Source: MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIV submitted to
SCC-IRG TRACK 1: REDUCING THE VULNERABILITY OF DISADVANTAGED COMMUNITIES TO THE IMPACTS OF CASCADING HAZARDS UNDER A CHANGING CLIMATE
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
EXTENDED
Funding Source
AFRI COMPETITIVE GRANT
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1027581
Grant No.
2021-67022-35908
Project No.
MIS-609340
Proposal No.
2021-11332
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Program Code
A7302
Project Start Date
Sep 1, 2021
Project End Date
Aug 31, 2025
Grant Year
2021
Project Director
Thompson, D.
Recipient Organization
MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIV
(N/A)
MISSISSIPPI STATE,MS 39762
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
There has been an unprecedented increase in the frequency and severity of wildfires, with 2020 marked as the most active wildfire year across the western United States. Following wildfires, cascading hazards such as debris flow and flooding may occur, resulting in potentially catastrophic sequences. The escalating risk of cascading hazards requires decision-makers, engineers, social scientists, and other stakeholders to work together to enable disadvantaged communities to better confront cascading hazards. The overarching goal of this multidisciplinary project is to reduce the vulnerability of disadvantaged communities to the impacts of wildfire-related cascading hazards under a changing climate. The project has been proposed in close collaboration with emergency planning authorities and will be conducted in Lake County, California, which possesses key characteristics of a community at risk for cascading hazards and is home to a significant population of economically disadvantaged residents. Employing a suite of engineering and social science methods, the project objectives are to: (1) advance current modeling capabilities for understanding the complex spatiotemporal factors defining the evolution of cascading hazards (drought, wildfires, debris flow, and flooding) and their impacts under a changing climate, (2) identify information shortfalls and behavioral responses of emergency managers, planners, and vulnerable communities as they prepare for and respond to cascading hazards, and (3) develop interactive, scenario-based, multilingual tools that will enable emergency managers and planners to make and communicate timely decisions about cascading hazards.The proposed project outlines a multidisciplinary approach for mitigating the impacts of cascading hazards by integrating science, community, and emergency planning perspectives. We advance the state-of-the-art on how cascading hazards may drive one another, and also how these hazards impact communities and may be mitigated in both time and space. There has been limited research to forecast spatiotemporal impacts of cascading hazards on communities. The proposed efforts will bring together what has often been an isolated and retrospective activity, and make it integrative and prospective. We further will advance risk management and crisis communication by showing how diverse sources of data (processes, community awareness, and emergency planning techniques) can be integrated to improve decision-making and community engagement. We will provide insights into how physical, social and infrastructural vulnerabilities in disadvantaged communities may be exacerbated by cascading events. Through an integrated platform, we will intertwine both engineering and social science dimensions in a novel spatiotemporal framework. The modeling of cascading hazards and their impacts will be unique as they will account for both current and future climate scenarios. While applied to the sequence of drought, wildfires, debris flow, and flooding, this framework is directly translatable to any set of cascading hazards, and the proposed platform may be expanded to better understand other hazard sequences (e.g., earthquakes, tsunamis). The proposed efforts will also provide a unique opportunity to enhance the science of risk and multilingual crisis communication in vulnerable communities by exploring the evolving role of information and communication technologies for disaster preparedness and response.The proposed efforts bridge the gap between engineering, scientific and social science dimensions that have been striving to reduce the consequences of cascading hazards, often in isolation of one another. By integrating spatiotemporal modeling of hazards, community vulnerability, crisis communication, and community engagement, we have a unique opportunity to better equip emergency planners with the knowledge and science-based tools needed to make informed decisions and reduce consequences of cascading hazards on disadvantaged communities. The ability to translate real-time model outputs and create a strategic crisis communication plan will ensure that the community is both smart and connected - an approach that is translatable to vulnerable communities in the United States and beyond. This project will provide educational opportunities in multi-disciplinary, collaborative research for PhD students, research and leadership opportunities for early career scientists, and place-based curriculum for science and social studies classrooms in Lake County high schools, and the broader California science education community.
