RAPID/Collaborative Research: The 2022 Yellowstone Flood: Evaluating National Parks as Critical Infrastructures to the US Ecotourism Economy

黄石国家公园（YNP）每年接待超过400万游客，创造超过8700个就业机会，为周边地区的经济带来超过8.3亿美元的效益。2022年6月，一场500年一遇的洪水席卷了YNP和门户社区，摧毁了道路和建筑基础设施，导致公园关闭，1万多名游客撤离。YNP完全关闭了9天，随后在可变入口系统下部分重新开放；然而，北部入口仍然关闭，切断了门户社区的联系，并削弱了依赖的经济。在接下来的几年里，YNP关闭对该地区生态旅游业的经济影响预计将是严重的。黄石公园的洪水经验与传统的灾害风险范式背道而驰，传统的灾害风险范式侧重于“建筑环境”的暴露、脆弱性和复原力，例如对人类健康、财产损失或关键基础设施的风险。相比之下，黄石公园的洪水表明，对国家公园或自然基础设施的极端干扰可能会对整个地区造成严重的系统性经济影响。这表明，在为人类生计提供关键服务方面，自然基础设施的运作方式与人为建造的基础设施类似。最终，这带来了一个问题，即社会应该如何管理和评估受保护的土地资产，并扩大了社会对美国国家公园的评估，“美国最好的主意”，不仅仅是美学，而是对维护我们国家经济和公共卫生安全的关键作用的准确描述。快速反应研究（Rapid）项目旨在监测和了解基础设施和经济影响及恢复情况，因为它们在未来几周和几个月内迅速展开，以了解人类与自然基础设施之间的相互依赖关系，特别是暴露非建成区社会对灾害的脆弱性。这项工作的目标是快速收集短期信息，这些信息对于记录和理解YNP洪水对基础设施的影响、基础设施演变和恢复的速度和性质，以及洪水对门户社区依赖生态旅游的产业的系统性经济影响至关重要。将通过直接观察和照片记录，对基础设施的损失、损坏和恢复情况进行全面盘点。通过访谈和网络监测，将记录关闭和重新开放对经济、区域旅行和人类活动的影响。最后，社区恢复力FEWSION （F4R™）计划将确定嵌入该地区关键供应链中的社会和物理基础设施，并为社区提供减轻未来灾害风险的方法。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。

Yellowstone National Park (YNP) sustains over 4 million visitors annually and generates over 8,700 jobs and greater than $830 million of benefits to the surrounding region’s economy. During June 2022, a 500-yr flood event swept across YNP and gateway communities destroying road and building infrastructures, leading to the closure of the park and the evacuation of more than 10,000 visitors. YNP remained fully closed for 9 days and subsequently reopened partially under variable entry systems; however, the northern entrances have remained closed, disconnecting gateway communities and crippling dependent economies. The economic impacts from the YNP closures on the region’s eco-tourism industry is expected to be severe in the following years. The Yellowstone flood experience runs counter to conventional disaster risk paradigms, which focus on the exposure, vulnerability, and resilience of the ‘built-up environment’, such as risks to human health, property damages, or critical infrastructures. In contrast, the Yellowstone flooding suggests that an extreme disturbance in a national park, or natural infrastructure, can induce severe and systemic economic impacts to entire regions. This suggests that natural infrastructures can operate similarly to human-built infrastructures in providing critical services for human livelihoods. Ultimately, this brings into question how society should manage and value protected land assets and extends society’s valuation of US National Parks, “America’s Best Idea”, beyond mere aesthetics to an accurate portrayal of serving critical roles in preserving our nation’s economic and public health security and safety. This Rapid Response Research (RAPID) project seeks to monitor and understand the infrastructural and economic impacts and recovery, as they rapidly unfold over the next weeks and months to understand the interdependencies between humans and natural infrastructures, particularly exposing society’s vulnerability to disasters in non-built-up areas. The objective of the work is to rapidly collect ephemeral information critical to documenting and understanding the infrastructural impacts of the YNP flooding, the rate and nature of infrastructure evolution and recovery, and the systemic economic impacts of the flooding on the ecotourism-dependent industries in the gateway communities. Comprehensive inventories of infrastructure loss, damage, and recovery will occur via direct observation and photo documentation. Through interviews and web surveillance, the impacts of the closures and re-openings on economics, regional travel, and human activities will be documented. Finally, the FEWSION for Community Resilience (F4R™) program will identify social and physical infrastructures embedded within the region’s critical supply chains and provide communities with approaches to mitigate future disaster risks.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.