Office of Risk and Resilience

Much of the research undertaken by USGS is hazards-focused, whether that hazard is an earthquake, an invasive species, an inland flood, poor water quality, or a toxin in the soil. Risk research explores how these hazards could affect people and the things we care about as a society like infrastructure, natural and cultural resources. Understanding risk can help ensure that decision-makers are able to make data-driven decisions about how best to mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from natural hazard events.
 

What we do ​

The work of the Office of Risk and Resilience is to explore how hazards can affect the things that we care about as a society. This includes funding risk research at USGS, bringing USGS experts interested in risk together to foster interdisciplinary research, making connections with the national and international communities related to risk reduction, and developing consistent methodologies for national hazard exposure and disaster loss reporting analyses. 
 

Our goal​

To ensure that USGS risk research enables decision makers at all levels of society to better protect lives, property, and natural/cultural resources.

Authorizations

USGS activities are conducted under the authority of various pieces of authorizing federal legislation. The USGS Office of Risk and Resilience focuses on reducing risk and losses associated with a number of natural hazards that USGS is congressionally authorized to study. The Office of Risk and Resilience supports USGS’s legally authorized requirement to reduce risk from natural hazards associated with:

• earthquakes (Earthquake Hazards Reduction Act, 2018; 42 U.S.C. 7701)
• volcanoes (National Volcano Early Warning and Monitoring System, 43 U.S.C. 31k)
• landslides (National Landslide Preparedness Act, 2022; 43 U.S.C. 49 3102; P.L. 116-323; H.R. 8810)
• geomagnetic space weather (PROSWIFT, 2020; S.881; PL 116-181)