IUCRC Phase I, San Jose State University: Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center (WIRC)

这个位于圣何塞州立大学的野火产学研合作研究中心（IUCRC）提供工具，观察和预测，以及研究结果，供第一反应者，对风险分析感兴趣的人以及受野火影响和关注的社区和公司/公用事业的政策制定者使用。中心的研究重点包括火灾天气和大气建模和预测;火灾行为监测和建模;野火管理和政策，以及气候变化和野火风险。IUCRC是大学和行业之间的创新合作，来自国家科学基金会的资金用于资助中心的行政费用，行业通过会员费和其他资金提供财政支持，以支持中心的研究项目和学生/博士后工资。为中心做出贡献的行业成员组成了工业咨询委员会，该委员会帮助选择由中心教师提出的研究项目，以满足成员的集体研究需求。因此，IUCRC的研究是竞争前的和基本的，其工业咨询委员会指导的主题是消除阻碍其经济部门向前发展的障碍。关于野火的圣何塞州立大学IUCRC将与工业、公用事业和政府机构合作，增加我们对野火及其蔓延的了解，并探索其社会和经济影响。它还将审查使受影响人口更好地遵守疏散规定的手段。该中心将开发工具和模型，从而更好，更准确地模拟野火的启动和模拟。该中心的广泛影响是强大的，多方面的，具有重大的社会和经济意义，因为美国西部和世界各地的野火是一个严重的问题，造成生命损失，财产损失，以及持续数十年的严重环境和生态系统破坏。目前全球变暖的加剧将增加野火的发生，因此该中心的研究产品将有助于受野火影响的行业，社区和国家。生成的产品包括提高对文件和消防牌运输的理解，建模工具，以帮助公用事业公司更好地管理他们的资产在高火灾危险的时候，在火灾季节提供关键信息给第一响应者，并预测火灾前线路径和火线前进速度。其他影响包括教育和劳动力培训工作以及科学和工程领域代表性不足的群体的参与。受野火影响的服务不足社区将成为野火教育和宣传工作的目标，因为这些人口往往受到野火的负面影响最大。澳大利亚和葡萄牙等受野火影响的外国组织对中心的兴趣将使该中心的工作成果在全球范围内得到推广。野火跨学科研究中心（WIRC）是一个产学合作研究中心，其目的是进行高影响力的野火研究，为世界各地的社区和行业利益相关者提供工具和知情政策。它的使命是开发新的预测和观测系统，以更好地了解气候变化中的极端火灾行为。该中心还将开发一种综合方法，通过提供跨越物理，社会和经济科学领域的跨学科解决方案来解决国家的野火问题。该中心将有助于以下野火科学：火灾天气和耦合火灾-大气建模和预测，这将涉及为行业利益相关者开发新的火灾危险指标;火灾行为监测和建模，新的理论，观察，以及火灾和火灾品牌传播模型将为预测系统开发;野火管理和政策，研究野火管理和适应野火易发景观的社会和自然背景的关系;以及气候变化和野火风险。对于这些研究重点，高分辨率的再分析和现场数据将被用来确定历史趋势和模型将被用来量化这些决定因素对火灾行为的影响。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

This Industry-University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC) on Wildfires, located at San Jose State University, provides tools, observational and predictive, and research results for use by first responders, those interested in risk analysis, and policy makers for communities and companies/utilities impacted by, and concerned about, wildfires. Center research thrusts include fire weather and atmospheric modeling and forecasting; fire behavior monitoring and modeling; wildfire management and policy, and climate change and wildfire risk. IUCRCs are innovative collaborations between universities and industry where funding from the National Science Foundation is used to fund Center administrative costs and industry provides financial support via membership fees, and other funding, to support Center research projects and student/postdoc salaries. Industry members contributing to the Center form its industrial advisory board that helps select research projects, proposed by Center faculty, that address the members’ collective research needs. Thus, research in an IUCRC is pre-competitive and fundamental with topics directed by its industrial advisory board to remove obstacles that are preventing their sector of the economy from moving forward. The San Jose State University IUCRC on wildfires will be working with industry, utilities, and government agencies to increase our knowledge of wildfires and their spread and explore their social and economic implications. It will also examine means of generating better evacuation compliance from impacted populations. The Center will develop tools and models resulting in better and more accurate simulations of wildfire initiation and simulation. The broader impacts of this Center are strong and multifaceted with significant societal and economic relevance because wildfires in the western US and around the world are a serious problem that cause loss of life, loss of property, and serious environmental and ecosystem damage that lasts for decades. The present exacerbation in global warming will increase wildfire occurrence, so research products produced by this Center will help industry, communities and countries impacted by wildfires. Products to be generated include improved understanding of file and firebrand transport, modeling tools to help utilities better manage their assets in times of high fire danger, provision of critical information to first responders during the fire season, and prediction of fire front paths and fire line rates of advance. Other impacts include education and workforce training efforts and the involvement of groups underrepresented in the sciences and engineering. Underserved communities, impacted by wildfires, will be targeted for wildfire education and informational efforts as these populations tend to be the most negatively impacted by wildfires. Interest in the Center by organizations in foreign countries impacted by wildfires, like Australia and Portugal, will extend the results of this Center’s work globally. The Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center (WIRC) is an Industry-University Cooperative Research Center whose purpose is to conduct high-impact wildfire research to provide tools and informed policies to communities and industry stakeholders around the world. Its mission is to develop new prediction and observational systems to better understand extreme fire behavior in a changing climate. The Center will also develop an integrated approach to solving the nation’s wildfire problem by providing cross-disciplinary solutions that span the physical, social, and economic scientific fields. The Center will contribute to the following wildfire sciences: fire weather and coupled fire-atmosphere modeling and forecasting which will involve the development of new fire danger metrics for industry stakeholders; fire behavior monitoring and modeling for which new theories, observations, and fire and fire brand spread models for will be developed for forecast systems; wildfire management and policy which examines the nexus of the social and natural contexts of wildfire management and adaptation across wildfire prone landscapes; and climate change and wildfire risk. For these research thrusts, high-resolution reanalysis and in-situ data will be used to determine historical trends and models will be used to quantify the influence of these determinants on fire behavior.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.