Risk Wise

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US Grand Challenges for Disaster Reduction:

interagency priority actions for

human and ecosystem health hazards

Nathalie Valette-Silver, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Ocean Service

and Josephine Malilay, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Environmental Health;

Human and Ecosystem Health Working Group of the Subcommittee on Disaster Reduction, USA

he United States of America’s ‘Grand Challenges for

Disaster Reduction’, crafted by the President’s Office of

Science and Technology Policy, National Science and

Technology Council’s Subcommittee on Disaster Reduction

(SDR), outlines a ten-year strategy. Six ‘Grand Challenges’ were

identified to enhance community resilience:

• Provide hazard and disaster information when and where it is

needed

• Understand the natural processes that produce hazards

• Develop hazard mitigation strategies and technologies

• Reduce the vulnerability of infrastructure

• Assess disaster resilience

• Promote risk-wise behaviour.

To meet these challenges, the 25 Federal departments and agencies

that comprise the SDR have identified and prioritized science and

technology actions and investments to improve communities’ capa-

bility to better prepare for hazards and prevent and

recover from disaster events. Fourteen implementation

plans were developed to address actions for the most

frequent hazards in the US (e.g. drought, coastal inun-

dation, earthquake, flood, heat wave, hurricane, land

slides and debris flow, technological disasters, tornado,

tsunami, volcano, wildfire, winter storm, and human

and ecosystem-related health hazards).

While frequently occurring hazards focus primarily

on natural processes or are man-induced, the hazards

wrought upon the health of humans and ecosystems

merit a separate category. Human and ecosystem health

hazards are conditions that predispose a person to

adverse health outcomes (e.g. death, illness, injury or

disability) or result in the deterioration of ecosystem

structure and services (e.g. acid rain, habitat degrada-

tion, animal and plant illness or death, introduction of

Culex

larvae found collecting in standing water in an Atlanta, Georgia residential area. In the US, West Nile virus is transmitted by infected mosquitoes,

primarily members of the

Culex

species

Image: CDC/James Gathany