Animal Health Component
0%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
60%
Applied
25%
Developmental
15%
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
1046099202030%
1220199308020%
1320399205020%
8030499203010%
1125399307020%
Knowledge Area
803 - Sociological and Technological Change Affecting Individuals, Families, and Communities; 104 - Protect Soil from Harmful Effects of Natural Elements; 112 - Watershed Protection and Management; 122 - Management and Control of Forest and Range Fires; 132 - Weather and Climate;

Subject Of Investigation
5399 - Structures, facilities, and equipment, general/other; 6099 - People and communities, general/other; 0199 - Soil and land, general; 0399 - Watersheds and river basins, general; 0499 - Atmosphere, general/other;

Field Of Science
3070 - Psychology; 2020 - Engineering; 2050 - Hydrology; 2030 - Geology; 3080 - Sociology;
Goals / Objectives
The overarching goal of this multidisciplinary project is to reduce the vulnerability of disadvantaged communities to the impacts of wildfire-related cascading hazards. This is achieved through an integrated technological and social science framework to connect vulnerable communities and advance preparedness and disaster management.Our Objectives are:Objective 1: Advance current modeling capabilities for understanding the complex spatiotemporal factors defining the evolution of cascading hazards (drought, wildfires, debris flow, and flooding) and their impacts.Objective 2: Identify information shortfalls and behavioral responses of emergency managers, planners, and vulnerable communities as they prepare for and respond to cascading hazards.Objective 3: Develop interactive, scenario-based, multilingual tools that will enable emergency managers and planners to make and communicate timely decisions about cascading hazards.
Project Methods
Task 1: Advance current modeling capabilities for understanding the complex spatiotemporal factors defining the evolution of cascading hazards and their impacts under a changing climateTask 1.1. Understanding and characterizing the interplay among cascading hazardsTask 1.2. Enhancing fire resilience in managed landscapes and Wildland Urban Interfaces (WUI)Task 1.3. Collect and infuse data for monitoring, modeling and validation of wildfire and related cascading hazardsTask 2: Identify information shortfalls and behavioral responses of emergency managers, planners, and vulnerable communities as they prepare for and respond to cascading hazardsTask 2.1. Using focus group methodology, identify information shortfalls and behavioral responses of emergency managers, planners, and disadvantaged residentsTask 2.2. Using longitudinal surveys of a probability-based representative sample of Lake County residents, identify the perceptions, needs, and behavioral responses of individuals at risk for wildfires and cascading hazardsTask 3: Develop interactive, scenario-based, multilingual tools that will enable emergency managers and planners to make and communicate timely decisions about cascading hazardsTask 3.1. Develop a unified, spatiotemporal model to evaluate the evolving likelihood and timing of impacts of cascading hazardsTask 3.2. Develop real time English/Spanish messaging service to inform rural Hispanic communities of current and on-going risks of cascading hazards

Progress 09/01/22 to 08/31/23

Outputs
Target Audience:In this period, we continued to work closely with our community partners from California, particularly our test site in Lake County. This includes Emergency Services from the Lake County Sheriff's Office, Lake County Office of Education, and the Sacramento Police Department. Further, we held our second annual meeting at our test site (Lake County, CA) in September 2023. In this 2 day meeting, we closely worked with our community partners and visited the site. We shared our findings and path forward with them and sought their input and suggestions. We aimed to identify disadvantaged communities in our study area and learn more about needs, perceptions, information shortfalls, etc. to deal with wildfires and cascading hazards associated with them. Further, we were invited by Nick Widmer, Manager of Lake County's Community Disaster Risk Reduction Program at the American Red Cross, to attend and present at the Community Organizations Active in Disaster (COAD) meeting on Friday, September 29. Our team delivered a 30-minute presentation in the presence of several community leaders participating in Lake County's Community Disaster Risk Reduction Program. Please see the attached report for a summary of the presentations made during the meeting. Changes/Problems:Change: The lead Principal Investigator (PI), Farshid Vahedifard, moved to Tufts University in August 2023. At that time, Dr. Diego Thompson assumed the PI role at Mississippi State University (MSU) for the last year of the project. Farshid Vahedifard will remain engaged in the project through a subcontract issued to Tufts University. Dr. Thompson has agreed to become responsible for coordinating MSU activities with the other co-PIs, senior personnel at other institutions, and community partners working with the team. He