ASCE NOAA Taskforce

The NOAA Climate Program Office has forged a partnership with the University of Maryland (UMD) Center for Technology and Systems Management and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) to accelerate the development of climate-smart engineering codes and standards.

The partnership between NOAA, the nation’s largest provider of climate information, ASCE, the world’s largest civil engineering professional society, and the UMD center with a focus on systems engineering is being established to help the nation account for climate change in future infrastructure design and construction. The vast majority of building codes in the United States and abroad rely on consensus guidance provided by ASCE, the nation’s oldest engineering society.

Scope and Mission

As the working body responsible for executing the actions identified in the cooperative agreement, the Task Force should serve as both an information exchange and as an organizing committee. The main functions of the task force include:

Promoting an understanding of the needs of the the civil engineering community, especially with regard to weather and climate information in support of the establishment and application of codes and standards
Providing clear identification and description of specific capabilities within NOAA or NIST that may be relevant to the establishment of ASCE codes and standards that take into account a changing climate
Promoting an unified approach by communicating these needs and capabilities across the broad landscape of NOAA and NIST programs
Promoting unified approaches across ASCE to understanding future changes in weather and climate extremes as appropriate
Identifying milestones for the project and communicating progress and accomplishments.

ASCE Standards 7 and 24.

A focus of this partnership is on prioritizing and producing data. ASCE Standards go through the most thorough vetting process of any ASCE publications and we strive to make them as useful and long-lasting for civil engineers, and those in similar professions, as possible.

Past Projects

Leveraging Earth System Science and Modeling to Inform Civil Engineering

Workshop I: Temperature and Rainfall, September 9 and 23, 2022. For more information on these, email [email protected] and you can have access to the Collaborate site where all the materials are housed.

Upcoming Activities

Workshop II: Extreme Winds and Coastal Hazards, October 21 and 28, 2022. This two-part workshop is currently invitation only.

ASCE NOAA Leadership Summit on Climate-Ready Infrastructure

Task Force Members:

Chairs:
Bilal M. Ayyub, University of Maryland
Ben DeAngelo, NOAA/OAR
Dan Walker, University of Maryland and EA

ASCE Members:
Mari Tye, NCAR
Michele Barbato, University of California, Davis
Don Scott, Don Scott Consulting
Brian Parsons, EWRI/ASCE
Jennifer Goupil, SEI/ASCE

NOAA Members:
Deborah Lee, NOAA/OAR
Derek (Deke) Arndt, NOAA/NESDIS
Mark Osler, NOAA/NOS
Daniel Barrie, NOAA/OAR
Scott Weaver, NIST (on detail to OSTP)

The Foundation of the ASCE NOAA Task Force

Click below to find out more about the origins of the ASCE NOAA Task Force, what we hope to achieve, and thoughts for the future.