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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 55 records · Page 3

Melanization slows the rapid movement of fungal necromass carbon and nitrogen into both bacterial and fungal decomposer communities and soils

Microbial necromass contributes significantly to both soil carbon (C) persistence and ecosystem nitrogen (N) availability, but quantitative estimates of C and N movement from necromass into soils and decomposer communities are lacking. Additionally, while melanin is known to slow fungal necromass decomposition, how it influences microbial C and N acquisition as well as elemental release into soils remains unclear. Here, we tracked decomposition of isotopically labeled low and high melanin fungal necromass and measured 13 C and 15 N accumulation in surrounding soils and microbial communities over 77 d in a temperate forest in Minnesota, USA. Mass loss was significantly higher from low melanin necromass, corresponding with greater 13 C and 15 N soil inputs. A taxonomically and functionally diverse array of bacteria and fungi was enriched in 13 C and/or 15 N at all sampling points, with enrichment being consistently higher on low melanin necromass and earlier in decomposition. Similar patterns of preferential C and N enrichment of many bacterial and fungal genera early in decomposition suggest that both microbial groups co-contribute to the rapid assimilation of resource-rich soil organic matter inputs. While overall richness of taxa enriched in C was higher than in N for both bacteria and fungi, there was a significant positive relationship between C and N in co-enriched taxa. Collectively, our results demonstrate that melanization acts as a key ecological trait mediating not only fungal necromass decomposition rate but also necromass C and N release and that both elements are rapidly co-utilized by diverse bacterial and fungal decomposers in natural settings.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Automated detection of part quality during two-photon lithography via deep learning

Two-photon lithography (TPL) is an additive manufacturing technique for fabricating three-dimensional objects with nanoscale features. A main challenge of TPL is the routine and labor-intensive task of finding suitable light dosage parameters, i.e. writing speed and laser intensity that induce photo-polymerization within a wide variety of candidate photo-curing polymers. Another challenge is the monitoring required during fabrication. In this work, we apply machine learning (ML) models to accelerate the process of identifying optimal light dosage parameters and automate the detection of part quality. We curate TPL videos of different parts fabricated under a range of light dosage parameters using different resins and train spatial-temporal ML models on this data. Our results show that ML models can detect TPL part quality with a 95.1% accuracy in milliseconds. We also evaluate classification failures and identify two operating modes: parameter optimization and part quality detection. Last but not least, we publicly release this labelled dataset so that it may serve as a useful benchmark to the community. Our approach to process optimization and part quality detection addresses important aspects of TPL industrialization, is applicable beyond TPL and should benefit other additive manufacturing techniques with similar barriers to operating at industrial scale.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Stakeholder-guided holistic, Adaptive Framework for enhancing community Energy Resilience (SAFER) (Final Technical Report)

The Stakeholder-guided holistic, Adaptive Framework for enhancing community Energy Resilience (SAFER) project advances resilience science and engineering by addressing challenges in rural Kansas communities where aging infrastructure, extreme weather, and socioeconomic disparities heighten vulnerability to energy disruptions. Traditional approaches often focus on technical performance while overlooking community concerns and priorities. SAFER responds by integrating community perspectives with advanced analytical frameworks to create a holistic model for measuring and improving resilience. Project objectives included developing novel resilience metrics, advancing modeling frameworks that capture interdependencies across infrastructures, and embedding community-centric indicators directly into planning processes for distributed energy resources. The key technical innovations included the creation of self-organizing map (SOM)-based indices for objective resilience quantification, hetero-functional graph theory (HFGT) models linking power, water, transportation, and community assets, and graph neural network (GNN) tools for identifying critical nodes in complex systems. Community-centric energy planning was demonstrated through optimal siting and sizing of (photovoltaic) PV and battery storage, ensuring resilience enhancements also addressed energy burden and energy insecurity. SAFER engaged community partners in Dodge City and Ford County through surveys, focus groups, and workshops, generating more than 600 responses that established baseline measures of energy burden, financial insecurity, and willingness-to-pay to avoid outages. This data, organized in terms of a community capitals framework, informed the development of weighted reliability indices that better reflect community costs than traditional utility metrics. SAFER’s GNN-based critical node identification framework identified expert-labelled critical nodes with over 99% accuracy, while also uncovering additional functionalities essential for proactive resilience planning. The project’s models demonstrated that optimal PV and storage deployment could improve resilience indices by over 11 percent, with dispatch strategies further enhancing outcomes, confirming both the technical effectiveness and economic feasibility of these approaches. Through its combined emphasis on rigorous modeling, community-focused planning, and community engagement, SAFER advances the state of resilience research while delivering direct benefits to rural communities. The project provides tools, guidelines, and resilience heatmaps that help utilities, local governments, and residents better anticipate disruptions, prioritize investments, and strengthen the capacity to withstand and recover from energy-related hazards. Furthermore, the developed HFG and GNN frameworks are designed for transferability, allowing them to be adapted for resilience planning in other communities with minimal retraining. This inductive learning capability provides a scalable pathway to extend the SAFER project’s impact. Thus, creating a foundation for a nationally applicable model of infrastructure resilience. Additionally, the HFG can also be extended to include other FEMA community lifelines.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