will also be responsible for managing project schedules and completing reports on the MSU side. Farshid Vahedifard will closely work with him to ensure he has all the required documents and information. Dr. Thompson has been an integral member of the research team since the project's inception, consistently collaborating with both the research team and community partners. As a result, he possesses a comprehensive understanding of all the project's requirements, progress, and intricate details. The paperwork and formal request to change the PI and issue a subcontract to Tufts University have been submitted to NIFA on October 9, 2023. Challenges: The measure of auto access to shelters does not take into account the characteristics of the shelters (e.g., capacity, ADA compliance, ventilation). The research team has sought data from the American Red Cross to produce more practical access measures. The recruitment of participants for focus groups represented a significant challenge. Three of the initial dates for focus groups had to be postponed because of lack of enough participants. One of the cancelled focus groups (on February 24th 2023) was going to be in-person and had to be postponed the same day because of a winter storm affecting Lake County, making it difficult for participants to attend. This event made us to rethink the in-person format of the focus groups so we decided to conduct all the focus groups via Webex. Since we have shared the information about the focus groups through multiple venues and we are having the focus groups on-line, many people have contacted us to participate but this has required a significant amount of work screening their eligibility. In most cases people were not eligible to participate. Difficulties to complete some of the pathways we have attempted to better understand landslide hazards in Lake County. However, better use of Machine Learning techniques has enabled better pathways for evaluating these hazards. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?1 postdoc and 3 graduate students are working on the project. 2 PhD students working on the project graduated recently. The project provides professional development opportunities for 3 early career faculty members in the research team as well. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?- We held our second annual meeting at our test site (Lake County, CA) in September 2023. In this 2 day meeting, we closely worked with our community partners and visited the site. We shared our findings and path forward with them and sought their input and suggestions. Further, we virtually meet with our community partners every month to discuss our results. - We were invited by Nick Widmer, Manager of Lake County's Community Disaster Risk Reduction Program at the American Red Cross, to attend and present at the Community Organizations Active in Disaster (COAD) meeting on Friday, September 29. Our team delivered a 30-minute presentation in the presence of several community leaders participating in Lake County's Community Disaster Risk Reduction Program. Please see the attached report for a summary of the presentations made during the meeting. -Presentation: USFS Post-fire Monitoring Symposium in Corvallis, OR (Feb. 9, 2023) -Presentation: USGS Landslides Hazards Seminar (Sep. 7, 2022) What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Continue to improve landslide mapping in Lake County and compare changes in landslide areas before and after fire. Develop simple statistical post-fire landslide susceptibility model based on observed data. In year 3, we will analyze the transcripts from the focus groups, evaluate whether additional data collection is necessary, share the results in academic and public spaces, and submit a journal article. We will broaden the "access to shelter" analysis by (i) integrating the characteristics of shelters into the auto access measures, and (ii) synthesizing the socioeconomic and demographic profiles of residents in at-risk communities who face both limited access to shelters and a high risk of wildfire. We are continuing to work on understanding risk at the WUI, additionally incorporating data on building damage. We are analyzing data collected on prescribed burns using drones. Another set of fieldwork is being used to understand the flammability of common shrubs and ornamental plants typically used in community-scale landscaping. We will incorporate edits from teach feedback into the curriculum, and will publish the curriculum on the CIRES Education & Outreach Curriculum Library, with a link to the project website, in fall 2023. We are currently planning an in-person teacher workshop on Saturday, December 9th at the Taylor Observatory in Kelseyville. We plan to recruit teachers from Lake, Mendocino, Napa, Yolo, Sonoma, Glenn and Colusa Counties for the workshop. We will also include a discussion of this project in a presentation submitted to the American Geophysical Union Conference in San Francisco December 10-15. Other activities include the submission of the curriculum to the Climate Literacy, Energy, and Awareness Network (CLEAN) Curriculum Library for review, and a presentation