Description

The NHERI Natural Hazard and Disaster Reconnaissance (RAPID) Facility enables the natural hazards community to collect, process, and preserve perishable field data following disasters. As a shared national resource, RAPID provides state-of-the-art instrumentation, mobile sensing technologies, software, training, and expert staff support. These resources allow researchers to quickly mobilize after earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, wildfires, landslides, and other extreme events to document impacts on the built, natural, and social environment.

RAPID also offers robust data services, including processing support and long-term curation through the DesignSafe Data Depot, ensuring data is findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable. By delivering standardized workflows and metadata, RAPID promotes reproducibility and accelerates interdisciplinary discovery.

In addition to supporting research, the Facility advances workforce development by training students, practitioners, and researchers in reconnaissance methods and emerging sensing technologies. Through these efforts, RAPID strengthens the nation’s ability to learn from disasters, foster innovation in hazard science and engineering, and improve community resilience.

Keywords

Natural Hazards, Disaster Reconnaissance, Exposures and Public Health, Interdisciplinary Research, Fieldwork, Surveying, LiDAR, UAV, Photogrammetry, Open Data, 3D Data, Training