ORBITaL-Net: A labeled training library for large-scale building feature extraction

Over the course of several years, nearly 1.5 million building outlines have been created from approximately 128,000 training tiles covering roughly 7,000 km 2 of very high-resolution multispectral overhead imagery, primarily dated between 2010 and 2020. This dataset, dubbed the Oak Ridge Building Image and TrAining Label Net (ORBITaL-Net), is designed for machine learning applications and is global in scope, with samples drawn from 72 countries across North America, South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. ORBITaL-Net captures a great diversity in geographic setting, structural characteristics, land use (urban and rural), terrain, and imagery conditions. While the labeled building outlines are themselves valuable, the dataset’s true strength lies in the pairing of these labels with corresponding reference imagery, which is being released for open source use. Similar to SpaceNet and Replicable AI For Microplanning (ramp), this building outline dataset will allow the larger computer vision community from academia, government, and industry the opportunity to develop robust, scalable, and generalizable geospatial machine learning techniques. Unlike SpaceNet and ramp, which offer high resolution labels and imagery primarily for large urban cities, ORBITaL-Net is not focused on training samples from heavily populated areas but instead aims to capture the innate variability of conditions present in both the physical environment and imagery collections.

Geography↗

The value of human data annotation for machine learning based anomaly detection in environmental systems

Anomaly detection is the process of identifying unexpected data samples in datasets. Automated anomaly detection is either performed using supervised machine learning models, which require a labelled dataset for their calibration, or unsupervised models, which do not require labels. While academic research has produced a vast array of tools and machine learning models for automated anomaly detection, the research community focused on environmental systems still lacks a comparative analysis that is simultaneously comprehensive, objective, and systematic. This knowledge gap is addressed for the first time in this study, where 15 different supervised and unsupervised anomaly detection models are evaluated on 5 different environmental datasets from engineered and natural aquatic systems. To this end, anomaly detection performance, labelling efforts, as well as the impact of model and algorithm tuning are taken into account. As a result, our analysis reveals the relative strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches in an objective manner without bias for any particular paradigm in machine learning. Most importantly, our results show that expert-based data annotation is extremely valuable for anomaly detection based on machine learning.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Increasing aggregate size reduces single-cell organic carbon incorporation by hydrogel-embedded wetland microbes

Abstract Microbial degradation of organic carbon in sediments is impacted by the availability of oxygen and substrates for growth. To better understand how particle size and redox zonation impact microbial organic carbon incorporation, techniques that maintain spatial information are necessary to quantify elemental cycling at the microscale. In this study, we produced hydrogel microspheres of various diameters (100, 250, and 500 μm) and inoculated them with an aerobic heterotrophic bacterium isolated from a freshwater wetland (Flavobacterium sp.), and in a second experiment with a microbial community from an urban lacustrine wetland. The hydrogel-embedded microbial populations were incubated with 13C-labeled substrates to quantify organic carbon incorporation into biomass via nanoSIMS. Additionally, luminescent nanosensors enabled spatially explicit measurements of oxygen concentrations inside the microspheres. The experimental data were then incorporated into a reactive-transport model to project long-term steady-state conditions. Smaller (100 μm) particles exhibited the highest microbial cell-specific growth per volume, but also showed higher absolute activity near the surface compared to the larger particles (250 and 500 μm). The experimental results and computational models demonstrate that organic carbon availability was not high enough to allow steep oxygen gradients and as a result, all particle sizes remained well-oxygenated. Our study provides a foundational framework for future studies investigating spatially dependent microbial activity in aggregates using isotopically labeled substrates to quantify growth.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Xarray Climate Data Analysis Tools

