The Challenge

The United States government spent $136 billion on disaster 

relief between 2011 and 2013. Preventing hazards such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and community-scale fires from becoming 

debilitating disasters depends upon the resilience of our 

buildings and infrastructure. 

What NIST Does

• Studies disaster and failure events with the goal of improving 

the performance of buildings and infrastructure, the safety 

of building occupants, and the associated evacuation and 

emergency response procedures.

• Assesses the adequacy of codes and standards, current 

practices, and the state of knowledge in the areas of disaster 

resilience and buildings and infrastructure.

Recent Program Highlights

• Launched the creation of a Disaster Resilience Framework and 

Disaster Resilience Standards Panel to identify performance 

goals; existing standards, codes, and practices to enhance 

resilience; and gaps that must be addressed to enhance 

community resilience.

• Announced funding and collected proposals for a Center of 

Excellence in Disaster Resilience focused on developing integrated, systems-based computational models to assess and 

guide community infrastructure resilience efforts.

• Developed experimentally validated 3D models of steel and 

reinforced concrete frame buildings for assessment of vulnerability to collapse.

• Convened a national series of workshops to better understand 

the role that buildings and infrastructure lifelines play in 

ensuring community resilience.

BY THE 

NUMBERS

 $136 billion

Federal spending

on disaster relief 

2011 to 2013

(Center for 

American Progress)

84

Disaster declarations in 2014 

(FEMA)

100 million

People affected

by disasters 

worldwide in 

2013

320,000

People 

displaced by 

natural disasters 

in the United 

States in 2013 

 40

Code changes

made to the 

International 

Building Codes 

and International 

Fire Codes as a result of 

NIST’s World Trade Center 

Investigation.

www.nist.gov

DISASTER RESILIENCE AT NIST
Budget

New for FY 2016

NIST requested an additional $10 million to develop and 

accelerate the adoption and use of the underlying measurement 

science to improve building standards, codes, and practices for 

cost-effective improvement of disaster resilience, including 

life-safety and reduction of property loss due to natural and 

man-made hazards.

With the requested funds, NIST will focus on:

• Improving building standards, codes, and practices.

• Improving design, construction, and retrofit of buildings, 

structures, and lifelines under extreme wind and coastal 

flooding loads.

• Facilitating construction of earthquake-resilient lifelines and 

enhanced earthquake performance in existing buildings.

• Developing a national Wildland Urban Interface fire rating 

system.

Program Goals

• Accelerate resilience 

planning by improving 

access to quality data, validated models, metrics, and 

mitigation strategies.

• Establish and promote the 

adoption of best 

practices to enhance 

resilience of buildings.

• Identify and address the gaps 

between research and building 

codes, standards, and practice 

through measurement science 

research, and coordinate 

the development of standards and guidelines.

0

5

10

15

20

25

Dollars, in millions

FY 2012 FY 2013 FY 2014 FY 2015 FY 2016

$7.1 $7.1

$10.4 $10.4

$20.4