Facing Hazards and Disasters Understanding Human Dimensions (2006) / Chapter Skim
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7 The Role of State-of-the-Art Technologies and Methods for Enhancing Studies of Hazards and Disasters
7 The Role of State-of-the-Art Technologies and Methods for Enhancing Studies of Hazards and Disasters
Pages 248-285
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From page 248... ...
7 The Role of State-of-the-Art Technologies and Methods for Enhancing Studies of Hazards and Disasters T echnical and methodological enhancement of hazards and disaster research is identified as a key issue in Chapter 1, and computer systems and sensors are discussed in Chapter 2 as technological components of societal change having important implications for research on societal response to hazards and disasters. As summarized in Chapters 3 and 4, pre-impact investigations of hazard vulnerability, the characteristics and potential impacts of alternative hazards, and related structural and nonstructural hazard mitigation measures have been the sine qua non of hazards research.
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THE ROLE OF STATE-OF-THE-ART TECHNOLOGIES 249 from these investigations cannot become more standardized, machine readable, and stored in accessible data archives. Having learned what to look for after decades of post-disaster investigations by social scientists, the potential for highly structured research designs and replicable datasets across multiple disaster types and events can now be realized.
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250 FACING HAZARDS AND DISASTERS DOING HAZARDS AND DISASTER RESEARCH In examining hazards and disasters through disciplinary, multidisciplinary, and interdisciplinary lenses and perspectives (see Chapters 3 to 6) , social science researchers have used a variety of technologies and methods.
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THE ROLE OF STATE-OF-THE-ART TECHNOLOGIES 251 on the one hand and disasters on the other. In social time, in effect, the respective explanatory demands of hazards and disaster researchers become one and the same.
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252 FACING HAZARDS AND DISASTERS ogy has been singularly important. A useful illustration because of its importance to hazards and disaster research is technological change in the administration of social surveys.
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THE ROLE OF STATE-OF-THE-ART TECHNOLOGIES 253 there have been significant changes in technology that have increased the choices of administration methods. In the 1970s, computer-assisted telephone interviewing became available.
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254 FACING HAZARDS AND DISASTERS facilitated by state-of-the-art technologies and methods within mainstream social science. However, the data being produced are largely not standardized across multiple hazards and disasters, not archived for continuing access, and underutilized once the original research objectives have been met.
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For example, studies of post-disaster national response, recovery, and public policy actions may best be completed in capital cities where decision agendas are established and resources are allocated. The level of funding, research foci, methods, availability of data, their quality, and the duration of the study vary greatly across these chronological stages, but resources permitting, the net long-term results can provide important advances in knowledge.
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256 FACING HAZARDS AND DISASTERS 4. Long-Term Recovery and Reconstruction: During this period the sometimes permanent consequences of earlier decisions (or non decisions)
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. This book includes social science analyses of the disaster responses following the Septem ber 11 attacks, such as individual and collective actions, public policy and private sector roles, and engineering analyses on physical impacts on physical structures and infrastructures.
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258 FACING HAZARDS AND DISASTERS tiveness of today's LFE program can be traced directly to that paradigm shift. Within the normal constraints of NSF funding, combined with the support capabilities of other organizations (such as the Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center [NHRAIC]
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THE ROLE OF STATE-OF-THE-ART TECHNOLOGIES 259 recommendations included in these chapters. As noted in Chapter 5, some of these recommendations are disciplinary based, some involve interdisciplinary research among the social sciences, and some require interdisciplinary research that connects the social sciences with natural science and engineering fields.
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260 FACING HAZARDS AND DISASTERS tance that it is discussed separately. The others include (2)
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THE ROLE OF STATE-OF-THE-ART TECHNOLOGIES 261 opment and the capabilities of the disaster research community. As summarized in Chapters 3 to 6 of this report, the focusing on gender, ethnic, and cross-cultural diversity has several positive results.
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262 FACING HAZARDS AND DISASTERS Nazis during the war focused attention on the need to protect participants in research. Although initially concerned primarily with biomedical research, by the 1960s federal agencies had begun to consider the potential risks of sociobehavioral research.
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THE ROLE OF STATE-OF-THE-ART TECHNOLOGIES 263 BOX 7.2 Impact of IRB Requirements One example was a proposed study of the perceived effects of convergence behavior in hospital emergency departments following a well-publicized mass casualty event. Researchers proposed to conduct a study using anonymous self administered questionnaires.
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264 FACING HAZARDS AND DISASTERS The NEHRP plan recognizes that modern post-disaster investigations are far more complex and sophisticated than they were just a few decades ago when teams were small, often funded voluntarily by their members, and of short duration. It also recognizes the need to avoid overwhelming local contacts and organizations in the interest of learning about hazards and disasters, particularly in foreign settings when local officials and residents -- many of whom might have experienced losses in the disaster -- could be operating under very stressful conditions.
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THE ROLE OF STATE-OF-THE-ART TECHNOLOGIES 265 standardization of social science data collection is essential for achieving these objectives. Attempts to standardize data collection efforts and instruments have occurred intermittently within the social science research community and with variable success.
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266 FACING HAZARDS AND DISASTERS disasters, existing conceptual and methodological tools that have been used to study individuals, households, disaster-relevant organizations, and multiorganizational response networks can be readily applied to these related topics. So the groundwork has been established through past social science research under NEHRP and other funding sources for standardizing data across multiple hazards and events.
