ETA 2021 Strategic Plan - Flipbook - Page 11
The Challenge
Resilient Communities and
Infrastructure Strategic Initiative
Ten-Year Goal
Develop mature solutions for a resilient infrastructure
and the pathways needed to scale their adoption.
Historically, the U.S. Department of Energy’s National
Laboratories have pursued a portfolio of research
and development focused on mitigating increases
in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and associated
adverse impacts to the natural environment. Specific to
energy technologies, Berkeley Lab has led this pursuit,
providing four decades of breakthroughs in energy
efficiency in buildings and industry — two sectors
responsible for approximately one-third of all U.S.
national GHG emissions.
While Berkeley Lab’s mitigation work has great
impact, it is increasingly evident there is an urgent
need for new focus on scientific development in
support of adaptation. The need for resilience in our
communities is rapidly equaling the need to reverse
current emissions trends, and both must be addressed
concurrently. This need is critical for the country’s
economic and environmental health: In 2020, 22
separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters
in the United States cost our economy $95 billion.
The trend is long-standing — 2020 was the sixth
consecutive year in which 10 or more billion-dollar
disaster events affected the United States.6
With its dramatic effects on psychosocial and economic
well-being, disaster resilience has been identified by
the U.S. National Academies as a national imperative.7
Accordingly, ETA has established the Resilient
Communities and Infrastructure Initiative, centered
on the interface between the built environment and
transportation and grid systems, in the presence of
weather-related stressors. In contrast to stressors such
as earthquakes, cyberattacks, or terrorist events, which
are certainly relevant to resilience at large, this initiative
focuses on weather-related events and phenomena
such as wildfire, winds and floods, severe heat and
cold, and sea level rise.
6 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 2021.
Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters: Time Series. https://
www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/time-series.
7 The National Academies Press. 2012. Disaster Resilience: A National
Imperative. https://www.nap.edu/catalog/13457/disaster-resilience-a-national-imperative
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