xCDAT is an extension of xarray for climate data analysis on structured grids. It serves as a modern successor to the Community Data Analysis Tools (CDAT) library. Xarray is an "open source project and Python package that introduces labels in the form of dimensions, coordinates, and attributes on top of raw NumPy-like arrays, which allows for more intuitive, more concise, and less error-prone user experience. Xarray includes a large and growing library of domain-agnostic functions for advanced analytics and visualization with these data structures" (source: https://xarray.dev/). The goal of xCDAT is to provide generalizable features and utilities for simple and robust analysis of climate data. xCDAT's design philosophy is focused on reducing the overhead required to accomplish certain tasks in xarray. Some key xCDAT features are inspired by or ported from the core CDAT library, while others leverage powerful libraries in the xarray ecosystem (e.g., xESMF and cf_xarray) to deliver robust APIs.

Vo, Tom↗

Activity-targeted metaproteomics uncovers rare syntrophic bacteria central to anaerobic community metabolism

Syntrophic microbial consortia can contribute significantly to the activity and function of anoxic ecosystems, yet are often too rare to study their in situ physiologies using traditional molecular methods. Here, in this study, we describe a technical innovation combining bioorthogonal non-canonical amino acid tagging (BONCAT), stable isotope probing, and metaproteomics to improve the recovery of proteins from active community members and track isotope incorporation. Both click chemistry-enabled cell-sorting and direct protein pulldown coupled to metaproteomics improved recovery of isotopically labeled proteins during acetate oxidation within a full-scale anaerobic digester. Resulting labeled protein expression profiles revealed elevated activity of a rare and uncharacterized syntrophic bacterium belonging to the family Natronincolaceae. BONCAT-based capture of newly translated proteins provided direct molecular evidence for the expression of a previously hypothesized oxidative glycine pathway for syntrophic acetate oxidation by this microorganism, showcasing the potential of targeted metaproteomics to characterize rare and active cells central to community metabolism in natural and engineered ecosystems.

Friedline, Skyler [Univ. of British Columbia, Vanc↗

A Quantitative Analysis on the Use of Supervised Machine Learning in Earth Science

Recent review papers (Ball et al., 2017; Reichstein et al., 2019) have investigated the opportunities and challenges in applying supervised machine learning (ML) techniques to Earth science problems. A common challenge is the lack of training (or labeled) data. Supervised ML, and especially deep learning (DL), require large training datasets. While there are large, open access Earth science archives, the data typically require preprocessing in preparation for supervised ML, frequently including manual labeling. Our objective is to understand the landscape of supervised ML in the Earth sciences, including which research communities have most rapidly adopted supervised ML, which algorithms are applied, and what data are used to train these algorithms. We conducted a literature survey of Earth science papers published during the last 10 years in journals from the American Geophysical Union (AGU), American Meteorological Society (AMS), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers(IEEE), and the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). We identified papers containing the terms ML, DL, or the names of individual supervised ML algorithms. "Earth science" is an additional required search term for IEEE and SPIE. We investigate trends in supervised ML usage during the 10-year study period, and manually analyzed AGU papers from 2018-2019 to enable deep-dive statistics.

Katrina S Virts↗

Composition and metabolism of microbial communities in soil pores

Delineation of microbial habitats within the soil matrix and characterization of their environments and metabolic processes are crucial to understand soil functioning, yet their experimental identification remains persistently limited. We combined single- and triple-energy X-ray computed microtomography with pore specific allocation of 13 C labeled glucose and subsequent stable isotope probing to demonstrate how long-term disparities in vegetation history modify spatial distribution patterns of soil pore and particulate organic matter drivers of microbial habitats, and to probe bacterial communities populating such habitats. Here we show striking differences between large (30-150 µm Ø) and small (4-10 µm Ø) soil pores in (i) microbial diversity, composition, and life-strategies, (ii) responses to added substrate, (iii) metabolic pathways, and (iv) the processing and fate of labile C. We propose a microbial habitat classification concept based on biogeochemical mechanisms and localization of soil processes and also suggests interventions to mitigate the environmental consequences of agricultural management.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Resource for the Development of Biomedical Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) Final Report

