NIST, under the auspices of its role as the lead agency for the US National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program, has released a draft earthquake hazards strategic plan for public review and comment. Deadline for responses is May 9, 2008.

The final plan will guide the activities of the four National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program agencies — FEMA, the National Science Foundation, the United States Geological Survey and NIST — working in partnership with state and local governments, private enterprise, professional organizations and academia.

The draft plan lists nine strategic priorities for the next four years to understand earthquake phenomena, develop cost-effective measures to reduced impacts on individuals, society and construction, as well as improve rapid community recovery from earthquakes. Some of these include implementation of the Advanced National Seismic System for impact notification, deployment of response, hazard assessments and research; development of cost-effective techniques and tools to design new earthquake-resistant buildings and to improve the survivability of existing buildings; creation of realistic earthquake scenarios to help communities and businesses better understand and plan for earthquake consequences; and design of earthquake-resilient infrastructure to end vulnerabilities and possible cascading failures in critical, interconnected transportation, ports, energy , water, sewage, communications and industrial production systems.

The draft NEHRP Strategic Plan and information on how to submit comments is available on the NEHRP website at http://www.nehrp.gov/plans/publiccomment.htm

•Date: 18th April 2008• Region: US •Type: Article •Topic: Emergency planning
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