The Center for Disaster Resilient Communities operationalizes our work through a focus on five mechanisms that support the themes of the research agenda. These mechanisms are described in the following tabs.
The Center is developing and nurturing a robust community of practice across the University of Washington’s three campuses that brings together disciplines ranging from engineering and the built environment to medicine and public health. We leverage our convening power to come together in cross-disciplinary ways around common strategic frameworks, which allows us to bridge linkage gaps – where the focus of one discipline ends and another begins – to more holistically design and implement research projects.
The Center plans and engages with communities as they work to become more resilient to disasters. We work collaboratively with locally-, regionally-, nationally- and internationally-based community and government partners to identify the key research questions they have and data and information they need to better prepare, mitigate, respond and recover from disasters. This community-driven approach to disaster research is grounded in a commitment to the equitable and mutually beneficial creation and exchange of knowledge.
The Center is exploring how to take newer approaches, such as machine learning and data science, and apply them to more traditional forecasting and modeling of natural hazards such as earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, wildfires, windstorms and floods, among others.
The Center will work with community and government partners to integrate the latest science into regionally-focused disaster planning scenarios to facilitate planning and preparedness. Another area of interest is the development of a simulation approach for stress testing health systems for disasters, including compound hazards associated with climate change, and pilot the approach in different settings as a means of improving disaster resilience.
The Center focuses on improving communication among researchers, the public and private sectors and communities to better facilitate the uptake of research into practice and policy.