This Critical Resilient Interdependent Infrastructure Systems and Processes (CRISP) project examines the complex interactions among stakeholders' social networks, networks of community plans, and physical infrastructure networks relevant to flood vulnerability and resilience. By focusing on the interdependencies among flood control, transportation, and emergency response infrastructure, the research will advance understanding that can then underpin new approaches to integrating engineering, planning, and policy to improve community resilience to hurricane and flooding hazards. This improved understanding can also be useful to communities in planning greater coordination among federal, state, regional, and local stakeholders involved in hazard mitigation and infrastructure development planning and policy. This scientific research contribution thus supports NSF's mission to promote the progress of science and to advance our national welfare with benefits that will reduce future flood impacts.
This project involves interdisciplinary contributions from civil engineering, network science, urban planning, and public policy. The project focuses on the interdependencies among flood control, transportation, and emergency response infrastructure. The expected contributions are: (1) fundamental knowledge of the dynamics of stakeholders' social networks and the influence of these networks on the integration of flood mitigation and infrastructure resilience plans and policies; (2) new methods for achieving greater integration across plans and policies based on deeper understanding of infrastructure networks interdependencies; and (3) new insights into infrastructure network interdependencies, social vulnerability, and hazard exposure on urban spatial structure of flood risk diffusion. The expected methodological and theoretical innovations will be tested in Houston/Harris County using empirical datasets from the 2017 Hurricane Harvey. These contributions can transform the flood resilience planning and policy processes in interdependent infrastructure systems in coastal urban areas. The project will also be the source of strong multidisciplinary training for next generation researchers in engineering, science, and policy through education and outreach activities that integrate the research findings into interdisciplinary educational programs, engage students from underrepresented groups in science and engineering, and conduct a policy workshop to disseminate the findings to a broader audience.
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.