to the California Association of Science Educators. We plan to develop a follow-up survey for our second wave of data collection to be administered in the winter after the 2023 fire season has ended. The SRC will contact those individuals who participated in the Wave 1 survey and invite them to complete a second survey to assess their psychological responses, behaviors and experiences during the 2023 wildfire season. We will continue monitoring Weather Stations in Burned and Unburned Areas, to Continue collecting Temperature (ªC), Wind Speed (m/s), Rainfall (mm), and Soil Moisture Content (%) at the three weather stations. We will continue calculating Cache Creek Landslide Displacements and correlating them with rainfall and creek flow using Persistent Scatterers techniques. Displacement vs Time Analysis of Cache Creek Landslide is performed using Persistent Scatterers. We will work on the analysis and plotting of the USGS Cache Creek flow data and correlating it with calculated displacements and rainfall.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Performed bi-weekly and monthly barnstorming meetings with the research team and our community partners Held our second annual meeting with the entire research team and community partners on September 2023 Designed and launched the project website (https://cascadinghazards.wordpress.com/) Performed regional-scale analysis to evaluate the effect of wildfires on the stability of unsaturated slopes Completed workflow for creating preliminary landslide inventory in Lake County. Conducted the following focus groups: People working with senior, AFN, and low-income residents in Lake County (CA). Three participants. April 7th. People working with senior, AFN, and low-income residents in Lake County (CA). Three Participants. May 4th. People working with low-income Hispanic residents who primarily speak Spanish in Lake County (CA). Six participants. August 25th. People working with members of Tribal groups in Lake County (CA). Four Participants. September 15th. We are currently analyzing the data generated from the focus groups to evaluate whether additional focus groups are necessary. Calculated access to emergency shelters for Lake County. The access measure includes automobile access with 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60 minutes travel time. The research team augmented the generated auto access to shelters with wildfire risk measured by the National Risk Index. The product is a planning map identifying "priority areas" and "at-risk communities" for reducing vulnerability to wildfire. The results of the analysis are under review in Landscape and Urban Planning. Identified the seasons and biomes that exhibit significant (1980-2019) changes in fire danger potential, as quantified by the Canadian Fire Weather Index (FWI). Explored what types of fire behavior potentials may be contributing to changes in fire danger potential, as quantified by the United States Energy Release Component (ERC) and the Ignition Component (IC). Provided spatiotemporal insight on how fire danger potential and fire behavior potential are responding in relation to changes in seasonal precipitation totals and seasonal mean air temperature across biomes. In the second year of the project, we developed a two-week unit for middle and high school classrooms in Lake County. The driving question for the unit is: How can we help our community be more resilient to cascading hazards? The unit includes four lessons, beginning with a visioning lesson that uses trauma-informed practice, followed up a three day lesson that introduces local datasets showing hazard risk and prevalence and including several local stories about resilience and hazard recovery in Lake County. Students also investigate current conditions to develop an understanding of the environmental conditions that relate to risk. In the last two lessons, students engage with a StoryMap that explains that different factors of social vulnerability, and then develop a two-minute video for social media that highlights ways for their community to be better prepared for the cascading hazards. Three middle and high school teachers piloted and reviewed the curriculum in spring of 2023, and filled out evaluation surveys and met with our team to discuss their feedback. Our behavioral science team from UC Irvine focused on the development and fielding of a survey of a representative sample of adult residents from Lake County, California. The survey was updated from the previous year's draft, informed by insights from the 2022 Lake County in-person meeting with our community partners. The project and survey materials were reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board of the University of California, Irvine. We then contracted with the Survey Research Center (SRC) at Pennsylvania State University to have our survey programmed and tested. Starting on June 27, 2023, the survey was fielded to a representative sample using address-based sampling of Lake County residents, offering online and paper-based options in both English and Spanish to ensure inclusivity. Although participation started out slowly, we developed