The NIH Research Resource for Biomedical AMS was originally funded at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 1999 to develop and apply the technology of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) in broad- based biomedical research. The Resource’s niche is to fill needs for ultra high sensitivity quantitation when isotope-labeled agents are used. The Research Resource’s Technology Research and Development (TR&D) efforts will focus on the needs of the biomedical research community in the context of seven Driving Biomedical Projects (DBPs) that will drive the Center’s technical capabilities through three core TR&Ds. We will expand our present capabilities by developing a fully integrated HPLC AMS to increase our capabilities for metabolic measurements, we will develop methods to understand cellular processes and we will develop and validate methods for the application of AMS in human studies, which is a growing area of demand by collaborators and service users. In addition, we will continue to support new and ongoing collaborative and service projects that require the capabilities of the Resource. The Center will continue to train researchers in the use of the AMS capabilities being developed, and the results of all efforts will be widely disseminated to advance progress in biomedical research. Towards these goals, our specific aims are to:1.) Increase the value and information content of AMS measurements by combining molecular speciation with quantitation of defined macromolecular isolates. Specifically, develop and validate methods for macromolecule labeling, characterization and quantitation.2.) Develop and validate methods and strategies to enable AMS to become more broadly used in human studies. Specifically, demonstrate robust methods for conducting pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamics studies in humans and model systems.3.) Increase the accessibility of AMS to the Biomedical research community and the throughput of AMS through direct coupling to separatory instruments.4.) Provide high throughput 14C BioAMS analysis for collaborative and service clients.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

A standardized quantitative analysis strategy for stable isotope probing metagenomics

ABSTRACT Stable isotope probing (SIP) facilitates culture-independent identification of active microbial populations within complex ecosystems through isotopic enrichment of nucleic acids. Many DNA-SIP studies rely on 16S rRNA gene sequences to identify active taxa, but connecting these sequences to specific bacterial genomes is often challenging. Here, we describe a standardized laboratory and analysis framework to quantify isotopic enrichment on a per-genome basis using shotgun metagenomics instead of 16S rRNA gene sequencing. To develop this framework, we explored various sample processing and analysis approaches using a designed microbiome where the identity of labeled genomes and their level of isotopic enrichment were experimentally controlled. With this ground truth dataset, we empirically assessed the accuracy of different analytical models for identifying active taxa and examined how sequencing depth impacts the detection of isotopically labeled genomes. We also demonstrate that using synthetic DNA internal standards to measure absolute genome abundances in SIP density fractions improves estimates of isotopic enrichment. In addition, our study illustrates the utility of internal standards to reveal anomalies in sample handling that could negatively impact SIP metagenomic analyses if left undetected. Finally, we present SIPmg , an R package to facilitate the estimation of absolute abundances and perform statistical analyses for identifying labeled genomes within SIP metagenomic data. This experimentally validated analysis framework strengthens the foundation of DNA-SIP metagenomics as a tool for accurately measuring the in situ activity of environmental microbial populations and assessing their genomic potential. IMPORTANCE Answering the questions, “who is eating what?” and “who is active?” within complex microbial communities is paramount for our ability to model, predict, and modulate microbiomes for improved human and planetary health. These questions can be pursued using stable isotope probing to track the incorporation of labeled compounds into cellular DNA during microbial growth. However, with traditional stable isotope methods, it is challenging to establish links between an active microorganism’s taxonomic identity and genome composition while providing quantitative estimates of the microorganism’s isotope incorporation rate. Here, we report an experimental and analytical workflow that lays the foundation for improved detection of metabolically active microorganisms and better quantitative estimates of genome-resolved isotope incorporation, which can be used to further refine ecosystem-scale models for carbon and nutrient fluxes within microbiomes.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Community RNA-Seq: multi-kingdom responses to living versus decaying roots in soil

Abstract Roots are a primary source of organic carbon input in most soils. The consumption of living and detrital root inputs involves multi-trophic processes and multiple kingdoms of microbial life, but typical microbial ecology studies focus on only one or two major lineages. We used Illumina shotgun RNA sequencing to conduct PCR-independent SSU rRNA community analysis (“community RNA-Seq”) and simultaneously assess the bacteria, archaea, fungi, and microfauna surrounding both living and decomposing roots of the annual grass, Avena fatua. Plants were grown in 13CO2-labeled microcosms amended with 15N-root litter to identify the preferences of rhizosphere organisms for root exudates (13C) versus decaying root biomass (15N) using NanoSIMS microarray imaging (Chip-SIP). When litter was available, rhizosphere and bulk soil had significantly more Amoebozoa, which are potentially important yet often overlooked top-down drivers of detritusphere community dynamics and nutrient cycling. Bulk soil containing litter was depleted in Actinobacteria but had significantly more Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria. While Actinobacteria were abundant in the rhizosphere, Chip-SIP showed Actinobacteria preferentially incorporated litter relative to root exudates, indicating this group’s more prominent role in detritus elemental cycling in the rhizosphere. Our results emphasize that decomposition is a multi-trophic process involving complex interactions, and our methodology can be used to track the trajectory of carbon through multi-kingdom soil food webs.

