A Clearinghouse on Natural Hazards Research and Applications

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ABSTRACTThe Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder has served as a national and international clearinghouse for research data on natural disasters, related technological events, and programs to reduce damages from them since 1976. This proposal requests renewal of support for the Center for the two-year period from October 2002 through September 2004. While the Center's basic activities will not changer significantly, they will be adjusted to reflect the new challenges facing the hazard community in the 21st century. The Center will continue to monitor and disseminate hazards research information to multiple users. Furthermore, it will publish and distribute the Natural Hazards Observer to over 15,000 subscribers six times a year, operate the electronic Disaster Research newsletter, and disseminate information via the World Wide Web and traditional hard copy publications. The Center will continue to co-sponsor the Natural Hazards Review journal with the American society of civil Engineers and produce the Natural Hazards Information publication series. It will continue to build its library database as well as upgrade the system it uses to put the database on the Web. In July of 2003 and 2004, the Center will sponsor an annual national and international workshop involving hazards researchers and practitioners. Also, the Center will provide travel grants to social scientists to conduct "quick response" studies of specific hazard events in the immediate post-disaster period, while simultaneously facilitate a conversation to explore the need for the United States to establish a more systematic approach to "quick response" research following major urban disasters. The Center's in-house research program will focus in two directions. First, it will develop a program to sponsor competitive dissertation grants for new scholars of hazards and risk. Second, research will continue to questions identified in Disasters by Design: A Reassessment of Natural Hazards in the United States (Mileti and others, 1999).