Assistant professor of environmental studies Scott Miles has been awarded a $250,000 grant to study postdisaster infrastructure restoration and the disasters' effects on economies.

Miles has been working for more than eight years on the project, which will commence Oct. 1 and continue for four years.

This is one of the first large grants toward postdisaster research, which focuses not just on the actual disaster but all the ramifications that come with it.

“This is the first major influx of money into this endeavor,” Miles said. “There has been some funding, but very little. This is one of the biggest infusions of money toward this research.”

The research will provide data taken from the surrounding Western Washington area, which is frequented by natural hazards such as flooding, landslides and storms.

The National Science Foundation’s division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation awarded the grant.

“The grant process is highly competitive,” said Dennis Wenger, a program director at the foundation. “We receive proposals from all around the country, and they go through a very severe peer review system.  I think the fact that he made it through the review process is a testament to the strong quality of his project.”

Miles will be developing a computer model that can help officials mitigate the damage in areas affected by natural disasters.

The tool is called ResilUS (Resilience United States), a computer program that models the possible damage created by the disaster in all aspects of the involved community.
ResilUS will provide information regarding the decisions necessary to quickly and efficiently put a community back together.

The program will analyze a city's layout or infrastructure, helping city officials know where a city will  be affected the most by a disaster.

“Everyone defines infrastructure differently: highways, electrical grids, storm water, underground vaults, institutions, governments systems, ATM networks,” Miles said. “Infrastructure is the skeleton that the community is wrapped around.”

Miles will study the relationship between infrastructure and local economic performance after a natural disaster.

ResilUS will allow officials to analyze different scenarios of disruption and the possible outcomes following disasters.

“A disaster is not something that just happens, it continually unfolds,” Miles said.

ResilUS will focus on which parts of the economy are damaged by the hazards.    

It will also show the impact on businesses and how long it will take the economy to be restored after a disaster.  

“We want to use local case studies to develop a database of infrastructure disruption and infrastructure restoration,” Miles said. “Obviously we are going to be using past events. Possibly real-time events, we have floods every year in Washington, which we can study.”

Ultimately, Miles said he would like to not only learn about how communities can fix their infrastructures after disasters, but also how people can shift away their dependencies on them.

“The economy is completely dependent on infrastructure,” he said. “We want to look and see how we can be less reliant on the infrastructures that we create.”

Rebekah Green, associate director of the Resilience Institute at the Huxley College of the Environment and program coordinator of the grant proposal, said she agrees with Miles.
“Our hope is that by enhancing this model we will be able to assist policy makers [in handeling future problems]” Green said.

Miles plans to hold workshops soon after the project that starts this fall to involve local community leaders, who are potential stakeholders.

Not only does this project have possible significant impact on how people look at disaster research, but it also provides opportunities for Western students.

Alexis Blue, a Huxley graduate student, will be working directly with Miles on the project.

“I am looking forward to becoming more familiar with the personal stories of community and small business recovery, instead of just the physical hazard,” Blue said. “This project will only enhance the public’s knowledge of the important research we’re doing.”

As the project progresses there should be more opportunities for Western students, Blue said.

“There will be need for data collection and organization through credits by Western students,” Blue said.

Green said she hopes to get more undergraduate students involved in research during the later years of the project.

Comments (1)

Posted by Blondie, on Sep. 29, 2009 02:02PM Interesting article, well written Report

Only registered users can post comments.
Please login or register.