Tag Archives: NOAA

Preparing for the Worst: Science to Improve Disaster Resiliency

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association reports that the United States set a record in 2011 with 12 separate billion dollar weather/climate disasters. Our nation is particularly vulnerable due to its large populations living and working in high-risk areas: seismic zones, coastal and river flood plains, and dense urban population centers. Catastrophic events can and will happen. Are we resilient enough to ensure that our nation and society can recover and thrive after these events?

The National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine produced a number of reports on the subject of disaster preparedness, response, and recovery. These books further additional discussion on hazard science policy and provide insight on the nation’s future research and applications needs. All are available to read online at no charge.

Building Community Disaster Resilience through Private-Public Collaboration

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Building Community Disaster Resilience through Private-Public Collaboration
142 pages | Paperback | Price: $31.27

Natural disasters–including hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and floods–caused more than 220,000 deaths worldwide in the first half of 2010 and wreaked havoc on homes, buildings, and the environment. To withstand and recover from natural and… [more]

Increasing National Resilience to Hazards and Disasters

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Increasing National Resilience to Hazards and Disasters: The Perspective from the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi: Summary of a Workshop
150 pages | Paperback | Price: $32.40

Natural disasters are having an increasing effect on the lives of people in the United States and throughout the world. Every decade, property damage caused by natural disasters and hazards doubles or triples in the United States. More than half of the U.S…. [more]

National Earthquake Resilience

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National Earthquake Resilience: Research, Implementation, and Outreach
244 pages | Paperback | Price: $36.00

The United States will certainly be subject to damaging earthquakes in the future. Some of these earthquakes will occur in highly populated and vulnerable areas. Coping with moderate earthquakes is not a reliable indicator of preparedness for a major… [more]

Crisis Standards of Care

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Crisis Standards of Care: Summary of a Workshop Series
174 pages | Paperback | Price: $36.22

During a wide-reaching catastrophic public health emergency or disaster, existing surge capacity plans may not be sufficient to enable healthcare providers to continue to adhere to normal treatment procedures and follow usual standards of care. This is a… [more]

Guidance for Establishing Crisis Standards of Care for Use in Disaster Situations

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Guidance for Establishing Crisis Standards of Care for Use in Disaster Situations: A Letter Report
160 pages | Paperback | Price: $31.50

The influenza pandemic caused by the 2009 H1N1 virus underscores the immediate and critical need to prepare for a public health emergency in which thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of people suddenly seek and require medical care in… [more]

Tsunami Warning and Preparedness

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Tsunami Warning and Preparedness: An Assessment of the U.S. Tsunami Program and the Nation’s Preparedness Efforts
296 pages | Paperback | Price: $57.60

Many coastal areas of the United States are at risk for tsunamis. After the catastrophic 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, legislation was passed to expand U.S. tsunami warning capabilities. Since then, the nation has made progress in several related areas on… [more]

How Communities Can Use Risk Assessment Results

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How Communities Can Use Risk Assessment Results: Making Ends Meet: A Summary of the June 3, 2010, Workshop of the Disasters Roundtable
10 pages | Not for Sale

During and after a disaster, text messages, tweets, Smartphone apps, and social networks, along with 24-hour cable news and other media, deliver relevant information to emergency responders, decision makers, and the general public. Participants in the… [more]

Private-Public Sector Collaboration to Enhance Community Disaster Resilience

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Private-Public Sector Collaboration to Enhance Community Disaster Resilience: A Workshop Report
83 pages | Paperback | Price: $18.90

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11) on the United States prompted a rethinking of how the United States prepares for disasters. Federal policy documents written since 9/11 have stressed that the private and public sectors share equal… [more]

Applications of Social Network Analysis for Building Community Disaster Resilience

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Applications of Social Network Analysis for Building Community Disaster Resilience: Workshop Summary
82 pages | Paperback | Price: $23.40

Social Network Analysis (SNA) is the identification of the relationships and attributes of members, key actors, and groups that social networks comprise. The National Research Council, at the request of the Department of Homeland Security, held a two-day… [more]

Recovering from Disaster

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Recovering from Disaster: A Summary of the October 17, 2007, Workshop of the Disasters Roundtable
15 pages | Not for Sale

