CoPe RCN: Cascadia Coastal Hazards Research Coordination Network

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

1940034 (Schmift). Coastal natural hazards such earthquakes, tsunamis, flooding, and landslides pose research, planning, and communication challenges. These challenges create novel opportunities for advancing both fundamental knowledge as well as science to support the resilience of coastal communities and thus reduce the likelihood of coastal hazards resulting in disasters. The similarities of the Pacific Northwest coast to other coastal subduction zones on the Pacific Rim provide unique opportunities for comparative and collaborative research of global significance. Greater regional coordination of hazards research is needed, to leverage the scientific opportunities hazards in the region offer, as well as to meet community needs for place-specific hazards and risk science. The Cascadia Coastal Hazards Research Coordination Network (RCN) will engage stakeholders across academic, government, and tribal institutions to advance convergent coastal hazards and resilience research across the Pacific Northwest. The RCN will build on existing coastal hazards research infrastructure and practice-based partnerships to integrate public and population health science and scientists into other disciplinary and interdisciplinary hazards research; enhance the understanding of the coastal hazards in subduction zone environments, as well as dynamic and cascading coastal hazards; and advance the development of integrated, interdisciplinary research questions and approaches across engineering, planning and policy, and geosciences, to mitigate risks and disasters from natural hazards in partnership with Pacific Northwest coastal communities. The Cascadia Coastal Hazards RCN will tackle fundamental questions on the mechanisms and consequences of interacting natural hazards in collaboration with potentially affected communities, in order to advance interdisciplinary simulation and modeling of coastal hazards. The RCN will also advance human-centered design and use-focused representations of and communications about coastal hazards modeling and simulation results, as well as the integration of geo- and engineering sciences with research on coastal policy and planning, informed by the risks to coastal community health in the face of disaster. The RCN will contribute to enhanced coastal community decision making, planning and resilience to coastal hazards, through advances in collaborative hazards and resilience research. By including members whose organizations research or aim to mitigate coastal hazards, the RCN steering committee will be constituted to liaise effectively with the primary coastal hazards and resilience-oriented organizations in the Pacific Northwest, including the Washington Coastal Hazards Resilience Network, state and federal research and management agencies. Through annual workshops and monthly cross-disciplinary seminars on coastal hazards, the RCN will also create research capacity in the region by providing graduate students with unique opportunities to learn, apply, and advance transdisciplinary coastal hazards sciences, and increase the diversity of this science workforce. 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.