Award Abstract # 2128030
RAPID: Operationalizing the Capabilities Approach in the Context of Disaster Resilience: Measuring the Social Burden of Infrastructure Disruptions

NSF Org: SES
Division of Social and Economic Sciences
Recipient: THE RESEARCH FOUNDATION FOR THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
Initial Amendment Date: May 10, 2021
Latest Amendment Date: May 10, 2021
Award Number: 2128030
Award Instrument: Standard Grant
Program Manager: Robert O'Connor
roconnor@nsf.gov
 (703)292-7263
SES
 Division of Social and Economic Sciences
SBE
 Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences
Start Date: May 15, 2021
End Date: September 30, 2022 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $199,434.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $199,434.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2021 = $199,434.00
History of Investigator:
  • Susan Clark (Principal Investigator)
    sclark1@buffalo.edu
  • Michael Shelly (Co-Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: SUNY at Buffalo
520 LEE ENTRANCE STE 211
AMHERST
NY  US  14228-2577
(716)645-2634
Sponsor Congressional District: 26
Primary Place of Performance: SUNY at Buffalo
520 Lee Entrance
Buffalo
NY  US  14228-2567
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
26
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): LMCJKRFW5R81
Parent UEI: GMZUKXFDJMA9
NSF Program(s): Decision, Risk & Mgmt Sci,
HDBE-Humans, Disasters, and th
Primary Program Source: 01002122DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s): 041E, 7914, 9102, 9179
Program Element Code(s): 132100, 163800
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.075

ABSTRACT

This Grant for Rapid Response Research (RAPID) project assesses the impacts of power outages and associated infrastructure disruptions (e.g., water and transportation) on households by conducting a residential survey in Texas of people impacted by the February 2021 Winter Storm. During the storm, millions of households without power and water struggled to meet their basic needs. Cooking food, accessing clean water, and staying warm proved difficult without electricity and water. Focusing on these interrupted household services and the additional effort necessary to complete important household tasks enables research to understand how critical infrastructure facilitates the achievement of basic household needs. Moreover, through the examination of the additional ?costs? (e.g., extra time and money spent) required to meet these needs and maintain household capabilities during disruptions, the project contributes to developing a metric that captures the social burden of infrastructure disruptions. This metric of the social impacts of infrastructure disruptions can inform infrastructure planning and investment decisions by capturing currently unmeasured consequences of infrastructure failure.

This research seeks to advance the Capabilities Approach (CA) framework for understanding human development and well-being by investigating the social impacts of infrastructure disruptions on households. The primary objective is to empirically examine the impacts of the recent power outages (and associated infrastructure disruptions) in Texas on household basic capabilities (i.e., being healthy and feeling safe). The research team conducts a representative, outage-wide survey of Texan households to identify the type and intensity of capability losses experienced, and examines the role of prior outage experience in mediating impacts. The event in Texas is particularly distinct because a significant portion of the population impacted has not experienced significant outages in recent memory. By comparing the responses of people with varying levels of prior outage experience, this research elucidates the role of experience in mediating outage impacts, and enables the researchers to more accurately measure the true burden of disruptions on households caught off-guard by Winter Storm Uri. This research goes beyond prior work by obtaining granular data on the links between critical infrastructure services and basic capabilities by analyzing the impacts of power outages as they cause cascading infrastructure system disruptions (i.e., water, food, etc.). The research maps the linkages between the disruption of household infrastructure services (i.e., lighting, refrigeration) and the disruption of day-to-day household activities critical for maintaining basic needs (i.e., keeping warm, eating) that may limit the achievement of critical capabilities and functions important for human well-being (i.e., being healthy and felling safe). This work supports a novel and augmented Capabilities Approach framework that can be used to understand the social impacts of infrastructure disruptions on households as well as the ways in which households adapt to meet basic needs. Second, the data collected are used to develop a metric that quantifies the social burden of infrastructure disruptions on households, which is estimated according to the extra time and costs required of households to fulfill basic needs during infrastructure outages.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH

