Using Information Technology to Incorporate Natural Hazards and Mitigation Strategies in the Civil Engineering Curriculum
Publication: Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice
Volume 140, Issue 1
Abstract
Natural and environmental hazards include earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, hurricanes, floods, landslides, and droughts, among several others. These hazards present high risk to human lives and infrastructure. This is particularly true when such systems affect populated areas, devastating homes, highways, buildings, and social structure. A key aspect of natural hazard mitigation is the implementation of adequate strategies for data collection, processing, and sharing. This implementation can be prior to a natural disaster event for purposes of risk assessments and planning or postevent for disaster relief efforts and to document and learn from these case histories. In this paper, the authors present their experience in developing and implementing a course on natural hazards, which also focused on the benefits of using information technology (IT)-based solutions for natural hazard risk management. In the United States, most civil engineering (CE) curricula offer elective courses focusing primarily on traditional CE specialty areas (e.g., structures, geotechnical, hydraulics, environmental, construction management, and transportation). Therefore, there is typically no formal education in natural disasters in undergraduate CE curricula despite the critical role that CE professionals play in natural hazard risk mitigation and relief activities. The purpose of this article is to present an overview of the course developed in the CE department at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez (UPRM) and highlight how the use of IT solutions was integrated in a seamless way as a fundamental component of the course. The inclusion of IT allowed students to participate in the development of an up-to-date technology-based system to collect and manage natural hazard data.
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Acknowledgments
This material is based on work supported under the HP Technology Grant Initiative by Hewlett Packard. This grant made it possible to offer this course with the proposed IT focus. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of HP. Similarly, the authors want to thank the unconditional support of many people who selflessly offered their help with this course in the form of guest lecturers to describe different natural hazards, particularly the following professors from the UPRM Department of Civil Engineering: Ismael Pagán (floods), Ricardo López (earthquakes), Raúl Zapata (floods and river erosion), José A. Martínez (earthquakes), and Luis Aponte (winds and hurricanes). The authors want to express their gratitude to Emmanuel Padilla for developing part of the work used as example in this paper. In addition, the authors want to thank Dr. Antonio González-Quevedo for reviewing this article.
References
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© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Feb 28, 2013
Accepted: Jul 10, 2013
Published online: Jul 12, 2013
Published in print: Jan 1, 2014
Discussion open until: Mar 15, 2014
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