Disaster recovery is a complex and challenging process that involves all sectors of a community as well as outside interests. In many cases, it is not even clear if and when recovery has been achieved because of varying stakeholder goals for the community, for… [more]

Improving Disaster Management

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Improving Disaster Management: The Role of IT in Mitigation, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery
192 pages | Paperback | Price: $38.92

Information technology (IT) has the potential to play a critical role in managing natural and human-made disasters. Damage to communications infrastructure, along with other communications problems exacerbated the difficulties in carrying out response and… [more]

Environmental Public Health Impacts of Disasters

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Environmental Public Health Impacts of Disasters: Hurricane Katrina, Workshop Summary
100 pages | Paperback | Price: $18.90

Public health officials have the traditional responsibilities of protecting the food supply, safeguarding against communicable disease, and ensuring safe and healthful conditions for the population. Beyond this, public health today is challenged in a way that… [more]

Eight New Books: Health Care, Mental Health Counseling, and more…

Another Monday brings us another roundup of the new books on the NAP website in the past week. As always, any books that have Free PDFs are labeled as such below.

As a side note, we set up a simple contact form here on Notes From NAP. If you have any suggestions or feedback, we’d love to hear it at notes.nap.edu/contact. Are these lists of the new publications on our site useful to you? Are there other features you’d like to see?  Fill out the form and let us know!

Featured Publication

Accounting for Health and Health Care: Approaches to Measuring the Sources and Costs of Their Improvement (prepublication)

It has become trite to observe that increases in health care costs have become unsustainable. How best for policy to address these increases, however, depends in part on the degree to which they represent increases in the real quantity of medical services as opposed to increased unit prices of existing services. And an even more fundamental question is the degree to which the increased spending actually has purchased improved health.

Accounting for Health and Health Care addresses both these issues. The government agencies responsible for measuring unit prices for medical services have taken steps in recent years that have greatly improved the accuracy of those measures. Nonetheless, this book has several recommendations aimed at further improving the price indices.

All New Publications This Week

Conducting Biosocial Surveys: Collecting, Storing, Accessing, and Protecting Biospecimens and Biodata (prepublication)

Waste Forms Technology and Performance: Interim Report (final)

Provision of Mental Health Counseling Services Under TRICARE (final)

Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies: Final Report (final)

Understanding the Changing Planet: Strategic Directions for the Geographical Sciences (final)

NOAA’s Education Program: Review and Critique (final)

Evaluation of Biomarkers and Surrogate Endpoints in Chronic Disease (final)

Free from NAP: Thirteen PDFs To Download

Once a month we collect all the free resources available at your disposal and send an e-mail to our subscriber list (if you’re not already subscribed, subscribe here). Today’s e-mail had far too many free PDFs to include, but to make sure everyone can conveniently find all the new free PDFs we have to offer, here is the complete list:

