COVID-19 Implications for Research and Education on Engineered Structures and Services
Observations from the Field
The ongoing COVID-19 crisis has exposed a number of fault lines in the engineered structures and services that our disciplines have helped to construct over the years . We reflect on three of these — food distribution networks , crisis and risk communication , private housing and personal safety — in order to discuss our role in the social construction of this particular reality , as well as to speculate on why some elements of these systems may be viewed as marginal or even taboo . We argue that , pragmatically , the challenges exemplified by the cases described here illuminate two tightly coupled sets of opportunities : first , to conduct research oriented towards identifying and testing the boundary conditions of the knowledge that we claim characterizes our field ; second , to develop new tools and techniques , embedded within our curricula , that enable ongoing exploration of these boundaries and the expansion of the core skills that characterize our profession .
Food Networks
In retrospect , the U . S . National Science Foundation ’ s program on “ Innovations at the Nexus of Food , Energy and Water Systems ” was prescient . The program addressed the highly interdependent and critical nature of food , energy and water networks , including the role of governance within and across them . The impact of COVID-19 on food networks in particular is rapidly coming into sharp and alarming focus , demonstrating at once the immense size of the food production system , but also — paradoxically — its lack of agility .
As the economic situation of many households throughout the world worsens , the need for food assistance is becoming urgent ( Evelyn 2020 ). Relatively small scale , local , ad hoc solutions are springing up throughout the U . S . ( Seiling 2020 ), but massive gaps and dysfunctions remain ( Coto 2020 ). Despite the pressing ( and expanding ) need for food , however , the U . S . is dumping vast quantities of food into an already overburdened waste stream because restaurants and other shuttered food dispensaries are not buying them ( Yaffe-Bellany and Corkery 2020 ). The problem , in short , is not a lack of food , but a means to redirect the distribution of this food to other destinations .
The state of Kentucky ( Miller 2020 ) and the city of New York ( NY ) ( Besheer 2020 ) are recent examples of the consequences of this network dysfunction . New York City ’ s mayor projected an approximately three-fold increase in the number of school-related meals , from 4.5 million per month to approximately 10-15 million per month by May . Beyond the U . S ., the United Nations has warned of a global famine of “ biblical ” portions , precipitated by major factors such as ongoing conflicts and exacerbated by COVID-19 ( Beasley 2020 ). Indeed , a major recent report on hunger in the U . S . has noted that the country faces a predicted shortfall of eight billion meals in the next 12 months ( Reiley 2020 ). The issue of profound food
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