I-Corps: Context-specific scientific simulation models to mitigate wildfire risks

这个I-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是为荒地-城市界面（WUI）地区开发动态和面向社区的野火准备解决方案的潜力，这些地区占美国家庭的三分之一。目前的野火疏散计划严重依赖于静态分区，往往缺乏区域或系统层面的视角。这些计划在理解和应对实际挑战方面存在不足，例如野火进展的不可预测性，居民普遍缺乏意识/合作，以及在紧急情况下沟通和资源动员方面的困难。通过在规划过程中融入动态元素和社区的努力，建议的解决方案（软件和服务）旨在支持各级政府机构（例如消防处、规划署和应急服务办事处）有可能保障水湾居民的安全和财产，并可能创造积极的社区形象。私营部门的公司，如保险公司或大型度假村也可以从拟议的解决方案中受益，为他们的客户开发更好的服务/产品，并增加公司回报。一旦在野火领域得到验证，该解决方案可用于减轻其他自然灾害（如飓风和地震）造成的损失。I-Corps项目基于两项核心创新的发展：一套科学模拟模型，捕捉野火疏散的整体过程，以及一个先进的可视化平台，通过实践经验刺激提高认识和自下而上的合作。在建模方面，集成的仿真框架通过包含野火进展、组织通信流和交通疏散子模块来捕获野火疏散中的动态。这些模型的开发是高效和高度可扩展的，这有助于识别小型管辖区或单一基础设施类型的边界限制之外的疏散瓶颈。在可视化方面，模拟模块的结果被转换为3D动画，包括火焰、交通拥堵和通信中断。模拟可视化程序可以生成无数的场景并呈现给用户，有效地促进了居民态势感知的增强，并确保了当地社区成员与野火管理专家之间更顺畅的双向沟通。模型和可视化已经在不同的案例研究地点进行了原型设计，显示了通过科学和社会创新可能改善准备工作的潜力。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。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the potential development of dynamic and community-oriented wildfire preparedness solutions for the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) areas, which constitute a third of US households. Current wildfire evacuation plans rely heavily on static zoning and often lack a regional or system-level perspective. These plans fall short when it comes to understanding and addressing practical challenges, such as the unpredictability of the wildfire progression, the general lack of awareness/collaboration by the residents, and the difficulty in communication and resource mobilization in emergency situations. By incorporating the dynamic elements as well as community efforts in the planning process, the proposed solution (software and service) aims at supporting government agencies at various jurisdiction levels (e.g., fire department, planning department, and offices of emergency services) in potentially safeguarding the WUI residents’ safety and properties, as well as possibly creating positive community images. Private sector companies such as insurance providers or large resorts also may benefit from the proposed solution to develop better services/products for their customers and increase company returns. Once validated in the wildfire sector, the proposed solution may be used to mitigate the losses of other natural disasters, such as hurricanes and earthquakes. This I-Corps project is based on the development of two core innovations: a suite of scientific simulation models that capture the holistic process of wildfire evacuations, as well as an advanced visualization platform that stimulates awareness-raising and bottom-up collaborations through hands-on experiences. On the modeling side, the integrated simulation framework captures the dynamics in wildfire evacuation through the inclusion of the wildfire progression, the organizational communication flow, and traffic evacuation sub-modules. The models are developed to be efficient and highly scalable, which helps to identify the evacuation bottlenecks beyond the boundary limits of a small jurisdiction or a single infrastructure type. On the visualization side, the results from the simulation module are converted to 3D animations, including the fire flames, traffic congestion, and communication disruptions. The simulation-visualization procedure enables endless scenarios to be generated and presented to the users, effectively facilitating the enhancements of the residents’ situational awareness and ensuring smoother two-way communications between the local community members and the wildfire management experts. The models and visualizations have been prototyped at various case study locations, showing the potential of possible improved preparedness through scientific and social innovations.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.