April 29, 2020
Dear members of the Natural Hazards Engineering Community,
In 2019, the NHERI SimCenter developed and released a report on the state of art in computational simulation in natural hazards engineering. The report has been an important resource for the SimCenter to prioritize development of simulation tools and for NHERI researchers in general.
The SimCenter is in the process of updating the State-of-Art report to highlight key capabilities and gaps related to the simulation needs and research objectives outlined in the 2020 update of the NHERI Five-Year Science Plan and from other sources. To reflect the experiences and preferences of the broad community, your input is being sought for this update. Specifically, your feedback is requested on the content of last years report and recommendations on topics or tools to include in the upcoming version.
In addition to revising existing chapters, the report will be expanded to include new chapters that cover: (i) the use of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to harvest, enhance and process data; and (ii) modeling the Socioeconomic Consequences of disasters, including recovery simulation and optimization of policies. Four topics and corresponding questions below are provided as guidance to formulate your suggestions:
1. Chapters
Do the existing four and two new chapters include all major areas of background knowledge required for computational simulation in natural hazards engineering?
2. Content
Do the existing chapters provide an accurate overview of the key capabilities of computational simulation in each area, as related to natural hazards engineering?
3. Tools
Are there significant software systems for natural hazards engineering that should be included in the report? Please keep in mind that the main emphasis is on open source software that is generally accessible to and utilized by a significant number of researchers in natural hazards engineering.
4. Research Gaps
Are there important research questions or gaps that are missing and should be highlighted in the corresponding sections?
The SimCenter provides two avenues for feedback:
A. Questionnaire
A questionnaire with the above four questions and additional space for other suggestions is available online: https://forms.gle/ienngbcdQmSQoW7m6
B. Message board
The SimCenter message board has a "State of the Art in Computational Simulation" section that allows you to post your feedback and discuss it with others:
The NHERI SimCenter appreciates your suggestions and looks forward to enhancing the report with the communitys feedback. To be included in the updated report, submissions to either mechanism are needed by June 23, 2020. Thank you!
On behalf of the SimCenter team:
Greg Deierlein
Adam Zsarnóczay