Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for Fire Impacts, Remediation, and Education (FIRE)

规划拨款：火灾影响、修复和教育工程研究中心 (FIRE)

• 批准号: 1840654
• 负责人: Arvin Farid
• 金额: $ 9.98万
• 依托单位: Boise State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-09-01 至 2023-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1840654&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Planning; Grant; Engineering; Research; Center

The Planning Grants for Engineering Research Centers competition was run as a pilot solicitation within the ERC program. Planning grants are not required as part of the full ERC competition, but intended to build capacity among teams to plan for convergent, center-scale engineering research.A warmer and drier climate has supplied abundant fuel (e.g., dry brush) for wildfires, drastically increasing fire activity across much of western North America in the past decades. Wildfires burn through forests, shrublands, and grasslands, leaving marked societal and environmental scars. Wildfire impacts are not limited to the burned area or the short term, instead extending beyond the burn region and over the long term, e.g., health-related issues due to wildfire smoke reaching across state and national borders. The targeted societal and environmental impacts of this project range from the safety, well-being, and physical and psychological health of society to the safety and well-being of ecosystems at all scales, from microbial to global. The impacts can be direct and immediate, such as fatalities and injuries, or indirect and long-term, such as the financial burden on public and private entities and the health effect of pollution due to widespread smoke and contamination of groundwater by acidic rain or fire retardants. The proposed vision is to plan and establish an engineering research center (ERC), FIRE (fire, impacts, remediation, education), by a diverse team that will use a convergent approach and strategy to reach objectives of: (i) identifying the complex relation between wildfires and their broad, direct and indirect, short- and long-term impacts on the society and environment; (ii) identifying expertise necessary to study these impacts; (iii) identifying various stakeholders impacted by or impacting wildfires; (iv) establishing a continuous communication channel with these stakeholders; and (v) creating a strategic plan for the formation of a team of experts and stakeholders to ultimately find innovative and cost-effective ways to mitigate the problem, remediate and restore the environment after wildfires, and educate the public to help the mitigation and ensure their safety during and after wildfires. The grant activities include a kick-off meeting at Boise State, literature review, regular meetings and interviews with identified stakeholders to learn about impacts and other stakeholders, a major five-part workshop, reaching out to and attracting experts to fill gaps in the team's expertise, visiting up to a total of 12 ERCs to learn from successful ERC leaders, a series of physical and weekly cyber team-meetings, preparing initial drafts of an ERC proposal, two rounds of review, and revision of the ERC proposal. As mentioned, a major activity of the project is a five-part workshop held at Boise State where ERC leaders, national and local experts and community leaders, representatives from state and federal agencies, members of the insurance industry, and leading scientists and entrepreneurs will train the team and a larger group of researchers on developing successful proposals for and running sustainable ERCs; communication with and engaging stakeholders and educating the public; enhancing a culture of inclusion and diversity; and the science and various other aspects of wildfires, their impacts, and impact mitigation. The project will also leverage the PIs' past collaboration with diversity institutions and inclusion of an associate director for diversity into the team to enhance the culture of inclusion, diversity, and sustainability within the ERC team throughout the planning grant, subsequent ERC, academic/professional communities, and society. We will work toward improved involvement of and communication with the public and private stakeholders (i.e., parties impacted by or impacting wildfires, including national and state agencies such as the Forest Services and Bureau of Land Management, policymakers, and leaders of communities and industries at high risk of wildfire) and prepare a well-thought proposal for a sustainable ERC that will ultimately help mitigate wildfires' negative impacts. The strategy to make this possible is understanding the complex fire-weather relations and impacts, developing data-driven predictive fire characteristic models, and educating the public to help prevent human-ignited wildfires and ensure public safety during wildfires and avoid harm from short- and long-term impacts. There will also be a focus on team and capacity building necessary to reach the above-mentioned goals via the proposed strategies. To better implement these steps via planning and developing the proposed ERC, the team will learn from prior ERCs across the United States and leverage their experience to design a sustainable ERC better adapted to new ERC requirements.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

工程研究中心的规划赠款竞争是作为ERC计划内的试点招标运行。 规划赠款不需要作为整个ERC竞争的一部分，但旨在建立团队之间的能力，以规划收敛，中心规模的工程研究。干燥的灌木丛）的野火，在过去的几十年里，北美西部大部分地区的火灾活动急剧增加。野火烧过森林、灌木丛和草地，留下明显的社会和环境伤痕。野火的影响并不局限于燃烧区域或短期内，而是延伸到燃烧区域以外，并在长期内，例如，由于野火烟雾跨越州和国界而造成的健康相关问题。该项目的目标社会和环境影响范围从社会的安全、福祉和身心健康到从微生物到全球的所有规模的生态系统的安全和福祉。这些影响可能是直接和即时的，如死亡和受伤，也可能是间接和长期的，如公共和私营实体的财政负担，以及由于广泛的烟雾和酸雨或阻燃剂污染地下水而造成的污染对健康的影响。拟议的愿景是规划和建立一个工程研究中心（ERC），消防（火灾、影响、补救、教育），由一个多元化的团队负责，该团队将采用统一的方法和战略，以实现以下目标：（一）确定野火与其对社会和环境的广泛、直接和间接、短期和长期影响之间的复杂关系; ㈡确定研究这些影响所需的专门知识; ㈢确定受野火影响或对野火产生影响的各种利益攸关方; ㈣与这些利益攸关方建立持续的沟通渠道;以及（v）制定一项战略计划，以组建一个专家和利益攸关方小组，最终找到创新和具有成本效益的方法来缓解这一问题，在野火发生后，补救和恢复环境，教育公众帮助缓解，并确保他们在野火期间和之后的安全。赠款活动包括在博伊西州的启动会议，文献综述，定期会议和与确定的利益相关者的访谈，以了解影响和其他利益相关者，一个主要的五部分研讨会，接触和吸引专家，以填补团队的专业知识空白，访问多达12个ERC，向成功的ERC领导人学习，一系列的物理和每周网络团队会议，准备ERC提案的初稿，两轮审查，以及ERC提案的修订。 如前所述，该项目的一项主要活动是在博伊西州举办一个由五部分组成的讲习班，由环境资源中心领导人、国家和地方专家和社区领导人、州和联邦机构的代表、保险业成员以及主要科学家和企业家对该小组和一大批研究人员进行培训，以便为可持续的环境资源中心制定成功的建议并使其运作起来;与利益攸关方的沟通和参与以及教育公众;加强包容性和多样性的文化;以及野火的科学和其他各个方面、其影响和减轻影响。该项目还将利用PI过去与多样性机构的合作，并将一名负责多样性的副主任纳入团队，以在整个规划补助金、随后的ERC、学术/专业社区和社会中增强ERC团队内的包容性、多样性和可持续性文化。我们将努力改善公共和私人利益相关者的参与和沟通（即，森林资源委员会（ERC）将与受野火影响或对野火产生影响的各方（包括国家和州机构，如林业局和土地管理局、政策制定者以及面临野火高风险的社区和行业领导人）进行沟通，并为最终有助于减轻野火负面影响的可持续ERC准备一份深思熟虑的提案。实现这一目标的战略是了解复杂的火灾-天气关系和影响，开发数据驱动的预测火灾特征模型，并教育公众帮助预防人为点燃的野火，确保野火期间的公共安全，避免短期和长期影响造成的伤害。还将重点关注通过拟议战略实现上述目标所需的团队和能力建设。为了更好地实施这些步骤，通过规划和发展拟议的ERC，该团队将学习以前的ERC在美国各地，并利用他们的经验，设计一个可持续的ERC更好地适应新的ERC的要求。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得支持的评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。