Twenty university-led research projects won grants from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Science Foundation to develop tools or methods to make structures and communities resilient to natural hazards.
A review panel chose the Disaster Resilience Research Grant awardees from 260 assessed applications to receive $7.6 million in total grants, NIST said Wednesday.
NIST will provide funds to eight projects and NSF will back the remaining efforts, with a total of 24 academic institutions tasked with carrying out research work.
Efforts covered by the DDRG initiative include the development of a wildfire evacuation computer model, a coastal hurricane wind simulation database and an artificial-intelligence earthquake resilience assessment technology.