key: cord-0816556-vj1dxh83 authors: Horst, John; Welty, Nicklaus; Svitana, Aaron; Young, Terry; Williams, Moniqua; Strunk, James title: A Postcard from the COVID‐19 Crisis Response: Lessons and Opportunities for Remediation date: 2020-10-23 journal: Ground Water Monit Remediat DOI: 10.1111/gwmr.12412 sha: a03ce7b50f6040f595ae4de68a1a8d6c88b1dbe7 doc_id: 816556 cord_uid: vj1dxh83 nan PHT3D is a computer code for general reactive transport calculations, coupling MODFLOW/MT3DMS for transport and PHREEQC for chemical reactions. It was developed by Henning Prommer in the 1990s and has been applied by him and his coworkers to various groundwater problems of practical interest. The resulting publications (http://www.pht3d.org/pht3d public.html) show an impressive applicability of the code and illustrate the underlying understanding of quite complicated interactions (e.g., Prommer and Stuyfzand 2005; Prommer et al. 2008 Prommer et al. , 2009 ). In the original version, transport is calculated during a time step, an input file is written for PHREEQC for calculating reactions such as ion exchange and precipitation or dissolution of minerals, and these steps are repeated for subsequent time steps until finished. This loose coupling has the advantage that updates of the master programs can be installed without much effort. A disadvantage is that the calculation of the chemical reactions needs to be initialized time and again for each cell in the model, which adds another time-consuming step to calculations that are already computer-intensive. Another disadvantage is that surface complexation reactions need to be calculated first using the water composition from the previous time step and then reacted with the changed water concentrations. This procedure was not implemented in the original version of PHT3D, and surface complexation reactions could not be calculated. Prommer and Post recently released the second version of PHT3D that resolves the shortcomings and works very well. The improvement is owing firstly to the implementation of total-variation-diminishing (TVD) scheme that MT3DMS uses for calculating advective and dispersive transport (Zheng and Wang 1999) . Secondly, it is because PHREEQC is now being used for storing the chemical data of the model, including the chemical activities and the composition of surface complexes from the previous time step. In addition, the procedure to transport total oxygen and hydrogen has been adapted from PHAST (PHAST is the 3D reactive transport model developed by Parkhurst et al. 2004, based on HST3D and PHREEQC) . This enables the user to obtain the redox state of the solution without having to transport individual redox concentrations of the elements (e.g., C being distributed over carbon-dioxide, C(4), and methane, C(-4)). The tighter coupling quickens the calculations twofold at least, but probably by an order of magnitude for the more interesting cases. In this review, the background of the new implementation is presented and illustrated with examples and compared with results from PHREEQC and PHAST. The calculation of pe and pH from total hydrogen and oxygen, and charge balance has been implemented in the NGWA.org GROUND WATER 1 To say that we are living in unprecedented times is an understatement. In fact, some might say we are experiencing an inflection point in human history. Less than a year ago, no one had ever heard of Coronavirus or the disease it causes , yet today it is reshaping societal norms, professions, and entire economies as the world braces for losses projected to be around $8.5 trillion (United Nations [UN] 2020). In some circles, the COVID-19 pandemic has been dubbed a "black swan" event-a rare and unpredictable event with severe consequences. Whether the global pandemic was unpredictable or an inevitable consequence of the interconnected global society we live in will be settled in the history books, but one thing we can all agree on is that such events are crucibles of innovation (Mudassir 2020) . This has played out across history with a number of examples in just the last two decades related to the subprime mortgage crisis and the September 11 terrorist attacks. Both stimulated new ways of working and traveling, as well as entire new categories of technology and business solutions that disrupted the prior paradigms. In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, entire sections of the global economy were shuttered in a matter of weeks. Once it became clear in early March of 2020 that physical distancing was crucial to flattening the rate of infections, states began instituting rules to enforce the necessary behavior ( Figure 1 ) (Mervosh et al. 2020) . For the first time ever, all 50 states plus Washington, DC and 4 U.S. territories were simultaneously under a disaster declaration (Newburger 2020) . Related restrictions have been in a state of flux ever since, with loosening and tightening of restrictions as the outbreak shows signs of waning and then ramps back up. This sudden and catastrophic disruption created a need to quickly move from a normal operating model to something new that could simultaneously meet the priority of keeping people safe, while keeping business moving where possible and necessary. While some remediation activities were classified as essential for the public health by the Department of Homeland Security-Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, it was not as simple as "business as usual" for those essential projects. Instead, operational risk management became a combination of safety (for both personnel and those they might come in contact with), navigation of state and municipal orders (including quarantine rules for inter-state travel), and client prioritization based on flexibility offered by regulators. Among other things, this required the creation and enacting of COVID-19 health and safety procedures, inventory of available field supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE), creation of systems for monitoring compliance with the ever changing spectrum of orders, compliance