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Necessary Tools
Meeting the broad requirements necessary to reduce hazard impacts and increase hazard
resilience will require continued expansion of existing observational systems, data-delivery
systems, and modeling capabilities at regional, national, and global scales. Sustained and
integrated marine and coastal observations, including technological improvements in remote
and in situ sensing of multiple time-sensitive parameters (oceanographic, geophysical,
hydrological, chemical, biological, geographic) are required. Comprehensive geospatial
characterization combined with sustained and reactive deployment modes of operation
are required to acquire baseline (pre-impact) and post-hazard data. Deployments must be
capable of assessing diverse hazard processes and impacts, such as coastal and inland inundation
and water quality. These deployments would support development of improved
models of, for example, storm evolution and coastal response. The capability to provide
up-to-date characterization of coastal vulnerability and pre-storm conditions (including
topography and bathymetry, land-use/land-cover, monitoring of riverine and coastal water
levels) must be maintained.
Multi-hazard assessments will require information infrastructure supporting development
of an “all-hazard” GIS resource with defined standards supporting information
integration and application. Advanced computational resources and the establishment of
community computational standards are required for data-assimilation systems, coupled
land-ocean-atmosphere models, and data management and delivery systems. The design
and implementation of robust, reliable, and widely available notification systems will help
enable more effective communication of warnings.
Research communities that address hazards currently focus on single hazards, single elements
of the hazard cycle (e.g., generation, impact, policy), or single research disciplines
(e.g., physical, ecological, social, and engineering sciences). These diverse communities
must be coordinated and integrated to inform and evaluate mitigation strategies with the
broadest consideration of costs and effectiveness (i.e., on economic, sociological, ecological
levels). An integrated approach will lead to more effective translation of research results
and development of tools for informed and comprehensive decision-making.
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