RAPID: Archiving and Enabling Community Access to Data from Recent US Hurricanes

NSF RAPID Proposal funded to create an archive of data from hurricanes Harvey and Irma that impacted the US in 2017.

Hurricane Harvey is the largest storm of up to 5 days duration ever recorded in the United States. Over 50 inches of rain fell in places, and flooding and associated damage in the greater Houston area was extensive, with the storm extending across Texas and neighboring states. Shortly after Harvey struck, Hurricane Irma cut a broad swath across the Caribbean, Florida, and into nearby states, also causing widespread devastation and flooding. During the first few days following these events, even the most elementary kinds of questions about flood inundation depths, extents, and impacts could not be answered because we currently lack the ability to collect important data and the ability to assimilate available data into decision relevant information. One of our team members, David Maidment, at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin was embedded in the Texas State Operations Center helping with the response to Harvey, and along with other colleagues from the UT Center for Water and Environment (CWE) helped the Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM) establish an internal geographic information system supporting emergency services. He thus has access to, and deep knowledge of, important data from this work and will now work with TDEM to determine what part of that information can be released for research. Making data from events such as Harvey and Irma accessible is important to fill gaps and improve our understanding of and capability to prepare for and respond to such extreme events. The Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) provides a range of data services to the hydrologic research community, including HydroShare, which supports sharing and publication of a broad class of hydrologic data and models. This project will assemble, document, and archive data from hurricanes Harvey and Irma within the CUAHSI HydroShare community repository to make them easily accessible for research in broad hydrologic science community.