Nuccio, Erin E. (ORCID:000000030189183X)↗

Decision Support Tool for Planning Neighborhood-Scale Deployment of Low-Speed Shared Automated Shuttles

Increasing interest and investment in connected, automated, and electric vehicles as well as mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) concepts are paving the way for the next major transformation in transportation through automated and shared mobility. The initial excitement toward rapid deployment and adoption of automated vehicles (AVs) has subsided, and low-speed automated shuttles are emerging as a more pragmatic pathway for introducing automated mobility in geofenced districts. Such shuttles hold the promise to provide a viable alternative for serving short trips in urban districts with high travel densities. As interest in low-speed automated shuttle systems (to improve urban mobility) increases, the need for tools that can inform communities in relation to benefits or disadvantages of automated shuttle deployments is imminent. However, most of the existing transportation planning and simulation tools are not capable of handling emerging shared automated mobility options. This paper presents a microscopic simulation toolkit that can be used by cities and communities to plan for the deployment of low-speed automated shuttles systems, as well as other shared mobility options. Labeled as the Automated Mobility District modeling and simulation toolkit, the proposed decision support tool intends to help cities evaluate the mobility and sustainability impacts of deploying shared automated vehicles (SAVs) in geofenced regions. This paper describes the toolkit, as well as a sample scenario analysis for the deployment of low-speed automated shuttles in Greenville, South Carolina, U.S. Results from the scenario study demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed simulation toolkit in planning for advanced mobility systems.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Protecting People and Planet

To produce energy, civilian nuclear power plants require fuel. The majority of existing plants rely on solid ceramic fuels that contain concentrations of about 3 to 5% of the element uranium-235. This specific isotope is well suited to sustaining the type of chain reaction required for a nuclear reactor to harness the heat produced by nuclear fission. Title I of the United States Atomic Energy Act of 1954 defines “special nuclear material” as plutonium, uranium-233, or uranium enriched in the isotopes uranium-233 or uranium-235. This label identifies materials that at high concentrations can be used to produce nuclear weapons. The United States and broader international community are fully committed to ensuring the peaceful use of nuclear energy by committing to practices known as safeguards.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

A Decision Support Tool for Planning Neighborhood-Scale Deployment of Low-Speed Shared Automated Shuttles

Increasing interest and investment in connected, automated, and electric vehicles, and mobility-as-a-service concepts are paving the way for the next major shift in transportation through automated and shared mobility. The initial excitement towards rapid deployment and adoption of automated vehicles has subsided, and low-speed automated shuttles are emerging as a more pragmatic pathway for introducing automated mobility in geo-fenced districts. Such shuttles hold the promise to provide a viable alternative for serving short trips in urban districts with high travel densities. As interest in low-speed automated shuttle systems (to improve urban mobility) increases, the need for tools that can inform communities regarding benefits or dis-benefits of automated shuttle deployments is imminent. However, most of the existing transportation planning and simulation tools are not capable of handling emerging shared automated mobility options. This presentation presents a microscopic simulation toolkit that can be used by cities and communities to plan for the deployment of low-speed automated shuttles systems, as well as other shared mobility options. Labeled as the Automated Mobility District (AMD) modeling and simulation toolkit, the proposed decision support tool can help cities evaluate the mobility and sustainability impacts of deploying shared automated vehicles in geofenced regions. This paper presents a description of the toolkit, as well as a sample scenario analysis for the deployment of low-speed automated shuttles in Greenville, South Carolina. Results from the scenario study demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed simulation toolkit in planning for advanced mobility systems.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Modeling and Simulation of Automated Mobility Districts

