Hazards SEES: Enhancing Emergency Preparedness for Critical Infrastructure Failure during Extreme Heat Events

在美国，极端高温是导致天气相关死亡的主要原因之一。电动空调可以减少热量暴露，从而保护人体健康。由于需求的增加和更频繁的恶劣天气，电力停电已经变得越来越普遍。随着气候变化，预计会出现更频繁、更强烈的热浪，因此未来的停电可能会对公众健康造成重大风险，尤其是对儿童、老人和穷人。在热浪期间，为停电紧急情况做好准备并减少危害可能对健康有重要好处。本研究估计了亚特兰大、底特律和凤凰城同时发生的热浪和停电事件对人类健康的风险，并研究了减少极端高温影响的具体行动的潜在好处，包括环境变化、技术改进和行为改变。区域气候、建筑内部热暴露和人类健康影响的模型结合起来模拟热浪和电网停电情景下的人类热暴露，量化热相关疾病，并评估个人和机构适应策略的潜力，以减轻极端高温的影响。该项目估计了极端高温期间停电对人类健康的风险，这已经对公众健康造成了严重损害。这项研究的成果通过开发测量室内热暴露的新方法推动了科学的进步，并通过测试发电、被动冷却和在极端天气灾害中保护健康的行为适应来提高国民健康。这项研究进一步支持制定与热风险监测和疏散有关的应急响应计划的新协议。该项目的目标是根据当前和未来的气候条件，估计亚特兰大、底特律和凤凰城等城市在热浪条件下与模拟电网故障事件相关的死亡率和发病率，并评估具体的环境、技术和行为适应在减轻日益严重的热危害方面的有效性。这些城市因其不同的气候、人口和城市形态而被选中。该研究利用一个修正的健康影响函数来捕捉热浪和电网故障同时发生对死亡率和发病率的影响。通过将区域气候和建筑能源模型联系起来，结合每个区域的住宅建筑存量和电网基础设施信息，该研究评估了来自几个不同领域的应急准备和减灾战略的相对效益：城市气候学、建筑学、电气工程、公共卫生和城市社会学。该研究支持三个主要领域的知识进步和方法创新。首先，开发了一种新的热暴露度量-个体经验温度(IET) -首次能够根据日常热暴露模式对热风险进行个性化评估。通过对分类建筑类型的居住者的环境和室内温度和湿度的监测，结合可穿戴传感器收集的数据，将有可能在健康影响功能中用个性化的热暴露测量代替区域环境温度观测，从而改进热风险的量化。对IET的测量可以进一步量化在电网故障期间，当空调系统无法运行时，热疾病的风险增加。其次，区域气候和建筑能源模型的整合将有助于评估环境、技术和行为适应，以减少IET。特定热适应性测试直接为地方和州政府开展的应急准备和减灾规划提供信息。最后，收集对极端高温行为反应的调查数据扩展了我们对使用连续空调的人群如何应对极端高温条件的理解，并为识别和促进有效的个人适应提供了基础。

Extreme heat is among the leading causes of weather-related deaths in the US. Electrically-powered air conditioning can reduce heat exposure and thus protect human health. Due to rising demand and more frequent severe weather, electrical blackouts have become increasingly common. More frequent and intense heat waves are expected with climate change, so future blackouts may result in significant risks to public health, especially among children, the elderly, and the poor. Being prepared for blackout emergencies and reducing hazards may have important health benefits during heat waves. This research estimates the human health risk of concurrent heat wave and blackout events in the cities of Atlanta, Detroit, and Phoenix and examines the potential benefits of specific actions to reduce the impacts of extreme heat, including environmental changes, technological improvements, and behavioral changes. Models of regional climate, building interior heat exposure, and human health effects combine to simulate human heat exposure under heat wave and electrical grid blackout scenarios, quantify heat-related illness, and evaluate the potential for individual and institutional adaptive strategies to lessen the impacts of extreme heat. This project estimates the human health risk of blackouts during periods of extreme heat, which already take a heavy toll on public health. The outcomes of this research advances the progress of science through the development of a new approach to measuring indoor heat exposure and enhances national health through the testing of electrical generation, passive cooling, and behavioral adaptations to protect health during extreme weather hazards. This research further supports the development of new protocols for emergency response planning pertaining to heat risk monitoring and evacuation. The goals of this project are to estimate mortality and morbidity associated with simulated grid failure events during heat wave conditions in the cities of Atlanta, Detroit, and Phoenix in response to current and future climate conditions, and to assess the effectiveness of specific environmental, technological, and behavioral adaptations in mitigating a growing heat hazard. These cities were chosen for their different climatic, demographic, and urban form profiles. The research makes use of a modified health impact function to capture the effects of concurrent heat wave and grid failure events on mortality and morbidity. Through the linking of regional climate and building energy models, in combination with information on the residential building stock and grid infrastructure in each region, the study assesses the relative benefits of emergency preparedness and hazard mitigation strategies drawn from several distinct fields: urban climatology, architecture, electrical engineering, public health, and urban sociology. The study supports the advancement of knowledge and methodological innovation in three principal areas. First, the development of a new heat exposure metric - individual experienced temperature (IET) - enables for the first time an individualized assessment of heat risk responsive to daily patterns of heat exposure. Through the monitoring of both ambient and indoor temperature and humidity for occupants of classified building types, in combination with data collected through wearable sensors, it will be possible to substitute individualized measures of heat exposure for regional ambient temperature observations in health impact functions, improving the quantification of heat risk. Measurement of IET further enables quantification of the elevated risk of heat illness during periods of grid failure, when air conditioning systems are inoperable. Second, the integration of regional climate and building energy models will enable assessment of environmental, technological, and behavioral adaptations hypothesized to reduce IET. The testing of specific heat adaptations directly informs emergency preparedness and hazard mitigation planning undertaken by local and state governments. Finally, the collection of survey data on behavioral responses to extreme heat expands our understanding of how populations with variable access to continuous air conditioning cope with conditions of extreme heat and provides a basis to identify and promote effective personal adaptations.