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

反复发生的洪水严重影响中西部和全国的农村社区。 “理解灾害发生原因的关键在于，灾害不仅是自然事件造成的。灾害也是社会、政治和经济环境的产物”（Wisner et al., 2004）。 该项目将评估以下之间的关系：1）洪水风险； 2) 当地对缓解措施的态度； 3）地方领导的回应； 4) 机构法规和政策，以创建一个关于灾难性洪水脆弱性的综合物理社会 GIS 模型，并用它来选择 30 个适合大规模洪水风险缓解的农村社区，例如通过社区搬迁。 我们将对30个社区的居民进行调查，并利用这些数据来回答有关农村社区对特大洪水风险生活的态度以及促进社区驱动的减少洪水风险的机制等问题。我们还将制定地方领导人必须遵循的制度、监管和法律政策，以实施主动缓解措施。我们将在 10 个社区进行对照实验，分配同等数量的实验干预组或对照组。对五个社区的干预将包括让领导人和居民就减少灾难性洪水损害的障碍、机会和激励措施进行多方面的讨论。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商社区态度、洪水风险以及政府结构和计划之间的潜在冲突。 这些结果将用于进一步完善 GIS 模型，并将其塑造为防洪减灾研究的工具。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洪泛区的自然、水文、经济、社会和制度景观，以确定？并开始实施？增强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、他们从灾难性洪水中恢复的能力，以及当地对有效缓解洪水灾害的态度，这既带来了机遇，也带来了挑战。 许多美国洪泛区居民对洪水的长期风险几乎处于一种否认的状态，许多人强烈抵制买断和其他可以有效减少未来洪水损失的缓解措施。 我们断言，通过以下方式可以大大减少有效降低风险的许多障碍：（1）在重大灾害发生之前进行主动规划，以及（2）社区规模的缓解项目，而不是零散地拆除建筑物和缓慢侵蚀受影响的社区。 该项目旨在创建一个社会水文框架和实践基础，以重新启动美国农村洪泛区的防洪工作。 该项目将提高公众对洪水风险的认识，促进密西西比河、伊利诺伊州和俄亥俄河沿岸一些美国风险最高社区的协调一致的减灾工作，并指导整个美国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.