NSF and NIST coordinate support for new disaster resilience research grants

The U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have jointly invested $7.6 million in 20 new research projects for greater community and infrastructure resilience to natural hazards through the joint NSF-NIST Disaster Resilience Research Grant program. NSF has invested $4.5 million in 12 projects; NIST has invested $3.1 million in 8 projects.

These collaborative investments result from NSF and NIST research coordination, leading to new understanding, models, designs and practices for disaster resilience.

Each year, communities across the nation face significant damage from hazards such as droughts, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and fires. While threats from natural hazards cannot be eliminated, well-targeted research can enable communities to reduce their vulnerabilities and increase their resilience,  making the impacts of natural hazards less disastrous.

"Fundamental research can lead to significant improvements in disaster resilience by revealing fundamental principles that will help the nation withstand and bounce back from windstorms, wildland fires and other extreme events," said Rob Stone, division director of the NSF Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation.

"Because this partnership between NSF and NIST supports disaster resilience research from fundamental to applied," Stone continued, "it will facilitate the implementation of science-based improvements, from planning and decision-making to policies and building codes, that will strengthen our resilience to natural hazards."

The Disaster Resilience Research Grant program is part of the NSF's broader coordination of its disaster-related research portfolio with NIST and other federal agencies for the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) and the National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program (NWIRP). For both NEHRP and NWIRP, NSF is responsible for advancing fundamental understanding, and NIST is responsible for ensuring that fundamental new insights are translated to practice, as well as for conducting applied research.

"Federal collaboration makes it easier for researchers to navigate the complementary roles of NSF and NIST and for the agencies to appreciate the full range of research possibilities relevant to national needs," said Jacqueline Meszaros, NSF science and technology advisor for natural hazards, disasters and resilience. "This joint program aims to enable new understanding and advances to move into practice quickly, to help communities and vulnerable populations in every part of the U.S. With more extreme natural hazards due to climate change, the need for resilience has grown more crucial."

The 12 NSF projects for disaster resilience are funded through 17 awards:

• Assessing Urban Post-Earthquake Community Recovery to Inform Pre-Disaster Planning: Stanford University.
• Assessment of Building Resiliency in Tornadoes Considering Transient Internal Pressure Effects: University of Wisconsin–Madison and Texas Tech University.
• Development of Realistic Seismic Input Motions for Improving the Resilience of Infrastructure to Earthquakes: Central Michigan University and University of California, Davis.
• Disaster Recovery and Response Innovation through Fuel Cell Deployment: Carnegie Mellon University.
• Examining the Vulnerability and Recovery of Small Farms to Natural Hazards and the Impact to Rural Community Resilience: University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Texas A&M University, and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service.
• An Integrated Housing Design and Logistics Operations Modeling and Analysis Framework for Hurricane Relief: Clemson University.
• Leveraging Crowdsourced Data to Assess Spatiotemporal Patterns of Resilience in Diverse Gulf Coast Communities Impacted by Natural Hazards: University of Texas at Arlington.
• Modeling Intergovernmental Fiscal Impacts of Coastal Hazards: Rutgers University–New Brunswick.
• Quantitative Measurement of Wildfire Behavior in the Field: Leveraging Remote Sensing for Reproducible Observation and Improved Understanding: San Jose State University.
• Reconstruction of Four-Dimensional Near-Surface Wind Characteristics from Debris and Damage Attributes using Computer Vision: Auburn University.
• Scalable Assessment of Urban Earthquake Resilience: A Novel Model-informed Deep Learning Paradigm: Northeastern University.
• Understanding Urban Resilience to Pluvial Floods Using Reduced-Order Modeling: University of Michigan and University of Wisconsin–Madison.

The eight NIST projects for disaster resilience are funded through the following awards:

• Analysis, Comparison and Experimental Investigation of Hurricane Wind, Storm-Surge and Wave Load Models: University of Miami.
• Assessing the Utility of Safe-to-Fail Design to Improve Climate Hazards Resilience of Interdependent Infrastructure Systems: Arizona State University.
• Characterization of Hurricane Boundary Layer Turbulence for Wind Hazard Mitigation: Columbia University.
• Developing a Selective Column Retrofit Framework for Damaged and Aging Reinforced Concrete Buildings to Improve Community Resilience After Earthquakes: University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
• Enhancing Windstorm Resilience of Coastal Communities Through Ultra-High Performance Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer Concrete Seawalls: University of Miami.
• Forecasting WUI Fire Resilience: Quantifying Firebrand Generation and Transport to Identify Communities at Risk: Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
• Residual Axial and Lateral Load Carrying Capacity of Pile Supported Marine Terminal Exhibiting Seismically Induced Local Buckling in Inground Plastic Hinges: University of California, San Diego.
• Wildland Urban Interface and the Built Environment: Design, Evacuation and Retreat Under No-Notice Fire Hazards: University of Maryland, College Park; University of California, Berkeley; and University of California, Davis.

The NSF awards are funded through the Disaster Resilience Research Grants program in the Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation in the Directorate for Engineering, with additional support from the Directorate for Geosciences.

NSF and NIST will accept research proposals for the Disaster Resilience Research Grants program again in 2022 through the new solicitation, NSF 22-593. Letters of intent are due June 20, 2022, and full proposals are due August 19, 2022.