Established | 2001 |
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Director | Dr. Meghan Millea |
Location | , , |
The Center for Natural Hazards Research is an academic research center located in Greenville, North Carolina. The center is housed at East Carolina University and includes interdisciplinary collaborations between economics, geography and planning, engineering, climate science, sociology, and public administration. It serves as a conduit for natural hazards research, practice, and community-engaged scholarship focused on the people and places impacted by natural hazards.
The center focuses on hurricane, tornado, flooding and erosion hazards as they affect eastern North Carolina and the United States. Areas of active research include the financial impacts of hurricanes and floods, the effectiveness of warning systems, how policy-makers should handle evacuations, and how households can protect themselves from natural hazards. The mission of the center is to promote research and analysis that ultimately reduces the harm caused by forces of nature to life, communities and the environment. [1]
The center is currently directed by Dr. Meghan Millea and has 52 research associates from 15 collaborating institutions. [1]
In response to the widespread devastation suffered in the wake of Hurricane Dennis and Hurricane Floyd, ECU's College of Arts and Sciences began the groundwork for the center in 2001. The center is part of the North Carolina Institute of Disaster Studies at the University of North Carolina. [2]
The center received more than $200,000 in grants from the National Science Foundation in 2006 to study the effects of Hurricane Katrina on the gulf region and investigate reconstruction efforts in New Orleans. [3] In academic year 2007–2008, the center received more than $650,000 in grants from the National Science Foundation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA, Department of the Interior, Appalachian State University and the University of North Carolina. [4]
The center hosted its first ever "hurricon" conference in February 2020. The conference was funded by the National Science Foundation and aims to better prepare communities for hurricanes. [5]
Homeland security is an American national security term for "the national effort to ensure a homeland that is safe, secure, and resilient against terrorism and other hazards where American interests, aspirations, and ways of life can thrive" to the "national effort to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States, reduce the vulnerability of the U.S. to terrorism, and minimize the damage from attacks that do occur." According to an official work published by the Congressional Research Service in 2013, the "Homeland security" term's definition has varied over time.
A natural disaster is the very harmful impact on a society or community after a natural hazard event. Examples of natural hazard events are avalanches, blizzards, droughts, dust storms, earthquakes, floods, hails, heat waves, impact events, landslides, sinkholes, tornadoes, tropical cyclones, tsunamis, volcanic activity and wildfires. A natural disaster can cause loss of life or damage property. It typically causes economic damage. How bad the damage is depends on how well people are prepared for disasters and how strong the buildings, roads, and other structures are. Scholars have been saying that the term natural disaster is unsuitable and should be abandoned. Instead, the simpler term disaster could be used. At the same time the type of hazard would be specificed. A disaster happens when a natural or human-made hazard impacts a vulnerable community. It results from the combination of the hazard and the exposure of a vulnerable society.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), initially created under President Jimmy Carter by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 and implemented by two Executive Orders on April 1, 1979. The agency's primary purpose is to coordinate the response to a disaster that has occurred in the United States and that overwhelms the resources of local and state authorities. The governor of the state in which the disaster occurs must declare a state of emergency and formally request from the President that FEMA and the federal government respond to the disaster. The only exception to the state's gubernatorial declaration requirement occurs when an emergency or disaster takes place on federal property or to a federal asset—for example, the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, or the Space Shuttle Columbia in the 2003 return-flight disaster.
East Carolina University (ECU) is a public university in Greenville, North Carolina, United States. It is the fourth largest university in North Carolina and the only one in the state with schools of medicine, dentistry and engineering.
Greenville is the county seat and most populous city of Pitt County, North Carolina, United States. It is the principal city of the Greenville, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area, and the 12th-most populous city in North Carolina. Greenville is the health, entertainment, and educational hub of North Carolina's Tidewater and Coastal Plain. As of the 2020 census, there were 87,521 people in the city. The city has continued to see a population and economic boom with most of the growth being seen in the 20th and 21st centuries.
A storm surge, storm flood, tidal surge, or storm tide is a coastal flood or tsunami-like phenomenon of rising water commonly associated with low-pressure weather systems, such as cyclones. It is measured as the rise in water level above the normal tidal level, and does not include waves.
Emergency management is a science and a system charged with creating the framework within which communities reduce vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters. Emergency management, despite its name, does not actually focus on the management of emergencies, Emergency management or Disaster management can be understood as minor events with limited impacts and are managed through the day-to-day functions of a community. Instead, emergency management focuses on the management of disasters, which are events that produce more impacts than a community can handle on its own. The management of disasters tends to require some combination of activity from individuals and households, organizations, local, and/or higher levels of government. Although many different terminologies exist globally, the activities of emergency management can be generally categorized into preparedness, response, mitigation, and recovery, although other terms such as disaster risk reduction and prevention are also common. The outcome of emergency management is to prevent disasters and where this is not possible, to reduce their harmful impacts.
