EAGER: SAI: Collaborative Research: Community-Driven Innovation for Resilient Bridges in Remote Communities

加强美国基础设施(SAI)是一项NSF计划，旨在刺激以人类为中心的基础性研究和潜在的变革性研究，以加强美国的基础设施。有效的基础设施为社会经济活力和广泛的生活质量改善提供了坚实的基础。强大、可靠和有效的基础设施刺激私营部门创新，增长经济，创造就业机会，提高公共部门服务提供效率，加强社区力量，促进机会均等，保护自然环境，增强国家安全，推动美国的领导地位。要实现这些目标，需要来自科学和工程学科的专业知识。SAI侧重于人类推理和决策、治理以及社会和文化过程的知识如何使有效基础设施的建设和维护能够改善生活和社会，并建立在技术和工程进步的基础上。桥梁对北纬地区的偏远社区变得越来越重要。居民经常需要穿越河流或湖泊来狩猎和采集传统食物，以及获得学校、医疗设施和其他基本服务，这些服务通常在地区中心提供。在温暖的月份乘船旅行是很常见的，而在冬天，冰冻的水体则是运输走廊。这些地区的气温正在迅速上升，导致河流冻结得更晚，融化得更早，形成了更薄的冰。与不稳定和不可预测的冰有关的雪地摩托死亡人数也在同时增加。可靠的桥梁将社区连接起来，并为较大的定居点提供安全的交通走廊，这不仅支持土著生计和远程获得货物和服务，而且还减少了与天气有关的伤亡。该项目旨在了解桥梁对边远社区福祉的重要性，并为其他边远社区共同努力提供资金、建造、监测和维护桥梁制定一项协议。更广泛地说，这个项目可能展示了对偏远农村地区基础设施状况进行有效和成本效益评估的方法。在偏远地区建造和维护桥梁涉及社会科学和工程学共同的挑战。从社会科学的角度来看，关键是要了解桥梁建设如何影响社区福祉，以及社区如何有效地合作，以确保桥梁建设所需的财政资源。从工程角度来看，桥梁等关键基础设施容易受到气候影响，包括加速腐蚀的永久冻土融化和降水增加，以及与洪水相对应的海平面上升。因此，确定有效的方法来监测桥梁建成后的稳定性和安全性是至关重要的。该项目的研究人员考察了三个相互关联的研究问题。首先，桥梁建设如何影响生存活动、教育、社会关系以及健康和安全？其次，如何有效地使用无人机来监测桥梁上的变化？第三，社区如何有效地共同确定和申请桥梁建设资金？这项研究是在不同地区进行的，这些地区最近资助和建造桥梁的努力取得了不同的成功。研究人员与当地利益相关者合作，编制报告和建议，以帮助其他桥梁建设项目。研究人员使用采访和家庭调查的数据，并辅之以无人机的图像，这些图像每两年收集一次，以监测和评估长期结构状况。通过结合社会科学和工程学的观点，该项目展示了基础设施项目如何与当地优先事项保持一致。随着长期环境变化的影响导致关键的交通基础设施退化，这种资源的协调变得更加紧迫。此外，该项目与当地学区合作，为学生提供现实世界的学习机会，为教师提供劳动力发展。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Strengthening American Infrastructure (SAI) is an NSF Program seeking to stimulate human-centered fundamental and potentially transformative research that strengthens America’s infrastructure. Effective infrastructure provides a strong foundation for socioeconomic vitality and broad quality of life improvement. Strong, reliable, and effective infrastructure spurs private-sector innovation, grows the economy, creates jobs, makes public-sector service provision more efficient, strengthens communities, promotes equal opportunity, protects the natural environment, enhances national security, and fuels American leadership. To achieve these goals requires expertise from across the science and engineering disciplines. SAI focuses on how knowledge of human reasoning and decision making, governance, and social and cultural processes enables the building and maintenance of effective infrastructure that improves lives and society and builds on advances in technology and engineering.Bridges have become increasingly critical for remote communities in northern latitudes. Residents frequently need to cross rivers or lakes to hunt and gather traditional foods as well as access schools, healthcare facilities, and other essential services that are typically available in regional hubs. Travel by boat is common during warmer months, while frozen water bodies serve as transportation corridors during winter. Temperatures in these regions are increasing rapidly, causing rivers to freeze later, thaw earlier, and form thinner ice. There have been concurrent increases in snowmobile fatalities related to unstable and unpredictable ice. Reliable bridges connect communities and provide safe transportation corridors to larger settlements, which not only support indigenous subsistence livelihoods and remote access to goods and services, but also reduce weather-related deaths and injuries. This project aims to understand the importance of bridges for the well-being of remote communities and to develop a protocol for other remote communities to work together to fund, construct, monitor, and maintain bridges. More generally, this project potentially demonstrates methods for efficient and cost-effective assessments of infrastructure condition in remote, rural areas.Building and maintaining bridges in remote areas entails challenges common to both the social sciences and engineering. From a social science perspective, it is critical to understand how bridge construction impacts community well-being and how communities can work together effectively to secure the necessary financial resources for bridge construction. From an engineering perspective, critical infrastructure such as bridges is vulnerable to the effects of climate, including permafrost thawing and increased precipitation that accelerate corrosion, and rising sea levels that correspond with flooding. It is therefore essential to determine effective ways to monitor the stability and safety of a bridge after it is constructed. The researchers on this project examine three interconnected research questions. First, how does bridge construction affect subsistence activities, education, social ties, and health and safety? Second, how can drones be used effectively to monitor changes on a bridge? Third, how can communities effectively work together to identify and apply for bridge construction funding? The study is conducted in regions that vary in the success of recent efforts to fund and construct bridges. The researchers partner with local stakeholders to produce reports and recommendations that can benefit other bridge construction projects. The researchers use data from interviews and household surveys, complemented by the use of imagery from drones, which is collected on a biannual basis to monitor and evaluate long-term structural conditions. By combining perspectives from social science and engineering, the project demonstrates how infrastructure projects can align with local priorities. This alignment of resources becomes an ever-more pressing matter as the effects of long-term environmental change contribute to the degradation of critical transportation infrastructure. Additionally, this project engages local school districts to provide real-world learning opportunities for students and workforce development for teachers.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.