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Additionally, the research program has developed a methodology to isolate individual role behaviors in orga nizations and social networks as either consistent or inconsistent with pre-disaster positions, as either continuous or discontinuous with pre-disaster relationships among positions, and as performed either conventionally or improvised. Both the findings and the methodology of William and Mary archival research have drawn the interest of researchers from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the New Jersey Institute of Technology who have expertise in disaster research, information science, and decision science.
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268 FACING HAZARDS AND DISASTERS at the Earthquake Engineering Research Center Library at the University of California, Berkeley and the Social Science Research Archive at the Institute for Social Science Research, University of California, Los Angeles. Such archiving of general population surveys is consistent with mainstream social science practices generally.
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THE ROLE OF STATE-OF-THE-ART TECHNOLOGIES 269 and professional services that support extraction of data, visual imaging, and Web browsing)
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270 FACING HAZARDS AND DISASTERS Computing and Communications Technologies Much of the change in qualitative data collection in hazards and disaster research has resulted from improvements in audio and video recordings of data collected in the field. High-fidelity microphones and the ability to digitally record images and sounds have become accessible to all researchers in the last few years.
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THE ROLE OF STATE-OF-THE-ART TECHNOLOGIES 271 cent having Internet access. With telephone and cable companies offering access to DSL and broadband Internet, more and more homes have highspeed access to the Internet, allowing more complex forms of information to be accessed (e.g., streaming video)
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272 FACING HAZARDS AND DISASTERS Geospatial and Temporal Methods As noted throughout this report, hazards exist and disasters occur in chronological time and physical space. Whereas maps have been the traditional manner by which geographers represent things in physical space, a new definition of mapping suggests that it allows for more than just placing things on maps; more basically, it allows for understanding the spatial nature of things (Edson, 2001)
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THE ROLE OF STATE-OF-THE-ART TECHNOLOGIES 273 in topography and geography from pre- to post-disaster. An example is the pre- and post-impact comparisons of aerial photography to measure impacts such as those from Hurricane Andrew (Hodgson and Cutter, 2001; Ramsey et al., 2001)
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274 FACING HAZARDS AND DISASTERS BOX 7.4 GIS and Remote Sensing Technologies Using an innovative approach with geographic information system (GIS) and remote sensing technology, the LandScan global population project has devel oped a population distribution model that produces the finest resolution population distribution data available for the entire world and the continental United States (Bhaduri et al., 2002)
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THE ROLE OF STATE-OF-THE-ART TECHNOLOGIES 275 such as those that concentrate on the hazard characteristics of counties (resolution) for the entire United States (spatial extent)
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In similar fashion, computational models used for social forecasting integrate theories from a variety of social science as well as interdisciplinary fields such as urban and regional planning, public policy and administration, and public health management. Computational modeling provides an opportunity for social scientists conducting studies of hazards and disasters to integrate theories and empirical findings from the natural sciences, engineering, and social sciences into models that can be used for decision making.
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THE ROLE OF STATE-OF-THE-ART TECHNOLOGIES 277 the above GIS and remote sensing systems had rendered the development of automated loss estimation tools feasible. As noted above, HAZUS (NIBS-FEMA, 1999)
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278 FACING HAZARDS AND DISASTERS edge of when, where, how, and why role behaviors and organizational adaptations occur following a disaster (Mendonca and Wallace, 2004)
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THE ROLE OF STATE-OF-THE-ART TECHNOLOGIES 279 These statistical models range from relatively simple to highly complex configurations of variables, but over time the increasing capacity of computers to process enormous volumes of data has allowed the development of the kinds of computational techniques discussed above. Computational models are more powerful to the extent that simulated data are informed by real data.
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280 FACING HAZARDS AND DISASTERS validation of computational models of social phenomena)
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THE ROLE OF STATE-OF-THE-ART TECHNOLOGIES 281 with pre-designed instruments to be completed by trained observers. Videotaping can be also used, but usually needs to be electronically transcribed for analysis -- resulting in a great deal of qualitative data that require extensive effort to analyze.
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282 FACING HAZARDS AND DISASTERS BOX 7.5 Realism in Gaming Simulation A serendipitous evaluation of a gaming simulation yielded the observation that realism in the crisis environment was replicated in the simulation environment in terms of both organizational- and individual-level responses. The evaluation entailed data collection during a training exercise held by the U.S.
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THE ROLE OF STATE-OF-THE-ART TECHNOLOGIES 283 Recommendation 7.1: The National Science Foundation and Department of Homeland Security should jointly support the establishment of a nongovernmental Panel on Hazards and Disaster Informatics. The panel should be interdisciplinary and include social scientists and engineers from hazards and disaster research as well as experts on informatics issues from cognitive science, computational science, and applied science.
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284 FACING HAZARDS AND DISASTERS recommendations summarized in Chapters 3 to 6, and discussions of research methods, techniques, and informatics issues in this chapter -- provides the foundation for the recommended panel. The work of this panel should commence as soon as possible.
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THE ROLE OF STATE-OF-THE-ART TECHNOLOGIES 285 As documented in this chapter, computational modeling, visualization, and gaming experiments are important tools for building on and applying knowledge gained from field studies. Heretofore the use of these technical tools has not been integrated, thus reducing their potential value.
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