a project website that highlighted the legitimacy of the project, and the project website was promoted by our community partners via their social media pages. Through persistent outreach from the SRC using follow-up emails and postcard communication, participation increased over time. The survey closed after six weeks on August 11, 2023. A deidentified data set was provided to our research team from the SRC about two weeks later. After removing people who did not meet eligibility requirements (i.e., living in Lake County at the time of completion, age 18 yrs or above, and consenting to participation) and removing those who had an unacceptable level of missing data (i.e., did not complete at least 50% of the survey questions), the final sample size of this first wave (Wave 1) of data collection was 814 participants. The demographics of our sample closely resemble 2022 population estimates for Lake County, CA (U.S. Census, 2022). Specifically, our sample's mean age is 55.67 yrs (SD=16.33, range 18-89), almost 58% female, about 82% White, 10% Hispanic, 5% Native American, 3% Asian/Asian American, 2% Black, and the remainder other or unknown ethnicity. Field monitoring of burned area: Compare data retrieved from Weather Station #1 (Burned Area) with Weather Station #2 (Unburned Area), which are about one-half of a mile apart: 1) From the weather station data analyzed it is observed the accumulated rainfall in the unburned area (Weather Station #2) is 15% greater than for the burned area (Weather Station #1) but both have similar rainfall trends. For the period 12/14/2022 through 06/14/2023 the accumulated rainfall for the unburned area (Weather Station 2) is 670 mm while for the burned area (Weather Station 1) is 580 mm, 2) It is observed the mean ambient temperature for the burned area is slightly greater than for the unburned area due to a smaller amount of vegetation, 3) The soil moisture content at various depths for the unburned area are lower than those for the burned area except for depths of 12 and 20 inches, which may be due to different soil types. I am planning to sample the soils at each depth during my next site visit to confirm the soil types. 4) A general trend is observed and shows that as the mean temperature increases, the soil moisture content decreases, 5) Regarding wind speed, the data shows little variation between the two monitoring sites with a wind speed between 1 and 2 meters/second. Cache Creek Landslide Monitoring: Analysis of the displacements calculated for the landslide scarp from Google Earth imagery: 1) Google Earth imagery was retrieved from 07/1985 through 04/2021, 2) Heavy rainfall periods in the 1990s and early 2000s in Lake County area appear to have induced significant movement of the Cache Creek landslide. Movement was significant enough to be captured by the low resolution photos available in Google Earth. Calculation of landslide displacement at six different locations in the slide mas were used to assess the magnitude and direction of slide movement. The calculated displacements along the surface of the slide mass show the toe and scarp have experienced a steady increase in displacement with time. As a result, the middle of the slide mass is continually moving. We employed an observation-based approach to quantitatively assess the interactions between snow and fire, investigating the mechanisms underlying the spatial heterogeneity of fire-induced shifts in Land Surface Temperature (LST), albedo, radiative forcings, and evapotranspiration.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Abdollahi, M., Vahedifard, F., Tracy, F. T. (2023). Post-Wildfire Stability of Unsaturated Hillslopes against Rainfall-Triggered Landslides. Earth's Future, AGU, 11(3), e2022EF003213, DOI: 10.1029/2022EF003213.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Baijnath-Rodino, J. A., Le, P. V., Foufoula-Georgiou, E., & Banerjee, T. (2023). Historical spatiotemporal changes in fire danger potential across biomes. Science of the Total Environment, 870, 161954.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Chowdhuri, S., and T. Banerjee, 2023, Revisiting bursts in wall-bounded turbulent flows, Physical Review Fluids, 8, 044606.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Desai, W. Heilman, N. Skowronski, K. Clark, M. Gallagher, C. Clements, and T. Banerjee, 2023, Features of turbulence during wildland fires in forested and grassland environments, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 338, 109501.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Baijnath-Rodino, J.A, A. Martinez, R. York, E. Foufoula-Georgiou, A. Aghakouchak, and T. Banerjee, 2023, Quantifying the effectiveness of shaded fuel breaks from ground-based, aerial, and spaceborne observations, Forest Ecology and Management, 543, 1211142.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Abdollahi, M., Vahedifard, F., Tracy, F. T. (2023). Stability Analysis of Unsaturated Slopes Stricken by Wildfires. Proc. Geo-Congress 2023: Geotechnics of Natural Hazards, Geotechnical Special Publication No. 338, Los Angeles, CA, March 26-29, ASCE, Reston, VA, 599-609, DOI: 10.1061/9780784484654.059.
