
The RAPID Facility

RAPID Training

Science Plan



Next-Generation Science and Engineering Reconnaissance to Enhance Community Resilience
The RAPID Facility provides researchers with state-of-the-art reconnaissance instrumentation and technical expertise to collect critical disaster data, informing science, engineering and policy to strengthen community resilience.
Recent RAPID Projects
Our drone-mounted aerial lidar scanners were recently deployed to the site of the 2014 Oso Landslide to map changes to the area over the past decade.
RAPID Facility staff deployed with terrestrial LiDAR to support the Center for Land-Surface Hazards (CLaSH) to document damage in Death Valley National Park and San Bernardino County following Hurricane Hilary in 2023.
Typical water sampling can leave gaps in assessing entire bodies of water. Our multispectral camera was mounted to a UAS platform to calculate algae bloom indices of a lake.

What’s New
In coordination with a UCLA-led multi-institutional research team, the RAPID facility is currently collecting extensive baseline data in the immediate aftermath of the Los Angeles wildfires, creating a unique opportunity for longitudinal studies. We invite researchers to leverage this foundation of baseline data for both immediate investigations and long-term studies.
Our 2025 NHERI RAPID 4-Day Intensive Hands-On Workshop was held on July 22-25. Congratulations to our new Advanced Users, who traveled to our University of Washington location in Seattle to get hands-on experience with our instrument portfolio.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and NSF are partnering to enhance the RAPID Facility’s offerings in technical instrumentation, training, and resources for researchers collecting perishable exposure and health data after disasters. This collaboration seeks to integrate extreme weather science with essential health research, advancing disaster response efforts.