Building geological hazards capacity in puerto ricoproject period: JAN 01, 2025-DEC 31, 2026AWARD purpose: puerto rico (PR) experiences a high risk due to atmospheric hazards andsecondary cascading…

This Cooperative Agreement award, funded by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) under the USGS Research and Data Collection program (CFDA 15.808), provides $400,000 to the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras (UPR-RP) to conduct a 2-year project focused on building geological hazards capacity in Puerto Rico. The project will involve research coordinated by social scientists and geoscientists at both UPR-RP and USGS, in collaboration with local partners, to assess past and current geologic hazard preparedness and response activities. The goal is to identify opportunities to refine and align activities and build geologic hazards capacity through training and communication. Key deliverables include a decision support and data product inventory, a local research workshop with proceedings, and scientific publications and conference presentations that will lay the groundwork for continued geologic hazards capacity and capability growth in Puerto Rico.

Intended beneficiaries

The beneficiaries are ultimately the residents of PR who are exposed togeologic hazards, especially those related to high precipitation events. Other beneficiariesinclude professionals of regional-local government, academic, and community entities in prwho deal with disaster risk reduction who will participate in professional development andcommunication activities during the research workshop. Student researchers will benefit throughtraining and networking. USGS and UPR-RP researchers will benefit from the collaborativeexperience growing their professional networks and experience. Finally, other regions thatexperience geologic hazards related to tropical storms will likely benefit indirectly as thefindings can serve as a guide to consider geologic hazard capacity building initiatives.

Subrecipient activities

There are no subrecipients of this award.