NSF Award
2426085
A diverse set of groups across multiple sectors including government agencies and laboratories, academic institutions, and industry have been developing a variety of multi-hazard data sets, decision support tools, and climate-related services. However, these resources are not being utilized as effectively as they could be due to a lack of easy and open access to the data and tools. In order to address this issue, the workshop series on Increasing Coordination and Adoption of Multi-Hazard Decision Support Tools and Services will engage stakeholders from different sectors in order to facilitate increased coordination and adoption of multi-hazard decision support tools and services. This award funds a workshop series that will bring together representatives and stakeholder groups from different sectors to discuss: (1) the current state of data that supports multi-hazard decision support tools and climate risk services; (2) the set of technologies,, i.e., the “technology stack”, needed to support open-access by the public to the various tools and services; and (3) the usability and accessibility of these data, tools and services for various audiences and the training needed to not only use the tools and services but also to contribute towards their refinement and improvement. As a key technology focus area called out in the CHIPS and Science Act, natural and anthropogenic disaster prevention and mitigation is a topic of interest for the NSF Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP). <br/><br/>The two-workshop series will feature presentations and group discussions to develop an understanding of the entire landscape, including the opportunities, barriers, system dependencies, unintended consequences, enablers and gamechangers, and unanswered questions related to the topics mentioned above. Recommendations for next steps will be developed using participatory decision-making and employing the “theory of change” methodology to make underlying assumptions explicit and using the desired outcomes of the project as the mechanism to guide planning, implementation, and evaluation. The workshops will be designed to help identify short-term, intermediate, and long-term outcomes necessary to reach the goal of increasing both the accessibility and the adoption of tools and services. A key objective is that researchers in this field, as well as impacted stakeholders including those from potentially impacted communities, should be able to use the wide array of available multi-hazard data and tools to help make decisions that help mitigate harm. The reports and other outputs from the workshops will be made widely available and accessible to benefit a broad range of interested stakeholders including city planners, local/state/Tribal leaders and executives, decision-makers at large, and others.<br/><br/>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.
