SCC-CIVIC-FA Track B: Helping Rural Counties to Enhance Flooding and Coastal Disaster Resilience and Adaptation

洪水是美国自然灾害的主要原因，国会预算办公室估计每年损失540亿美元。尽管城市和农村地区都极易受到洪水灾害的影响，但大多数自然灾害恢复能力研究都集中在城市地区，往往忽视了农村社区。其中一个被忽视的地区是与五大湖接壤的许多农村社区。由于水位上升，特别是自2012年以来，这些社区面临着前所未有的挑战，导致这些社区发生了严重的沿海洪水。洪水灾害评估是支持社区确定如何减轻洪水的关键工具；然而，目前的洪水灾害建模工具存在数据缺口，使其对农村社区不准确。该项目将社区合作伙伴——包括地区规划机构、县官员和基维诺湾印第安社区的地方官员——与一个大学团队联合起来，了解密歇根州北部两个农村县在应对洪水和沿海灾害方面的数据缺口。该项目将使用各种策略，包括传感器和众包信息，以填补改善五大湖周边农村社区洪水灾害建模所需的关键信息空白。联邦紧急事务管理局（FEMA）和国土安全部（DHS）通常建议各县使用一种名为HAZUS的免费工具来制定减灾计划，增强社区的复原力和适应能力。然而，对于农村社区来说，除非有额外的数据和分析，否则在HAZUS中使用标准数据集往往存在严重缺陷。拟议项目的愿景是开发利用遥感数据资源和公民参与（众包）的方法，以解决当前的数据缺口，从而改进洪水灾害建模和可视化，并将其转移到其他农村社区。该项目的成果将利用地质工程、土木工程、计算机科学、海洋工程、城市规划、河流和洪泛平原水力学、社会科学和遥感等领域研究人员的专业知识和背景，拓展自然灾害准备和恢复能力的传统前沿。该项目是公民创新挑战赛的一部分，该挑战赛由国家科学基金会、能源部车辆技术办公室、国土安全部科学技术局和联邦紧急事务管理局合作开展。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Flooding is a leading cause of natural disasters in the US, with congressional budget office estimates of $54 billion in loss each year. Although both urban and rural areas are highly vulnerable to flood hazards, most natural disaster resilience studies have focused on urban areas, often overlooking rural communities. One such area that has been overlooked are the many rural communities bordering the Great Lakes. These communities face unprecedented challenges due to rising water levels, particularly since 2012, which have resulted in significant coastal flooding in the communities. Flood hazard assessments are a critical tool used to support communities in determining how to mitigate flooding; however, data gaps in current flood hazard modeling tools render them inaccurate for rural communities. The project brings together community partners—including a regional planning agency, county officials, and local officials from the Keweenaw Bay Indian community—with a university team to understand the data gaps in addressing flooding and coastal disaster in two rural counties in Northern Michigan. The project will use various strategies, including sensors and crowdsourced information, to fill critical information gaps required to improve flood hazard modeling in rural communities bordering the Great Lakes. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) commonly recommend counties to use a freely available tool, called HAZUS, to develop hazard mitigation plans and enhance community resilience and adaptation. However, for rural communities, the use of standard datasets within HAZUS often has serious deficiencies, unless augmented with additional data and analyses. The proposed project's vision is to develop methods that use remote sensing data resources and citizen engagement (crowdsourcing) to address current data gaps for improved flood hazard modeling and visualization that is transferable to other rural communities. The results of the project will expand the traditional frontiers of preparedness and resilience to natural disasters by drawing on the expertise and backgrounds of investigators working at the interface of geological engineering, civil engineering, computer science, marine engineering, urban planning, river and floodplain hydraulics, social science, and remote sensing. This project is part of the Civic Innovation Challenge, a collaboration between NSF, the Department of Energy's Vehicle Technology Office, and the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate and Federal Emergency Management Agency.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.