  • Type: Websites Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: https://cascadinghazards.wordpress.com/


Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/22

Outputs
Target Audience:In this period, we worked closely with our community partners from California, particularly our test site in Lake County. This includes Emergency Services from the Lake County Sheriff's Office, Lake County Office of Education, and the Sacramento Police Department. Further, we held our annual meeting at our test site (Lake County, CA) in July 2022. In this 2 day meeting, we closely worked with our community partners and visited the site. We shared our findings and path forward with them and sought their input and suggestions. We aimed to identify disadvantaged communities in our study area and learn more about needs, perceptions, information shortfalls, etc. to deal with wildfires and cascading hazards associated with them. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?1 postdoc and 3 graduate students are working on the project. The project provides professional development opportunities for 3 early career faculty members in the research team as well. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We held our annual meeting at our test site (Lake County, CA) in July 2022. In this 2 day meeting, we closely worked with our community partners and visited the site. We shared our findings and path forward with them and sought their input and suggestions. Further, we virtually meet with our community partners every month to discuss our results. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Install in situ sensors and weather stations for field monitoring Characterize the interplay among wildfire and related cascading hazards Study the fire resilience in managed landscapes and Wildland Urban Interfaces (WUI) Model debris flow and landslides Conduct community survey and focus groups Develop K-12 curriculum Study changes in snowpack-wildfires

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Performed bi-weekly and monthly barnstorming meetings with the research team and our community partners Held our first annual meeting with the entire research team and community partners on July 2022 Identified 4 test sites for field instrumentation Developed an analytical framework to evaluate the effect of wildfires on the stability of unsaturated slopes Studied snow-fire dynamics changes over the years Mapped the wildland-urban interface in California Developing sediment transport-based models Collected information for curriculum development Studied psychological consequences of cascading hazards Designed community survey and received IRB approval

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2022 Citation: Li, S., Dao, V., Kumar, M., Nguyen, P., & Banerjee, T. (2022). Mapping the wildland-urban interface in California using remote sensing data. Scientific reports, 12(1), 1-12.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2022 Citation: Vahedifard, F., Abdollahi, M., Kellogg, J. M., Leshchinsky, B. A., Stark, T. D., Sadegh, M., AghaKouchak, A. (2022, under review). Interdependencies between Wildfire-Induced Alterations in Soil Properties, Near-Surface Processes and Geohazards. Nature Geoscience (In Review, submitted August 29, 2022)
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2022 Citation: Abdollahi, M., Vahedifard, F., Tracy, F. T. (2022, under review). Post-Wildfire Stability of Unsaturated Hillslopes against Rainfall-Triggered Landslides. Earth's Future, AGU (In Review, submitted September 16, 2022).
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2023 Citation: Abdollahi, M., Vahedifard, F., Tracy, F. T. (2023). Stability Analysis of Unsaturated Slopes Stricken by Wildfires. Geo-Congress 2023, Los Angeles, CA, March 26-29 (Accepted).