RAPID: Mitigating Litigating: NSF RAPID Proposal to Study Social and Psychological Impacts of the 2012 BP Claims Settlement

这项快速研究将调查英国石油公司深水地平线石油泄漏对海湾社区的社会和心理影响。 该研究探讨了技术灾难后的解决和诉讼过程如何影响沿着墨西哥湾北方沿海社区的社会和心理恢复。主要研究者，李奇里奇，是技术灾难的社会和心理影响方面的领先专家。她已经做了二十多年的研究，从她对1989年阿拉斯加埃克森巴尔德斯号事故后果的开创性研究开始。 在早期北极社会科学快速奖的基础上，该奖项支持在BP泄漏事件发生后立即收集数据，该快速奖将使里奇和她的团队能够收集BP法律的解决方案后的数据，并创建一个与受埃克森巴尔德斯影响的社区的法律的解决方案后数据的比较数据集。 该项目响应了国家社会科学灾害研究理事会委员会-国家科学和技术理事会-和国土安全部/联邦紧急事务管理局关于研究社区抗灾能力的呼吁。这项研究将增进对灾后进程的了解，例如诉讼和及时解决损害索赔可以促进或阻碍社区恢复。这项研究直接回应了联邦关于社区抗灾能力政策和实践研究的重要问题。正如申请人所指出的那样，这项研究是总统重组国土安全和国家安全委员会的一个明确重点，也是国土安全部科学和技术局的一个优先事项。 此外，研究成果将用于为地方、州和联邦关于社区对技术和自然灾害的复原力的倡议提供信息。

This RAPID research will investigate the social and psychological effects of the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill on Gulf communities. The research examines how settlement and litigation processes in the aftermath of technological disaster are influencing social and psychological recovery in coastal communities along the northern Gulf of Mexico. The Primary Investigator, Liesel Ritchie, is a leading expert on the social and psychological effects of technological disasters. She has done over two decades of research, starting with her seminal research on the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez in Alaska, 1989. Building on an early Arctic Social Sciences RAPID award that supported the collection of data immediately following the BP spill, this RAPID will allow Ritchie and her team to gather date following the BP legal settlement and create a comparative data set with the post legal settlement data from the communities affected by the Exxon Valdez. The project responds to calls for research on community resilience to disasters by the National Research Council Committee on Disaster Research in the Social Sciences- the National Council on Science and Technology- and the Department of Homeland Security/Federal Emergency Management Agency. This research will advance knowledge regarding ways in which post-disaster processes such as litigation and the timely settlement of damage claims can facilitate or hinder community recovery. The research is responding directly to important federal issues on research on policy and practice for community disaster resilience. As pointed out by the applicant- this research is an explicit focus of the Presidents reorganization of the Homeland Security and National Security Councils and is a priority of the DHS Science and Technology Directorate. In addition, research results will be used to inform local- state- and federal initiatives with respect to community resilience to both technological and natural disasters.