Geology of the City of Seattle/Seattle-Area Geologic Mapping Project USGS, King County, City of Seattle
$1,000,000, August 1999-December 2004
(PI: D. Booth) The Seattle-Area Geologic Mapping Project (SGMP) is a collaborative effort to develop new data and greater understanding of the geology of the central Puget Lowland. The Project was initiated in 1998 through collaboration with the U.S. Geological Survey, the University of Washington, and the City of Seattle to provide state-of-the-art geologic data to support geologic hazard mitigation in the City. Since that beginning, it has grown to include other geographic areas and a broadened range of research topics. The project goals are to acquire existing geologic data and create new geologic information; to conduct geologic research and produce new geologic maps; and to support the wide variety of additional research, hazard assessments, and land-use applications of others throughout the region.
Landscape Self-organization by Ice Sheets National Science Foundation
$597,410, January 2004-December 2006
(PI's: B. Hallet and D. Booth) The terrain shaped by former ice sheets provides precious clues about poorly understood conditions and processes at the base of ice masses that are important because they control how fast ice sheets build up, move and store water, and how they respond to, and participate in, global climate change, present and past. Areas that were formerly under ice sheets tend to be strikingly scoured in the direction of ice flow and often feature highly streamlined hills (drumlins). We will develop a detailed mathematical model as a tool to better understand the spontaneous production of drumlins and other characteristic landforms by ice sheets. Our study of the spontaneous emergence of distinct landforms from the dynamic interaction of moving ice, water and sediment over vast spatial and temporal scales is an outstanding example of mathematical modeling of large, complex geosystems.
Peer Earthquake Performance Standards National Science Foundation & Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER)
$75,000/year, 3 years
(PI: R. Zerbe, S. Chang)
Apply Benefit-cost techniques to the evaluation of performance standards for earthquakes. Performance-Based Regulation: Implications for Regulatory Regimes National Science Foundation/Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center
$110,000; 2002-2004
(PI: P. May)
Regulatory reformers have widely endorsed the premise that regulations should be defined in terms of desired outcomes and have advocated greater use of this performance-based approach in a variety of regulatory arenas. This project, funded by the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center and the National Science Foundation, considers variations in forms of performance-based regulation as undertaken for building and fire safety, food safety, and nuclear power plant accident prevention. Expectations for performance-based regulatory regimes are being considered in comparison to complaints about overly prescriptive and rigid regulatory regimes.
