Collaborative Research: Geospatial Modeling for Pro-active Flood Mitigation in the Rural Midwest

反复发生的洪水严重影响了中西部和全国的农村社区。“理解灾难发生的关键在于，造成灾难的不仅仅是自然事件，它们也是社会、政治和经济环境的产物”(Wisner等人，2004年)。该项目将评估以下方面之间的关系：1)洪灾风险；2)当地对缓解洪灾的态度；3)地方领导的应对措施；4)体制法规和政策，以便创建一个关于灾难性洪灾脆弱性的综合物理-社会地理信息系统模型，并利用该模型选择30个适合大规模减轻洪灾风险的农村社区，例如通过社区搬迁。我们将对30个社区的居民进行调查，并利用这些数据回答农村社区对巨灾风险生活的态度，以及促进社区主导降低洪灾风险的机制。我们还将制定地方领导人为实施积极主动的缓解措施而必须导航的制度、监管和法律政策。我们将在10个社区进行一项对照实验，随机分为实验干预组和控制组。对这五个社区的干预将包括让领导人和居民参与多方面的讨论，讨论减少灾难性洪水破坏的障碍、机会和激励措施。对干预措施的民族志分析将使我们能够定性地测试当地领导人如何协调社区态度、洪水风险以及政府结构和项目之间的潜在冲突。这些结果将被用来进一步完善地理信息系统模型，并将其塑造为减灾和减灾研究的工具。该项目的目标是分析密西西比河、俄亥俄河和伊利诺伊河农村泛滥平原的自然、水文、经济、社会和制度景观，以确定？并开始实施吗？提高农村社区复原力的战略。该项目的实际目标是评估农村洪泛区社区的脆弱性、其从灾难性洪灾中恢复的能力以及当地的态度，这些态度为切实减轻洪灾带来了机遇和挑战。许多美国洪泛平原居民实际上对洪水的长期风险持否认态度，许多人强烈反对买断和其他缓解措施，这些措施可能会有意义地减少未来的洪水损失。我们断言，有效减少风险的许多障碍可以通过(1)在重大灾害之前进行主动规划，以及(2)社区规模的缓解项目，而不是零敲碎打地拆除建筑物和缓慢侵蚀受影响的社区，从而大大减少。该项目旨在创建一个社会水文框架和实践基础，以重振美国农村洪泛区的洪灾缓解努力。该项目将提高公众对洪水风险的认识，在密西西比河、伊利诺伊州和俄亥俄河沿岸一些美国风险最高的社区促进协调减灾工作，并指导全美的灾害和减灾研究和应用。

Repetitive flooding severely affects rural communities in the Midwest and nationwide. "The crucial point about understanding why disasters happen is that it is not only natural events that cause them. They are also the product of social, political, and economic environments" (Wisner et al., 2004). This project will evaluate relationships between: 1) flood risk; 2) local attitudes towards mitigation; 3) responses of local leadership; and 4) institutional regulations and policies in order to create an integrated physical-social GIS model of vulnerability to catastrophic flooding and use it to select 30 rural communities suitable for large-scale flood risk mitigation such as through community relocation. We will survey residents in the 30 communities and use these data to answer questions about rural communities' attitudes towards living with catastrophic flood risk and mechanisms for promoting community-driven reductions in flood risk. We will also map institutional, regulatory, and legal policies that local leaders must navigate to implement proactive mitigation. We will conduct a controlled experiment in 10 communities, assigned in equal number to experimental intervention or to a control group. Intervention in the five communities will consist of engaging leaders and residents in multifaceted discussion of the obstacles, opportunities, and incentives for reducing exposure to catastrophic flood damage. Ethnographic analysis of the interventions will allow us to qualitatively test how local leaders negotiate potential conflicts between community attitudes, flood risk, and governmental structures and programs. These results will be used to further refine the GIS model and shape it as a tool for flood mitigation and mitigation research. The goal of this project is to analyze the physical, hydrological, economic, social and institutional landscape of rural floodplains of the Mississippi, Ohio, and Illinois Rivers to identify ? and begin implementing ? strategies for increasing rural community resilience. The practical goals of this project are to assess the vulnerability of rural floodplain communities, their capacity to recover from catastrophic flooding, and local attitudes that present both opportunities and challenges to meaningful mitigation of flood hazard. Many U.S. floodplain residents live in a virtual state-of-denial regarding the long-term risk of flooding, and many vociferously resist buyouts and other mitigation measures that could meaningfully reduce future flood damages. We assert that many obstacles to effective risk reduction could be dramatically reduced by (1) proactive planning ahead of major disasters, and (2) community-scale mitigation projects, rather than piecemeal removal of structures and slow erosion of affected communities. This project seeks to create a socio-hydrological framework and practical foundation to reenergize flood mitigation efforts on rural U.S. floodplains. The project will promote public awareness of flood risk and foster coordinated mitigation efforts in some of the nation's most at-risk communities along the Mississippi, Illinois, and Ohio Rivers and guide hazard and mitigation research and applications throughout the U.S.