National Academies Natural Disaster Readiness Committee Work Has River Basin Relevance

An ad hoc committee of the National Academies is conducting a study and will issue a consensus report that integrates information from the natural, physical, technical, economic and social sciences to identify ways to increase resilience to hazards and disasters in the United States.  The National Academies is requesting that people complete a (very brief) online survey to inform the committee's work.  The  work of the committee (and the opportunity to provide input) may be particularly relevant to Mississippi River system communities susceptible to flooding and/or strong storms (hurricanes).  The ad hoc committee working on the study has already visited the New Orleans and Cedar Rapids/Iowa City areas to solicit input from those communities, but will not be visiting other communities within the basin.  Here is the link to the survey.

And here is the description of the committee’s work from the survey Internet page:

The National Academies are conducting a study on Increasing National Resilience to Hazards and Disasters. The goal of the study is to provide actionable recommendations and guidance on the best approaches to reduce adverse impacts from hazards and disasters. As part of the study, our National Academies committee is visiting a number of communities around the nation to assess how they have responded to disasters in the past and how they view and assess their resilience to future disasters. Because the committee is unable to visit all communities, we are asking for your help to find out more about your community through this short questionnaire.

The committee's current working definition of resilience is "the ability to prepare for, plan for, absorb, recover from or more successfully adapt to actual or potential adverse events."  For more information, view the study's statement of task.

 Submissions received by May 15, 2011, will be considered at the committee's final public meeting (May 23-26, 2011 in Irvine, California). However, the committee welcomes any input until July 1, 2011. The final report will be released early in 2012.