Hazards SEES Type 2: Modeling to Promote Regional Resilience to Repeated Heat Waves and Hurricanes

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Communities are interested in becoming more resilient to weather extremes but often lack the tools and resources to fully understand the problems and make good decisions. This lack of understanding is understandable given the complex and interrelated nature of the impacts from extreme events. Communities need to design solutions for infrastructure management, land use planning, public health, and emergency management, understanding how each is related to the other. In areas that are subject to repeated events, the problem is exacerbated. In this project, an interdisciplinary team of researchers will develop an integrated model, the Integrated Hazard, Impact, and Resilience Model to better understand the impacts of repeated hurricanes and heat waves on regional vulnerability and resilience and use the model to develop approaches for improving resilience to these repeated hazards. The team integrates expertise in individual and organizational behavior, economic modeling, climate science, infrastructure engineering, hazard modeling, public health, and spatial landscape analysis. The work on this project will be grounded in and integrated through systems modeling. The goal of the project is to significantly advance the understanding of the impacts from hurricanes and heat waves on the vulnerability and resilience of regions over time and the tools and resources available to help regions better prevent repeated hazards from becoming repeated disasters.The mid-Atlantic region will be the case study for this project, grounding the work in a critical region of the U.S., one that has a growing population facing increasing threats from weather extremes. The team will also have strong international collaborators, helping to make sure the work has broad applicability to other areas of the world. As part of this project, a set of undergraduates, masters, and doctoral students as well as postdoctoral scholars will be trained in trans-disciplinary hazards research and modeling. This cadre of students and researchers will form a critical resource for the nation, helping to improve regional resilience to repeated hurricanes and heat waves.