurry pictures of the final form. For example, during Hurricane Harvey (2017), 39% of age, 32% on sex, and 20% of disposition data was missing from the paper tally form reports. During Hurricane Ian (2022) and Typhoon Mawar (2023), in contrast, only 3.5%-4% of age, 1.6-1.7%% of gender, and 1.0%-1.9% of disposition data was missing from the mobile app reports. Another key aspect of the mobile app was the ability to analyze data in near real-time and with more detail. Electronic data collection has significantly improved data quality. It also allows for flexibility to change variables such as locally relevant diseases (e.g., Dengue) or current concerns (e.g., H1N1, COVID-19). It can also potentially be shared with new partners (e.g., states, other agencies) so data collection is standardized and can be aggregated.

Florida has been repeatedly struck by catastrophic hurricanes and tornados in recent years, and 2024 is already shaping up to be another active year for severe weather events. To bolster disaster preparedness and response, the Florida Department of Health is partnering with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists to offer comprehensive trainings on disaster epidemiology and response surveying. From June 2024 through April 2025, five in-person trainings will be held for state- and county-level and health department staff. The first two sessions have already taken place with attendees from communities severely impacted by Hurricanes Ian (2022) and Idalia (2023). The sessions also incorporated multiple state-level actors whose work contributes to public health disaster response efforts or focuses on medically fragile populations who are disproportionately affected by service disruptions. These in-person trainings are designed to foster professional collaboration within the Department, creating a cohesive team prepared to tackle the challenges posed by natural disasters. Complementing these sessions is a robust webinar series that delves into the Department's in-house data systems used during disaster response. Topics include syndromic surveillance, EMS surveillance, acute infectious disease reporting, finalized emergency department and hospital data, and death records. This training initiative offers a vital opportunity to disseminate critical knowledge on the full spectrum of impacts that natural disasters have on Florida's diverse population. By equipping health professionals with this essential expertise, the Florida Department of Health aims to enhance the state's resilience and responsiveness to future emergencies, ensuring better outcomes for all residents.

The Coastal Inundation Community of Practice is a national network of practitioners that facilitates peer-to-peer learning, information exchange, and collaborative engagement to advance coastal flooding science, knowledge, and solutions. Coastal communities across the country are implementing innovative flood-reduction strategies to address increasing flooding challenges. In response, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office for Coastal Management, the National Sea Grant Office, and the American Society of Adaptation Professionals have come together to support a national community of practice focused on building resilience to coastal flooding. The participants include practitioners involved in making decisions about coastal community flood impacts (i.e., state and local planners, floodplain managers, emergency managers, resilience and climate coordinators, and resource managers) and the boundary spanners who engage with these audiences to enhance flood resilience. If you are interested in getting involved check out the Coastal Inundation Community of Practice Email Listserv and webpage to learn about upcoming events: https://adaptationprofessionals.org/coastal-inundation-community-of-practice/

Markets seem powerless to eliminate intractable problems like homelessness, disaster relief, and adult illiteracy, while solving previously impossible problems like global communication systems and reusable spacecraft. Complex and impossible problems can be profitable to solve, creating strong incentives for markets to innovate solutions. However, all intractable problems require third parties to internalize loss in the absence of macro profit opportunities to offset those losses. Networks dedicated to internalizing third-party loss are subject to forces both familiar to and alien from those found in traditional markets. These forces render a large class of problems manageable, but essentially unsolvable. Conventions of market analysis contain latent biases toward profit and value creation. These biases adopt the funder’s perspective and cannot tell the beneficiary’s story. I propose a network theory of loss distribution called an “unmarket.” An unmarket bifurcates a market buyer into its constituent parts—funder and beneficiary—then separates the parties. A beneficiary suffers overwhelming loss and cannot purchase a solution. With no resources, they must productize their suffering and find a funder to internalize some portion of their loss. Separating funder and beneficiary produces predictable innovation paradoxes. Forces of loss, rather than profit, govern unmarkets. Traditional market solutions produce consistent, predictably wasteful, and sometimes catastrophic results in unmarkets. Unmarket theory proposes a taxonomy and methodological framework to analyze them and improve outcomes for beneficiaries. Common unmarkets include racism, war, criminal justice, climate change, neglected tropical diseases, mental illness, human trafficking, humanitarianism, homelessness, homeland security, illiteracy, immigration, sexual assault, and online privacy.

The major objective of this research was to apply a conceptual model to examine which variables (i.e., risk perception, hazard experience, hazard intrusiveness, hazard information search, and demographics) have significant influences on people’s adoption of hazard adjustment (i.e., adequate preparedness and household emergency preparedness) in New York City. The regression results showed that only hurricane experience was a significant predictor of adequate preparedness while the hazard information search was a significant predictor of household emergency preparedness. Unexpectedly, the regression results revealed that psychological variables (i.e., flood risk perception, hurricane risk perception, and hazard intrusiveness) were not a predictor of either adequate preparedness or household emergency preparedness. In addition, the data demonstrated that New York City residents had relatively low levels of flood risk perception, hurricane risk perception, and hazard intrusiveness. Findings suggest local and state emergency managers need to increase awareness of hazard risk perception and hazard intrusiveness among New York City residents as well as their preparedness for future floods and hurricanes.

The recent increase in natural disasters events has created challenges for community organizations that provide relief assistance. Providing appropriate resources to local stakeholders, often requires collaboration between community partners, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and private businesses. Disaster relief organizations usually work independently during their decision-making process. Consequently, the attention to the marginal impacts of deploying relief supplies is limited. Using data from personal surveys and interviews of emergency managers and operators in the Central Florida region, the purpose of this study is to examine the contribution of public-private partnerships (PPP’s) to hurricane relief operations from an organizational perspective.