Increasing interest and investment in connected, automated, and electric vehicles (CAEVs), and mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) concepts are paving the way for the next major shift in transportation through automated and shared mobility. The initial excitement towards rapid deployment and adoption of automated vehicles has subsided, and low-speed automated shuttles are emerging as a more pragmatic pathway for introducing automated mobility in geo-fenced districts. Such shuttles hold the promise to provide a viable alternative for serving short trips in urban districts with high travel densities. As interest in low-speed automated shuttle systems (to improve urban mobility) increases, the need for tools that can inform communities regarding benefits or dis-benefits of automated shuttle deployments is imminent. However, most of the existing transportation planning and simulation tools are not capable of handling emerging shared automated mobility options. This presentation provide the details of a microscopic simulation toolkit that can be used by cities and communities to plan for the deployment of low-speed automated shuttles systems, as well as other shared mobility options. Labeled as Automated Mobility District (AMD) modeling and simulation toolkit, the proposed decision support tool intends to help cities evaluate the mobility and sustainability impacts of deploying shared automated vehicles in geofenced regions.The AMD modeling and simulation task is funded through DOE's SMART Mobility Consortium. This presentation outlines the progress of the AMD modeling and simulation task in FY19, including case studies conducted in Greenville, SC, and Austin, TX.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Community Resilience Indicator Analysis: Commonly Used Indicators from Peer-Reviewed Research (Updated for Research Published 2003-2021)

In 2017, FEMA’s National Integration Center (NIC) Technical Assistance (TA) Branch identified a need to establish a data-driven basis for prioritizing locations for TA investment and guiding local emergency management planning. To achieve this goal, FEMA tasked Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne) with identifying commonly used indicators of community resilience across the landscape of published peer-reviewed research. FEMA and Argonne completed the first Community Resilience Indicator Analysis (CRIA) in 2018 and repeated the process in 2022. The CRIA process begins with a literature review and cataloguing of published peer-reviewed assessment methodologies on social vulnerability and community resilience. The literature review findings are then filtered by inclusion criteria established by the CRIA research team to ensure the methodologies are: (1) Quantitative, (2) Data and methodology are publicly available, (3) Calculated at the county level or lower, (4) Examine generalized hazard risk (rather than a singular hazard), and (5) Focused on pre-disaster community conditions. After this, the research team identifies the commonly used indicators across these methodologies and selects the best data source for each indicator. Finally, the research team bins the data for visual display, conducts a correlation analysis and creates a composite index, the FEMA Community Resilience Index (FEMA CRI). In 2018, the CRIA identified eight resilience and vulnerability assessment methodologies and 20 commonly used indicators (indicators used in three or more of the eight methodologies). The FEMA CRI in 2018 was created from these 20 indicators and was produced for at the county level. The 2022 CRIA updated the literature review to expand the list of methodologies examined and followed the same process, resulting in an analysis of 14 methodologies published between 2003 and 2021 and 22 indicators identified as commonly used (indicators used in five or more of the 14 methodologies). In 2022, the research team produced the FEMA CRI at the county and the census tract levels. To make the CRIA data more accessible and more actionable, each individual indicator and the FEMA CRI is binned and included in FEMA’s Resilience Analysis and Planning Tool (RAPT). RAPT enables emergency managers and community partners to quickly visualize relative differences in potential resilience by county, tribe and census tract. By reviewing the data for each of these 22 indicators individually, emergency managers can gain insights for targeted outreach strategies, planning, mitigation investments and response and recovery operations. Communities, regional governments and others can use this data to better understand potential challenges to resilience. As the social science field of examining and validating indicators of resilience evolves, FEMA will update RAPT to provide emergency managers and community partners with additional data and tools to inform planning, mitigation, response and recovery. It is important to understand that the role of the emergency manager is not to change or to “improve” the data, but to plan appropriately for the community characteristics reflected in the data. These datasets are community characteristics that researchers have identified as important considerations for resilience. For example, people with disabilities may have greater challenges to be resilient to disasters. If a community has a high population of people with disabilities, the emergency manager(s) may need to create tailored preparedness outreach programs and strategies to ensure those residents have support if evacuation is necessary. Rather than label these indicators as an absolute measure of resilience, FEMA considers “potential challenges to resilience” a better frame to understand these indicators. Everyone is vulnerable to disasters. While scholars theorize that certain characteristics may make an individual or a household more socially vulnerable, the data does not reflect measures that individuals and/or communities have taken to address potential challenges, such as emergency management planning and outreach or household preparedness measures. To aid emergency managers in understanding how to use these indicators, calling them potential challenges to resilience supports a more positive and strategic application of the data in all phases of emergency management.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