Climate Complexity and Emergency Response

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This award is made under NSF's EAGER funding mechanism, which supports Early-concept Grants for Exploratory Research. The project, directed by anthropologist Dr. Adriana Petryna (University of Pennsylvania), is the first step in a larger investigation of the links between evolving scientific understanding of extreme climatic events and changing modes of emergency response. Recent extreme events, such as "superstorm" Sandy and drought-linked "megafires," signal abrupt ecological shifts that call for revamped approaches to managing risk. Front-line responders know that the old models, grounded in gradualist views of change, no longer suffice. But assessing and implementing the new science of abrupt regime shifts is complicated by problems of science gaps, knowledge transfer, and public policy acceptance. The researcher will identify these management issues to enable a direct and timely interaction between the evolving science of abrupt climate change and its emergency response.Petryna will focus this preliminary phase on the notion of "safety zones," preplanned areas protecting populations from predictable hazards. Safety zones, be they in the context of a hurricane or a wildfire, are supposed to integrate the best of basic scientific research and applied risk management but recent events have challenged the traditional wisdom and rules for safety zone delineation. Petryna's primary data collection will be done with engineers, experimental fire scientists, emergency shelter designers, firefighters, and dispatchers at the Fire Sciences Laboratory of the Rocky Mountain Station in Missoula, Montana, and with county and municipal emergency management teams in New Jersey coastal towns. Across these sites, she will employ ethnographic and observational methodologies to collect data in laboratories, where scientists and engineers study the dynamics of physical phenomena under transformed ecological conditions; in field settings, where emergency workers engage in changing conditions of safety and intervention; and in emergency management agencies, where decisions about feasibility of intervention are made. The researcher will also confer with regime shift researchers. Findings from this research will map the evolving systems of knowledge that link abrupt ecological change, extreme climatic events, and take-up by frontline emergency personnel.