Understanding Climate's Influence on Human Evolution Understanding Climate’s Influence on Human Evolution The hominin fossil record documents a history of critical evolutionary events that have ultimately shaped and defined what it means to be human, including the origins of bipedalism; the emergence of our genus Homo; the first use of stone tools; increases in… Details
Envisioning the 2020 CensusEnvisioning the 2020 Census Planning for the 2020 census is already beginning. This book from the National Research Council examines several aspects of census planning, including questionnaire design, address updating, non-response follow-up, coverage follow-up, de-duplication of… Details
An Enabling Foundation for NASA's Space and Earth Science Missions An Enabling Foundation for NASA’s Space and Earth Science Missions NASA’s space and Earth science program is composed of two principal components: spaceflight projects and mission-enabling activities. Most of the budget of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) is applied to spaceflight missions, but NASA identifies nearly… Details
Infectious Disease Movement in a Borderless World Infectious Disease Movement in a Borderless World: Workshop Summary Modern transportation allows people, animals, and plants–and the pathogens they carry–to travel more easily than ever before. The ease and speed of travel, tourism, and international trade connect once-remote areas with one another, eliminating many of the… Details
Grand Challenges of Our Aging Society Grand Challenges of Our Aging Society: Workshop Summary
Aging populations are generating both challenges and opportunities for societies around the globe. Increases in longevity and improvements in health raise many questions. What steps can be taken to optimize physical and cognitive health and productivity… Details
Information Assurance for Network-Centric Naval Forces Information Assurance for Network-Centric Naval Forces
Owing to the expansion of network-centric operating concepts across the Department of Defense (DOD) and the growing threat to information and cybersecurity from lone actors, groups of like-minded actors, nation-states, and malicious insiders, information… Details
Mitigating the Nutritional Impacts of the Global Food Price Crisis Mitigating the Nutritional Impacts of the Global Food Price Crisis: Workshop Summary
In 2007 and 2008, the world witnessed a dramatic increase in food prices. The global financial crisis that began in 2008 compounded the burden of high food prices, exacerbating the problems of hunger and malnutrition in developing countries. The tandem food… Details
Revitalizing NASA's Suborbital Program Revitalizing NASA’s Suborbital Program: Advancing Science, Driving Innovation, and Developing a Workforce Suborbital flight activities, including the use of sounding rockets, aircraft, and high-altitude balloons, and suborbital reusable launch vehicles, offer valuable opportunities to advance science, train the next generation of scientists and engineers, and… Details
Promoting Chemical Laboratory Safety and Security in Developing Countries Promoting Chemical Laboratory Safety and Security in Developing Countries There is growing concern about the possible use of toxic industrial chemicals or other hazardous chemicals by those seeking to perpetrate acts of terrorism. The U.S. Chemical Security Engagement Program (CSP), funded by the U.S. Department of State and run by..Details
NOAA's Education Program NOAA’s Education Program: Review and Critique There is a national need to educate the public about the ocean, coastal resources, atmosphere and climate. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),  the agency responsible for understanding and predicting changes in the Earth’s… Details
Seventeenth Interim Report of the Committee on Acute Exposure Guideline Levels Seventeenth Interim Report of the Committee on Acute Exposure Guideline Levels Extremely hazardous substances (EHSs) can be released accidentally as a result of chemical spills, industrial explosions, and other accidents, or intentionally through terrorist activities. Workers and residents in communities surrounding industrial… Details
Private-Public Sector Collaboration to Enhance Community Disaster Resilience Private-Public Sector Collaboration to Enhance Community Disaster Resilience: A Workshop Report The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11) on the United States prompted a rethinking of how the United States prepares for disasters. Federal policy documents written since 9/11 have stressed that the private and public sectors share equal..Details
Spectrum Management for Science in the 21st Century Spectrum Management for Science in the 21st Century Radio observations of the cosmos are gathered by geoscientists using complex earth-orbiting satellites and ground-based equipment, and by radio astronomers using large ground-based radio telescopes. Signals from natural radio emissions are extremely weak, and… Details

New books this week: Climate’s Influence on Human Evolution and more

Featured Publication

Understanding Climate’s Influence on Human Evolution (prepublication)

The hominin fossil record documents a history of critical evolutionary events that have ultimately shaped and defined what it means to be human, including the origins of bipedalism; the emergence of our genus Homo; the first use of stone tools; increases in brain size; and the emergence of Homo sapiens, tools, and culture. The geological record suggests that some of these evolutionary events were coincident with substantial changes in African and Eurasian climate, raising the intriguing possibility that key junctures in human evolution and behavioral development may have been affected or controlled by the environmental characteristics of the areas where hominins evolved. However, with both a sparse hominin fossil record and an incomplete understanding of past climates, the particular effect of the environment on hominin evolution remains speculative. This presents an opportunity for exciting and fundamental scientific research to improve our understanding of how climate may have helped to shape our species, and thereby to shed light on the evolutionary forces that made us distinctively human.

All New Publications This Week

Promoting Chemical Laboratory Safety and Security in Developing Countries (prepublication)

Evaluation of the Health and Safety Risks of the New USAMRIID High Containment Facilities at Fort Detrick, Maryland (prepublication)

NOAA’s Education Program: Review and Critique (prepublication)

Seventeenth Interim Report of the Committee on Acute Exposure Guideline Levels (final)

Surrounded by Science: Learning Science in Informal Environments (final)

Electricity from Renewable Resources: Status, Prospects, and Impediments (final)