Creating a Disaster Resilient America Grand Challenges in Science and Technology: Summary of a Workshop of the Disasters Roundtable (2005) / Chapter Skim
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Workshop Summary
Workshop Summary
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, a cabinet level group that is comprised of committees and subcommittees. Three NSTC subcommittees relate to the disaster reduction activities of the federal government: the Subcommittee on Disaster Reduction and the Intergovernmental Working Group on Earth Observations, which fall under the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, and the Subcommittee on Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences under the Committee on Science.
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For example, the November 2002 Denali Fault earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale occurred in Alaska in the location of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline (Figure 1)
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While it is important to place community disaster resilience on the national agenda, in the final analysis it is not achieved overnight, according to Nishenko. Community resilience results from a combination of building community-based partnerships, identifying hazards and community vulnerabilities, prioritizing hazard risk reduction activities, and maintaining momentum by sharing success stories.
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And according to Mileti, we give too much preference to high-tech fixes and federal resources, while underestimating the importance of community-based solutions to hazard vulnerability. What are some important trends relevant to the prospects for future community disaster resilience?
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The former involves a requisite active knowledge dissemination process, while the latter is much too passive. EMERGING FEDERAL GRAND CHALLENGE PERSPECTIVES AND PRIORITIES The National Science and Technology Council's Subcommittee on Disaster Reduction is identifying grand challenge priority investments related to disaster reduction in the nation.
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A total of 4600 local emergency managers are registered users of this software and communications system that is "a one-stop shop" where they can get direct output of a number of storm surge models on what will happen relative to the streams and creeks along coastal areas. NOAA has partnered with the U.S.
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Tenny, deputy under secretary for natural resources and environment for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, noted that the Forest Service manages the largest fire fighting organization in the world and that it is a truly premier wild land fire fighting operation.
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Gilman noted that EPA was engaged in a research effort in Midtown Manhattan at the time of the World Trade Center collapse on September 11, 2001, modeling air movement in an urban landscape. Specifically, they were looking at detailed fine-grained exposure modeling to help understand individual exposure to pollutants.
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The list of the agency's top successes over the last year have involved collaboration with NOAA to make improved forecasts possible, monitoring air quality in collaboration with EPA, partnering with the Forest Service in wildfire monitoring, and working with a group of agencies that include USGS, NOAA and the Federal Aviation Administration in monitoring volcanic ash that could pose a 9
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Much more is known now about radiological risks in communities than ever before, according to Suski, and interagency modeling and an atmospheric assessment center have been developed which will serve as the single source of hazards predictions for largescale airborne events. Suski noted that these developments represent a major success story in federal agency cooperation, raising the capacity of the nation's responders and making vulnerable communities more disaster resilient.
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This strategy makes sustainability the guiding principle for all public actions during recovery. In Mitchell's opinion, the holistic approach and emphasis upon sustainability puts disaster planning in New Zealand ahead of that in the United States According to Mitchell, the central government in China is actively upgrading its disaster relief and mitigation apparatus so that the country can channel some of the benefits of its rapid economic development into opportunities to transition from the current pattern of high disaster death tolls to low ones.
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Leatherman indicated that he is hopeful that more investments in wind research and wind hazard mitigation will be forthcoming with the passage of the National Windstorm Impact Reduction Act of 2004 to establish a National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program. He expressed hope that this activity will be as successful in developing strategies for countering wind hazards as NEHRP has been for almost 30 years in countering earthquake hazards.
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THE WAY FORWARD: FEDERAL AGENCY COORDINATION AND COLLABORATION Building on remarks made by earlier speakers on grand challenges in science and technology related to hazards, Helen Wood, NOAA's senior advisor for satellites and information services and chair of the SDR, gave an overview of the process to development the federal government's investment strategy to create a more disaster resilient nation. She noted that the SDR, under the direction of OSTP, is spearheading this effort and that the Disasters Roundtable workshop provided an important venue for the agencies to reach out and obtain the perspectives of external stakeholders, such as those in academia and the private sector.
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Hamilton saw the model code process as an exemplar of effective public/private cooperation and suggested that the approach could offer much benefit if used to solve other challenges to making the nation more disaster resilient. He noted that some of the promising candidate areas for employing a public/private process similar to that used for model building codes include developing standards for risk based insurance premiums, developing strategies for using cell phones for disaster warning, and developing model land use practices.
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2004. Hazards Watch: Reducing the Impact of Disasters Through Improved Earth Observations.
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