RAISE: Wind and Hazards Investigation for Resilience to Landfalling Tropical Cyclones

This project aims to improve coastal community resilience to hurricane wind-related hazards and potential compounding hazards. When a heatwave hits a region reeling from hurricane damage to its electrical grid, societal effects become even more extreme because air conditioners and other electric devices cannot function. To help prepare communities for these combined risks, the team will collaborate with community partners in the Gulf Coast region of Texas and Louisiana to develop methods that precisely depict wind gusts over land during hurricane landfalls. The research will inform hurricane forecasting and also help risk communication protocols and inspire educational initiatives that create safer and better prepared coastal communities. To help coastal communities become better prepared for the combined risks of hurricane winds and their cascading hazards, this project will leverage Doppler radar wind retrievals and near-surface wind measurements to understand the low-level wind profiles of landfalling hurricanes. Researchers will use novel approaches combining high-resolution computer simulations, e.g., large-eddy simulations coupled with artificial intelligence, to better understand and predict strong, gusty winds near the ground, especially in coastal and urban areas. Qualitative and geospatial social science methods will be employed to better understand how communities and decision makers respond to wind-related hazards and the challenges they pose. This project involves partnerships with local organizations to create practical tools and risk communication products that will help people better understand and prepare for compound hurricane wind-related risks. This project is jointly funded by the Division of Research, Innovation, Synergies, and Education in the Directorate for Geosciences, and the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure through the National Discovery Cloud for Climate initiative. 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.