Gilbert Fowler White was a prominent American geographer, sometimes termed the "father of floodplain management" and the "leading environmental geographer of the 20th century". White is known predominantly for his work on natural hazards, particularly flooding, and the importance of sound water management in contemporary society.
The Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University (BSOM) is a public medical school located in Greenville, North Carolina, United States. It offers a Doctor of Medicine program, combined Doctor of Medicine / Master of Public Health and Doctor of Medicine / Master of Business Administration programs, and standalone Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Public Health programs. Brody is a national leader in family medicine, ranking No. 1 in North Carolina and No. 2 nationally in the percentage of graduates who choose careers in family medicine, based on the 2017 American Academy of Family Physicians report on MD-granting medical schools. Brody ranks in the top 10 percent of U.S. medical schools for graduating physicians who practice in the state, practice primary care and practice in rural and underserved areas. Brody graduates currently practice in 83 of North Carolina's 100 counties.
East Carolina University School of Dental Medicine is the dental school at East Carolina University. It is North Carolina's second dental school, which enrolled its inaugural class in the fall of 2011. ECU SoDM was established to address the shortage of dentists in the rural regions across North Carolina. It serves North Carolina statewide by educating more dentists, with the primary focus of student recruitment being students who desire to return to rural and underserved areas to provide oral health care. The SoDM built 8 community service learning centers located in rural and underserved areas throughout the state. The students will complete nine-week rotations at the service learning centers during their final year of study.
In its broadest sense, social vulnerability is one dimension of vulnerability to multiple stressors and shocks, including abuse, social exclusion and natural hazards. Social vulnerability refers to the inability of people, organizations, and societies to withstand adverse impacts from multiple stressors to which they are exposed. These impacts are due in part to characteristics inherent in social interactions, institutions, and systems of cultural values.
The Stephenson Disaster Management Institute at Louisiana State University is located in the Stephenson National Center for Security Research and Training at LSU.
Due to the common occurrence of hurricanes in the coastal state of North Carolina, hurricane recovery in North Carolina is a large component of the state's emergency management efforts. Recovery from these tremendous storms at the local and state level is a large part of the aftermath of a hurricane. Gavin Smith and Victor Flatt stated that "Disaster recovery remains the least understood aspect of hazards management, when assessed relative to preparedness, response, and hazard mitigation." Smith and Flatt also went on to state that the role of the states is even less understood. The review of the plans and policies that instruct recovery, agencies involved, funding processes and budgets, and the environmental effects of a hurricane creates a better understanding of how North Carolina recovers from a hurricane.
In emergency management, higher learning institutions must frequently adapt broad, varied policies to deal with the unique scope of disasters that can occur in on-campus settings. Hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, and wildfires are among some of the most common natural disasters that possess the capacity for large losses of life and property, with the potential to effectively destroy a university community. Man-made crises also can pose a serious threat to life and property, as was evident in the case of the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting. In order to preemptively reduce or prevent the severity of emergency situations, universities must coordinate and implement policies to effectively eliminate unnecessary risks' and decrease potential losses.
Susan Lynn Cutter is an American geographer and disaster researcher who is a Carolina Distinguished Professor of Geography and director of the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute at the University of South Carolina. She is the author or editor of many books on disasters and disaster recovery. Her areas of expertise include the factors that make people and places susceptible to disasters, how people recover from disasters, and how to map disasters and disaster hazards. She chaired a committee of the National Research Council that in 2012 recommended more open data in disaster-monitoring systems, more research into disaster-resistant building techniques, and a greater emphasis on the ability of communities to recover from future disasters.
The effects of Hurricane Floyd in North Carolina was the costliest natural disaster in the state's history until it was surpassed by Hurricane Florence in 2018.
Nurture Nature Center (NNC) is a science-based education center focused on engaging the public on environmental risk topics. NNC is located in the city of Easton, Pennsylvania, roughly 55 miles north of Philadelphia and 70 miles west of New York City. It was founded by Theodore W. Kheel in response to flooding in 2004, 2005, and 2006 in the Delaware River Basin. The center's work today encompasses both national social science research and local community programming.
Howard Charles Kunreuther was an American economist. He was the James G. Dinan professor emeritus of decision sciences and public policy at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.