The National Full-Scale Testing Infrastructure for Community Hardening in Extreme Wind, Surge,
and Wave Events (NICHE) is a future facility currently under design. The NICHE Convergence Research Workshop series brought experts together to explore its potential and challenges. These
workshops highlighted critical steps for leveraging NICHE's capabilities in addressing complex natural hazards, such as hurricanes, while emphasizing the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and long-term strategies for improving resilience in the face of climate hazards.
NICHE’s infrastructure must support seamless integration of physical, computational, and field observations to advance research in multi-hazard environments. Computational advancements, such as digital twins and improved modeling interfaces, will enhance predictive capabilities. The facility should prioritize realistic, full-scale structural testing, with the capability to incorporate solutions such as nature-based approaches. Standardized test protocols and specimen reusability strategies should be explored to improve cost-effectiveness and research efficiency. Additionally, field observational data should capture both structural and social aspects of disaster impacts, using curated historical events as standardized test scenarios to support more robust analysis. Effective data lifecycle management, including centralized cloud-based storage and standardized formats, will ensure long-term accessibility and usability of research findings.
Supporting researchers through dedicated staffing, logistical assistance, and operational efficiency is critical for NICHE’s success. On-site technical experts will be necessary to facilitate experiment setup and troubleshooting, while cross-disciplinary team formation should be encouraged early in the research process. NICHE should provide proposal development support to streamline project planning. Additionally, effective logistical support should be prioritized. A structured mentoring system and media support for research documentation will further enhance user experience and project success.
While NICHE will not dictate specific research projects, it will be expected to strategically guide impactful studies through its science plan. Community baseline studies should be prioritized to establish pre-mitigation conditions for evaluating resilience strategies. This includes facilitating research on the compounding impacts of sequential storm events, the validation of multi-hazard computational models, and the development of clear performance metrics for building resilience. Addressing gaps in structural resilience research, particularly in elevated buildings and unconventional failure modes are other potential topics.
NICHE must actively engage with a broad range of stakeholders, including communities, policymakers, industry partners, and researchers, to align research with real-world needs that have positive societal impact. Early engagement of practitioners will help shape project objectives and ensure practical applicability. Additionally, collaborations with the insurance industry and policy experts should be fostered to integrate financial and risk management perspectives. NICHE should also play an educational role by demonstrating resilience strategies and translating technical findings into accessible formats for non-experts. Partnerships with organizations and industry groups will facilitate the incorporation of research into design guidelines, best practices documents, and recommendations for building (and other) codes and standards.
To support the next generation of hazard researchers, NICHE should foster an interdisciplinary research community and provide comprehensive training opportunities. Enhanced interdisciplinary training will equip researchers with the necessary skills to bridge the technical and social aspects of disaster resilience. Early onboarding efforts, including virtual tours and workshops, should help researchers navigate NICHE’s capabilities. As an educational platform, NICHE should emphasize knowledge transfer and hands-on demonstrations of resilience interventions.
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