Science in times of crisis: delivering situational awareness to emergency managers and the public when disaster strikes

When the White House National Science and Technology Council laid out a series of grand challenges for disaster reduction, the first was to provide hazard and disaster information where and when it is needed. Earth observation and monitoring capabilities are only as good as their ability to reach those in harm's way and inform those who must respond when disaster strikes. At the U. S. Geological Survey (USGS), our scientists work on many different natural hazards across the US and around the globe in close collaboration with federal, state and academic partners. We support monitoring networks, generate hazard assessments, and study the natural processes and societal factors that shape the risks we face from hazard events.The USGS has delegated federal responsibility to provide notifications and warnings for geologic hazards, including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and landslides. For a number of other hazards, USGS monitoring capabilities support the statutory responsibilities of our partners. Data from USGS national and global seismic networks are fed directly to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) tsunami warning centers. USGS streamgages and storm-surge monitors support NOAA's flood and severe weather warnings, including those for hurricanes. The USGS maintains a network of 14 geomagnetic observatories around the US and its territories, which are used by NOAA and the U. S. Air Force to measure the intensity of geomagnetic storms caused by solar flares and other space weather.For earthquakes, the USGS Advanced National Seismic System generates situational awareness tools that include e-mail and text alerts to over 300,000 subscribers worldwide and the Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response (PAGER) system's rapid estimates of fatalities and economic losses to help focus and prioritize response. Disaster information has increasingly become a two-way flow thanks to crowdsourcing and social media. The USGS actively engages with the public, who report on what they experienced through our Did You Feel It website. Tens of thousands of these reports come in after widely felt earthquakes, and that citizen science information is then used to augment instrumental data to refine impact estimates.For volcanoes, the USGS is modernizing and expanding its monitoring capabilities through the National Volcano Early Warning System. Common nationwide alerts and notifications characterize the threats to aviation and nearby communities due to unrest and eruptive activity at the 169 active U. S. volcanoes. For landslides, a prototype debris-flow warning system has been established in southern California in partnership with NOAA with plans to expand up the West Coast.USGS geospatial information supports response operations for wildfires and many other types of disasters. The web-based GeoMAC application provides fire managers and increasingly the public with current geospatial information on the status, location, and proximity of wildfires to natural resources, property, and infrastructure. Through its Hazard Data Distribution System, the USGS coordinates the acquisition and provision of satellite imagery and authoritative geospatial information for use in disaster preparations, rescue and relief operations, damage assessments, and reconstruction efforts.Millions of people worldwide look to USGS for rapid, reliable hazard information, either directly or through our partners. We are continually looking for ways to innovate in the face of ever-increasing expectations to deliver the right information to the right people at the right time.