How can the human dimensions of disaster impacts be more accurately captured and represented in the analysis, modeling and simulation of disasters?
Disaster modeling has been focused independently on the simulation of hazards and the simulation of society's response to hazards. There is a need for integrated hazard and social response simulations. This kind of simulation combines the physics of the earth's dynamics and its effects and interaction with people's behavior; needs; and resources to respond to and mitigate damage and losses. The agent-based or multiagent approach provides a way to represent human similarities and differences in a computational environment. The interaction among agents emulates the dynamics in society; and the interaction or reaction of agents against a hazard highlights the human dimension of disaster impacts. The accuracy of this kind of simulation requires a high level of granularity in the data; however; it also provides a finer level in the analysis of disaster resilience.
What type of data and supporting research infrastructure would be necessary to enable novel, transdisciplinary approaches to answering these and other human-centered disaster questions?
Social studies on human behavior; risk perception; and awareness of hazards are the starting point to elucidate how humans understand and confront hazards. Inventories of available resources to mitigate and respond against disasters. Archive previous disasters to understand commonalities and particularities across hazards and disasters. High-performance computing and modeling capabilities to evaluate multiple hazard scenarios and people's reactions to those. Real-time sensing data at a higher frequency and finer levels (i.e.; GPS mobile data; traffic data; hazard-related monitoring instrumentation. etc.)
In what ways can US-Japan collaborations advance these questions in new and important ways?
Collaboration between the US and Japanese researchers allows us to foresee scenarios and practices that differ from each country's reality. This expands the scope of assessment and enriches the analysis of possible cases of impacts and responses. Moreover; practices and methodologies that are different but are used for the same purpose can be compared and evaluated objectively by each team. Differences in data availability; formats; and usage provide insights on better ways to gather; analyze and share this information.