| NSF Org: |
ITE Innovation and Technology Ecosystems |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | December 9, 2022 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | December 9, 2022 |
| Award Number: | 2236058 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Michael Reksulak
mreksula@nsf.gov (703)292-8326 ITE Innovation and Technology Ecosystems TIP Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships |
| Start Date: | December 15, 2022 |
| End Date: | November 30, 2024 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $624,029.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $624,029.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
1000 HILLTOP CIR BALTIMORE MD US 21250-0001 (410)455-3140 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
1000 HILLTOP CIR BALTIMORE MD US 21250-0001 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | Convergence Accelerator Resrch |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): | |
| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.084 |
ABSTRACT
This project supports improved food system resilience and food security in communities at-risk for hurricanes. The broader impact and societal benefits of this Convergence Accelerator Phase I project is to improve food system resilience and reduce disaster-induced food insecurity, improving the health and well-being of individuals in society. To achieve this goal, the convergence research team will develop an annual measure of community food security and subscales for individual systems that contribute to community food security. This measure will help organizations and agencies identify communities at higher risk for food insecurity following hurricane disasters and provide actionable information for communities to build food system resilience to hazards and environmental change. Between 11-15% of the U.S. population experienced food insecurity annually between 2008 and 2018. Food and nutrition insecurity rates can increase threefold following disasters. Households struggling before a disaster are at greatest risk. Increased food and nutrition insecurity rates persist for years while households and communities recover. Currently, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) measures household and individual level food and nutrition insecurity in the US annually and food deserts as a single dimension of community level food and nutrition security every four years. Food deserts are an indicator of accessibility of retail food in communities but miss multiple additional systems that influence community-level food and nutrition security. This project aims to create a Food Index for Resilience, Security, & Tangible Solutions (FIRST) that measures food system functioning. The FIRST will combine information from experts in the fields of disaster science, coastal engineering, food and nutrition security, nonprofit management, and supply chain management with local community knowledge. The FIRST will provide a tool for communities preparing for, responding to, and recovering from disasters and environmental change.
The food system is a complex adaptive system made up of a set of autonomous, interdependent sub-systems. When a disaster occurs, multiple systems are impacted. Currently, we rely on single-dimensional and infrequent measures of food availability and accessibility. Further, current measures do not account for disaster risk to multiple sub-systems. The proposed research will generate specific and timely metrics of food system and sub-system functioning and community food security to provide communities with actionable data to bolster food system resilience and reduce food and nutrition insecurity following hurricane disasters. Improved metrics will support mitigation and preparedness amid slower onset environmental changes, especially among those most at-risk as well as support more effective response and recovery of food systems and food security.
Using a convergence approach and systems dynamics modeling methodology, our team of academics, non-profits, government, and industry partners will develop and validate the FIRST. The research team will develop a conceptual and computational model of community-level food system resilience (FIRST) then run the model to describe food system resilience for pilot communities in North Carolina. The computational model will be evaluated in three historical hurricane events in North Carolina to evaluate the validity and reliability of the metric. FIRST scores for pilot counties in North Carolina as well as historical case data will be shared with community members to ground truth the results and elicit information about the usefulness of FIRST scores and how the scores could be used to bolster food system resilience. Information from pilot communities will set the stage for scaling up the model nationally for hurricanes and developing a roadmap with tangible solutions for building community food resilience. Annual measurement at the community-level will support more equitable disaster preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation to reduce disaster-induced food and nutrition insecurity. Sub-system scores for economic, health, social, and political systems will support more equitable policies and programs to assist populations at greatest risk for both food insecurity and disaster exposure, including lower income, racial and ethnic minority, and households with children.
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.
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.
This project aimed to create a decision support tool, named Food Forecast, that provides actionable information to improve food security during and after disasters. Human-centered design principles were employed in a community-engaged model building process for a systems dynamics model of community-level disaster food security. A low-fidelity prototype of the solution was achieved, in the form of a functioning online platform. It is populated with information on geography, food sources, and environmental hazards for the partner community in Eastern North Carolina.
The systems dynamics model that forms the engine of the online platform has advanced disaster science, engineering, public health, and social science. There is currently no measure of community-level food security for the disaster or non-disaster context. The state of science is to measure food security at the household level and then aggregate to the geography of interest. In contrast, the new systems dynamics model measures community food security by describing and quantifying the complex interdependencies between system elements such as food supply chains, utility and transportation infrastructure, and disaster and social services.
In addition to the Food Forecast online platform, this award supported the development of an additional low-fidelity prototype designed to address pain points of emergency management organizations. Specifically, many project partners conveyed that a better understanding of how flooding impacts infrastructure such as buildings and roadways has the potential to improve decisions such as where to stockpile and how to distribute emergency food. A flood modeling pilot was developed to visualize the overlay of compound flooding estimates on built infrastructure. This pilot advances coastal engineering and contributes to disaster science by using flood models that combine impacts from surge, riverine flooding and precipitation.
Project prototypes were shared with community partners in Eastern North Carolina as well as with partners from the public and private sector.
Key outcomes from the project include establishing partnerships to support scaling, implementation, and sustainability with USDA, CDC, and C&S Grocers (the largest wholesale food distributor in the US) as well as three new partner communities that will provide expertise to ensure the tool supports improving health for all.
The project engaged two early career researchers (pre-tenure) and one post-doctoral research associate. The post-doctoral research associate received mentorship from project investigators as well as had access to professional development funds for workshops, books, and other materials.
To date, two manuscripts have been submitted for this award and two more are in development with plans for submission in the future. Three presentations are accepted and will be delivered in 2025.
Last Modified: 05/02/2025
Modified by: Lauren Clay
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