with owner-specific policies, and a new approach to identifying hospitals for a work-related medical emergency (based on capacity). This column will explore how the crisis has affected the remediation industry to date by driving rapid changes in normal operating procedure and how it will perhaps forever change what the future looks like-drawing from the example of an essential environmental construction project in New York City (NYC) during the initial spike in infec-tions. To complement the challenges, the crisis has also created opportunities. From owners to consultants to regulatory agencies, the lessons learned can lead to greater value across the entire stakeholder spectrum. Interest in business continuity and business resilience has never been greater. Google searches for "business continuity planning" hit an all-time high in March, 2020. Beyond the current pandemic, a consistent pattern in recent years has been the presence and impact of both natural (floods, tsunamis, etc.) and man-made disasters (terrorism, cyber attacks, etc.). Regardless of the cause of the disaster, largescale disruptive events are not going away. The UN Sustainable Development Goal Target 11.5 is to reduce the adverse effects of natural disasters, and UN reporting indicates that global disaster losses range from 0.12% to 0.5% of annual global gross domestic product for the period of 1990 to 2017 (Pielke 2018) . Given the increasing trend in disaster frequency and magnitude, preparedness for the impacts of such events must be a major part of business continuity planning to ensure enterprise-wide resilience and to reduce risk. Fortunately, the majority of the office-based work related to remediation can be done through virtual collaboration in a work from home environment. The key challenge for remediation is centered on the large portion of the day-to-day work that is field-based and requires an on-site presence, or that would normally require face-to-face engagement with key stakeholders (regulators, public, etc.) . A further complication is the fact that the environmental regulatory system that is the foundation of the industry still requires compliance regardless of the pandemic, with few exceptions-although more flexibility for priority setting has emerged. And, when it comes to doing the related field work, our industry has been forced to take a critical look at how we do that work safely. From an environmental health and safety perspective, safety and technical professionals are generally focused on physical hazards that may impact the people doing the work, others they may come into contact with (including the public), or the environment. The hierarchy of controls approach to mitigating work-related hazards with effective controls has not changed in many years ( Figure 2 ). It could be argued, that over time, as we continue to do the same tasks on a routine basis, the process of task hazard analysis has become somewhat of a rote activity. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we all have been pulled out of our comfort zones. The opportunity for distractions, stress and other human errors to impact the way we go about our tasks and take our focus off the physical hazards has increased exponentially. This in turn has forced us to renew our focus on the hazard analysis and control process. In the COVID-19 world, evaluating whether or not to proceed with work in the field initially involves two very basic questions: • Do jurisdictional orders allow the work? • If so, are there drivers that require the work to be done? If the answer to either of the proceeding questions is no, then the work is often deferred or delayed until conditions change, thereby effectively eliminating the hazard. If it is determined that work must proceed, then the next important question to answer is whether the work can be done safely in the context of COVID-19 constraints (namely, physical distancing) and the inherent hazards that already exist with doing that work. For many organizations, tackling this has involved the following three facets: Most organizations that support field work have created this type of guidance to help ensure consistency and completeness of the necessary considerations required in the planning process. Such guidance typically includes the following: • Procedural guidance: focused on screening procedures and the related management decision tree to include communication and response protocol in the event of a positive COVID-19 test; as well as guidelines for activities like physical distancing, disinfection, equipment management, and travel (cross border, mode). • Situational guidance: focused on the setting that the work is taking place in (active industrial facilities, remote site, residential setting, etc.); as well as what to do in response to public encounters, what actions to take if workers become ill on the job, and how to protect water sources. • Postshift guidance: focused on actions to be taken after work is done to help keep the entire team safe, like personal decontamination, and self-isolation. This involves the translation of general guidance to the specifics of an individual site. Continuity planning addresses how site entry and exit be handled, how on-site workspaces and break areas will be configured, how meetings will be handled, and how restrooms and hand washing facilities will be managed. In addition, planning the timely response to a positive COVID-19 case on the job site is criti- cal to containing a potential outbreak at the site and protecting site workers. Fortunately, several of the work tasks that we engage in on a routine basis are not significantly affected by the need for maintaining 2 m of distance between people, but it requires planning and awareness because distancing during some of these routine activities has not been the norm. For example, consider groundwater monitoring and sampling at a legacy site utilizing a two-person field crew. With some forethought and planning, it is not difficult to choreograph and sequence the work such that those two