Cyberinfrastructure in support of earthquake loss assessment: The maeviz cyberenvironment

Textbooks and software applications are well known methods for bringing research innovations to practitioners. Yet they are also out-of-date almost from the day they are created. In the 21 ^rst Century, Cyberinfrastructure (CI) provides a more powerful way to deliver expertise that can reduce delays in bringing new techniques and data to bear on real-world issues. Further CI enables the creation of Cyberenvironments (CE) that go beyond a simple model of delivering knowledge to a model of collaboration and knowledge exchange. Such a model is well-aligned with the changes in science and engineering towards systems-level analysis and, indeed, makes the coordination of experts across domains feasible at a scale never before possible. This paper presents the concept of CEs in the context of MAEviz, the flagship hazard risk management CE being developed by the Mid America Earthquake Center, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, and the University of Michigan. Using examples from CEs evolving in other domains, we discuss new possibilities for seismic risk management and response enabled by this new architecture.