RAPID: Post-Disaster Risk Redefinition in Small New Jersey Municipalities During the Initial Recovery Period following Super Storm Sandy

这项快速反应研究补助金(RAPID)将帮助确定专家和非专家如何重新评估风暴潮洪水风险，这些风险在创纪录的灾难后影响到小城市。它由关于灾后恢复和风险治理的跨学科研究文献提供信息，并将对其作出贡献。将对应急管理组织和洪泛区管理组织的专家进行电子调查，以确定桑迪过后风险信息需求的范围、风险信息交流活动、用户群体之间的风险信息差距和未得到满足的需求、非专家参与的开放性，以及关于如何更有效地使用风险信息的建议。三个遭受损失的小城市的公共领导人和风险专业人员也将接受采访，以评估他们在要求、提供、接受和使用与其社区相关的风险信息方面所扮演的角色。将对风暴过后决定继续生活在这些社区的当地居民进行半结构化采访。访谈将确定居民的活动是关于风暴后风险的当地知识的提供者，他们对其他洪水风险信息的评估，以及对风险信息在减少关于恢复和社区未来的不确定性方面的感知重要性。将对调查和访谈中收集的数据进行交叉列表和内容分析，以揭示对未来洪水风险的共同关切和假设，并揭示不断演变的新网络的结构，这些网络融合了外部专家和当地居民的意见。这笔赠款将提供必要的信息，以加强对沿海洪灾风险的准备，预计沿海洪灾风险将因气候变化而增加。在预测更多洪水方面，在全球、跨国和国家范围内正在取得进展，但人们对小城市如何为这项紧迫任务做好准备知之甚少。资源有限、人口不到10,000的独立小城市是美国沿海大部分地区的常态。这些是最需要决策支持信息的地方，也是最能从中受益的地方。小城市的生存和邻近海岸的福祉在很大程度上将取决于它们在造成重大破坏的灾害发生后利用专家信息的能力。在这种情况下，需要迅速但明智地作出决定，决定今后如何利用受损和脆弱地区，以提高其长期复原力。小城市发生的情况将决定更广泛的区域和国家对海平面上升和日益恶化的风暴的反应是否成功。通过为风险信息的使用方式提供路标路线图并指出改进机会，这项研究将为人类福祉、经济复苏和环境可持续性做出宝贵贡献。

This Rapid Response Research Grant (RAPID) will help identify how experts and non-experts reassess storm surge flood risks that affect small municipalities following a record-setting disaster. It is informed by, and will contribute to, the interdisciplinary research literature on disaster recovery and risk governance. Experts in emergency management organizations and flood plain management organizations will be surveyed electronically to establish the scope of risk information needs in the wake of Sandy, risk information exchange activities, risk information gaps and unmet needs among user groups, openness to involvement by non-experts, and suggestions about ways that risk information could be employed more effectively. Public leaders and risk professionals in each of three small municipalities that sustained losses will also be interviewed to assess their roles in demanding, supplying, receiving, and using risk information pertinent to their communities. Semi-structured interviews will be conducted with local residents who have decided to continue living in these communities after the storm. Interviews will identify residents' activities as suppliers of local knowledge about post-storm risks, their assessments of other flood risk information, and the perceived importance of risk information in reducing uncertainties about recovery and community futures. Cross-tabulations and content analysis of the data collected in surveys and interviews will be undertaken to reveal shared concerns and assumptions about future flood risks as well as to uncover the structure of evolving new networks that blend inputs from external experts and local residents. The grant will provide information necessary to improve preparedness for coastal flood risks that are anticipated to increase as a consequence of climate change. Progress in anticipating more floods is being made at the global, transnational and national scales but little is known about how small municipalities are equipped for that urgent task. Small independent municipalities with limited resources and populations of less than 10,000 are the norm for much of coastal America. These are the places that most need, and can benefit from, decision-support information. The survival of small municipalities and the wellbeing of adjacent coasts will depend in large part on their ability to take advantage of expert information in the aftermath of disasters that wreak major damage. At such times prompt but judicious decisions are required about future uses of the damaged and vulnerable areas that will increase their long-term resilience. What happens in the small municipalities will determine the success of broader regional and national responses to rising sea levels and worsening storms. By supplying a sign-posted road map to the ways that risk information is being used and pointing out opportunities for improvements, this research will make a valuable contribution to human welfare, economic recovery and environmental sustainability.