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Clark, Susan Spierre and Peterson, Sara K.E. and Shelly, Michael A. and Jeffers, Robert F. "Developing an equity-focused metric for quantifying the social burden of infrastructure disruptions" Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure , v.8 , 2023 https://doi.org/10.1080/23789689.2022.2157116 Citation Details

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

In February 2021, severe winter weather conditions due to Winter Storm Uri caused an energy infrastructure failure in Texas. The majority of Texans lost electricity; many also lost potable water and experienced other infrastructure-related disruptions that had profound household consequences. Although several studies have documented disparities in terms of the types and extent of disruptions experienced by Texan residents during Uri, there is little information about the impact of these disruptions on household capabilities and well-being.

Guided by the Capabilities Approach framework, which focuses on people's ability to do and achieve lives they value, a representative survey of 1,000 Texan households was conducted to identify the outage characteristics and capability losses (e.g., inability to cook or access drinking water) for different household types, as well as the social burdens that those disruptions placed on household outcomes, as reflected by a number of objective and subjective measures. We also studied the role of prior outage experiences in mitigating households' social burdens.

Our research questions were:

1) What critical household capabilities were disrupted, and how did these interrupted capabilities (and the costs associated with achieving these capabilities) differ based on outage duration?

2) How did the social burdens associated with achieving capabilities differ across demographic groups?

3) What role (if any) did prior outage experience have in mitigating the household losses?

The key results of our study include:

-Households that endured longer and uninterrupted electricity outages suffered more disrupted household activities and increased time and financial costs to cope during the outages compared to other households.

-The top three most frequently reported and impactful disruptions were lighting, cooking, and heating.

-Heating and sanitation disruptions were the most time-intensive for households, whereas food-related activities caused the most mitigation spending.

-Single-person households over the age of 65, low-income households, households with children, and households with health-related challenges suffered more severe burdens than other households.

-Households with seniors reported bigger declines in well-being during the storm, despite experiencing less severe objective outcomes than households without elderly members.

-Households that had prior experience of a prolonged outage reported significantly smaller reductions in their well-being compared to other households, despite not showing any difference in objective measures.

-Homes with generators reported significantly less objective and subjective burdens during the storm.

-Households without cars reported significantly lower levels of life satisfaction during the storm, despite similar objective outcomes when compared to households with access to a personal vehicle.

The results of this project will inform decision-making and planning for community resilience and resilient infrastructure investments. Assessing the social consequences of Winter Storm Uri (and other disruptions more generally) helps reduce the gap between decision-makers and infrastructure managers and the interests of the populations they serve. Our findings on impacts can help create more context-specific, resilience planning and energy provision decisions that help mitigate burdens experienced by the most vulnerable. They can be used in making decisions about key interventions or preventative strategies that might best mitigate the household impacts of future infrastructure disruptions.

Emergency managers should also find our results informative. The identification of particular types of households that tend to suffer the most severe objective and subjective impacts due to power outages can inform the distribution of resources during a disaster and/or prioritize preventative measures. Unlike studies using social vulnerability indices to identify vulnerable populations prior to an event, our results reveal much more context-specific social vulnerabilities based on empirical, post-event data.

Individual households may benefit from our findings as well. For example, households that had access to a generator reported significantly reduced objective and subjective impacts from the storm, perhaps justifying the purchase of a generator for risk-averse households. Participants who took the survey also are likely to become more aware of how the lack of power impacted their lives, and potentially may have inspired some to take more preparatory measures to reduce impacts of potential future outages.

Another key outcome of this project has been the extension of the Capabilities Approach framework, typically applied in the context of poverty and human development, to study the social consequences of infrastructure disruptions on households. This has enabled a theoretically grounded approach to inform community resilience planning and infrastructure investments.

 

 

 


Last Modified: 02/03/2023
Modified by: Susan S Clark

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