SGER: An Integrated Study of Post-Flood Hydrology, Ecology, Politics and Policy Change: A Cross-National, Urban Perspective

Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, College Station TX

Investigators

Abstract

0313984 Mohanty Natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, and hurricanes have impacts far beyond the physical damage related to the actual event. The policy and political impacts of natural disasters can be immediate, in the form of federal disaster relief aid, or long-term, as in changes to long-standing land use regulations. As a result of Tropical Storm Allison, Houston suffered over $5 billion in damages, the loss of 22 lives and an estimated 73,000 homes. Recently, as a result of major flooding in Central Europe, the German city of Dresden, and Prague, in the Czech Republic, experienced similar disasters, the impacts of which are being estimated in the billions of dollars. The similarity of these events provides a unique research opportunity to contribute a broader understanding of the role of focusing events on policy development, politics, and the general health and well being of society. From a research perspective, we are interested in understanding how focusing events, such as urban flooding, develop and propagate across scales and influence decision processes in regard to physical infrastructure and subsequent changes in policy. The objectives of this SGER proposal are two-fold. First, we propose to initiate contact with social and physical scientists in Europe and develop a collaborative research team capable of focusing on the broad topic of public policy change as a result of urban flooding. Researchers will expand upon personal contacts in their respective areas and seek out additional collaborators in substantive research areas within the physical and social sciences, as well as geographical areas impacted by both recurring and nonrecurring urban flooding events. In so doing, we will also identify sources of relevant and reliable data, and to the extent possible, collect baseline hydrologic, ecologic, and social field data on the impact of the recent flooding incidents such as those in Germany, the Czech Republic, and Houston. The end point of this phase of the SGER project will be a well-defined, and committed interdisciplinary and cross-national research team. The second objective is to integrate the disciplines of political science/public administration, hydrology and the geosciences into a strategically sound large scale, multi-year cross-national, collaborative, interdisciplinary research proposal for submission to either multiple NSF programs, or one major cross-cutting NSF initiative. The context for this proposal is cross-national. The integration of the physical and social sciences also reflects the current interest from NSF in approaching complex social and natural problems through multiple perspectives.