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400多万游客，创造8,700多个就业机会，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，超过10，000名游客撤离。也门警察局完全关闭了9天，后来根据可变入境制度部分重新开放;但是，北方入口仍然关闭，使门户社区与外界隔绝，使依赖性经济受到严重影响。YNP关闭对该地区生态旅游业的经济影响预计在今后几年将是严重的。黄石洪水的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“建成环境”的暴露、脆弱性和恢复力，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，国家公园或自然基础设施的极端干扰可能对整个地区造成严重的系统性经济影响。这表明，自然基础设施在为人类生计提供关键服务方面的运作方式与人类建造的基础设施相似。最终，这带来了社会应该如何管理和评估受保护的土地资产的问题，并扩展了社会对美国国家公园的评估，“美国最好的想法”，超越了纯粹的美学，准确地描绘了在维护我们国家的经济和公共卫生安全方面发挥关键作用。这个快速反应研究（RAPID）项目旨在监测和了解基础设施和经济的影响和恢复，因为它们在未来几周和几个月内迅速展开，以了解人类和自然基础设施之间的相互依存关系，特别是暴露社会在非建筑地区的灾害脆弱性。这项工作的目标是迅速收集短暂的信息，记录和了解YNP洪水对基础设施的影响，基础设施发展和恢复的速度和性质，以及洪水对门户社区生态旅游依赖行业的系统性经济影响。将通过直接观察和照片记录对基础设施损失、损坏和恢复进行全面盘点。通过访谈和网络监控，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，FEWSION for Community Resilience（F4 R ™）计划将确定嵌入该地区关键供应链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NSF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.