StEER: A Community-Centered Approach to Assessing the Performance of the Built Environment after Natural Hazard Events

Abstract

Since its founding in 2018, the Structural Extreme Events Reconnaissance (StEER) Network has worked to deepen the capacity of the Natural Hazards Engineering (NHE) community for coordinated and standardized assessments of the performance of the built environment following natural hazard events. This paper positions StEER within the field of engineering reconnaissance and the Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI), outlining its organizational model for coordinated community-led responses to wind, seismic, and coastal hazard events. The paper’s examination of StEER’s event response workflow, engaging a range of hardware and delivering a suite of products, demonstrates StEER’s contributions in the areas of: workflow and data standardization, data reliability to enable field-observation-driven research & development, efficiency in data collection and dissemination to speed knowledge sharing, near-real- time open data access for enhanced coordination and transparency, and flexibility in collaboration modes to reduce the “overhead” associated with reconnaissance and foster broad NHE community engagement in event responses as part of field and virtual assessment structural teams (FAST/VAST). StEER’s creation of efficient systems to deliver well-documented, reliable data suitable for diverse re-uses as well as rapidly disseminated synopses of the impact of natural hazard events on the built environment provide a distinctive complement to existing post-event reconnaissance initiatives. The implementation of these policies, protocols and workflows is then demonstrated with case studies from five events illustrating StEER’s different field response strategies: the Nashville, Tennessee Tornadoes (2020) – a Hazard Gradient Survey; the Palu Earthquake and Tsunami in Indonesia (2018) – a Representative Performance Study; the Puerto Rico Earthquakes (2019/2020) – using Targeted Case Studies; Hurricane Laura (2020) – leveraging Rapid Surveys to enable virtual assessments; and Hurricane Dorian (2019) in the Bahamas – a Phased Multi-Hazard Investigation. The use of these strategies has enabled StEER to respond to 36 natural hazard events, involving over 150 different individuals to produce 45 published reports/briefings, over 5000 publicly available app-based structural assessments, and over 1600 km (1000 mi) of street-level panoramic imagery in its first 2years of operation.

Assessment of Citizens’ Perception of the Built Environment throughout Digital Platforms: A Scoping Review

“…Understood as a special case of the web phenomenon of user-generated content, the most important value of VGI may lie in the opportunities of evidencing data from locations that go unnoticed by the world's media [18]; therefore, it transforms information typically released in a top-down manner under institutional structures into a diversity of data generated spontaneously from the local level following bottom-up patterns [18,19].…”

“…In this context, smartphones have become the key tool for activating a new peoplefocused sensor-networking paradigm, allowing citizens to become part of the urban sensing infrastructure [8] and effectively "instrumenting" the entire planet [19]. This technology, supported by GPS, microphones, or cameras, is probably the most efficient sensing device today based on its mobility and possibility to collect data directly from the field [5,7], which enables gathering a huge amount of information at a very low cost; therefore, smartphones are offering new platforms to overcome traditional constraints of participatory research, improving recruitment and opportunities for collecting and analyzing data [20,21].…”

“…The application of Audit Tools can be found in four articles within this review: Besenyi et al [28], Osborne et al [29], Remigio et al [30], and Kijewski-Correa et al [19].…”

“…Audit Tools can be used for diverse objectives. Osborne et al [29] and Kijewski-Correa et al [19] applied them to assess environmental hazards on the built environment, while Besenyi et al [28] and Remigio et al [30] used them to assess the quality of urban parks and informal neighborhoods, respectively.…”

“…Four of the selected articles applied Systematic Social Observation (SSO) methods: Besenyi et al [28], Osborne et al [29], Remigio et al [30], and Kijewski-Correa et al [19] SSO is the basic technical tool used by Audit Tools and is based on protocols and criteria to guide the appliance of standardized instruments and forms, which allows the collection of information in the field. SSO is used to collect data on sample locations, such as streets, public spaces, or neighborhoods.…”