individuals could maintain a sufficient physical distance from each other. Similarly, considerations for common touch surfaces/tools/ equipment can either be eliminated (dedicated tools for each person) or engineered (detailed decontamination/disinfection protocols between tool use). Certain tasks that are larger and more complex than the groundwater monitoring example can also be effectively managed with thorough planning and effective execution. Take, for example, remedial soil excavation. This work activity is better suited for physical distancing. Equipment operators and drivers spend most of their day in dedicated equipment and laborers and technicians generally can do their work with physical distancing in mind. However, depending on the size of the work crews, certain key activities need to be reimagined in a physically distanced setting (e.g., pre-and postwork briefings/toolbox meetings, lunchbreaks, restroom facilities). Relatively simple controls can be implemented that include but are not limited to: • Conducting meetings/breaks outside of job trailers/ offices (utilizing canopies for inclement weather conditions). • One person managing sign-ins/permitting/paperwork to avoid passing paper and pens among crew, or using electronic forms to eliminate this hazard. • Implementing touch surface cleaning protocols for restroom facilities. • PPE inventory keeping and supplier network management (including migrating from a simple supply chain to multiple or even a "mesh" of suppliers). • Reevaluation of work area exclusion zone size and positioning. There are some more common tasks or work activities that are not inherently suited to physical distancing. Generally, these activities involve some type of manual handling of equipment or supplies that require a buddy system due to the weight of the material being handled (e.g., common practice of utilizing two-person lift techniques for objects in excess of 50 pounds or 22.6 kg). Often the object in question has physical dimensions that naturally place the two workers within 2 m of each other. One common example of this is the handling and moving hollow stem auger flights on environmental drilling projects. It has been encouraging to see companies taking a critical look at how they are conducting their work and reimagining how to complete such tasks. We have seen examples of drilling contractors investing a little more time in planning their manual handling tasks and utilizing the hierarchy of controls to manage both COVID-19 related risks and manual handling hazards. For example, simply rearranging a job site to allow a support truck to be staged in proximity to the drill rig to facilitate lifting moving augers with the rig's hoisting equipment. Arguably this solution produces a win-win outcome by effectively mitigating risks of close contact while reducing potential for manual handling injuries. By taking the time to critically analyze the sequencing and choreography of tasks, we often will find better, safer ways of executing our tasks that will still be valuable in a post-COVID-19 world. It is important to note, however, that as we critically assess our work and make changes to how we execute (e.g., utilizing contactless work procedures) we need to be cognizant of the introduction of new hazards into our work. With the drilling example, if a forklift is used to move and stage hollow stem augers, we have effectively eliminated manual handling hazards but now have introduced motion and gravity hazards that require mitigation, as well. While a number of tasks can be completed in a manner that promotes physical distancing, as noted above, there are certain tasks where physical distancing may not be possible. In these cases, it is important to evaluate the task to allow the activity to be completed safely while minimizing the time that physical distancing cannot be achieved. Furthermore, it is critical to emphasize the importance of the use of face coverings whenever physical distancing cannot be achieved. Face coverings come in a variety of forms and in general can satisfy the need for most activities. But, like any PPE, face coverings should be evaluated to identify the selection of the most appropriate type of covering to avoid creation of more serious hazards such as an entanglement or snag hazards, which can be a consideration for certain bandana-style face coverings. Finally, in addition to planning related to physical hazards, there are also considerations that must be taken into account that may either be peripheral in nature (not directly related to the work itself), but critical to safety of the field personnel nonetheless; or consequential to certain safety precautions taken at the site. For example: • All site-specific health and safely plans identify the local hospital to be used in the event of an emergency. However, with the COVID-19 pandemic, we can no longer just assume that the emergency rooms will have the ability to take emergencies other than COVID-19 patients. This creates a need to check the infection trends among the general population in the location of the work and confirm with the local hospital on a daily basis that they have sufficient capacity to handle an emergency if one were to arise. • The availability and general safety related to food and lodging, where applicable. How available are these and how will these be safely procured? Will these somehow limit the ability to complete the work? • There are also the potential unintended consequential effects on data quality. One source for this is the time it might take to physically ship a sample to the lab based on the logistical challenges faced by the shipping com-pany, or the lab's ability to analyze the samples once received based on their staffing levels. Related delays could easily exceed the hold times for certain parameters if not carefully managed. Another potential source of bias relates to the increased level of disinfection/decontamination of field equipment. The US EPA continuously updates a list of disinfectants that have been found to be effective against COVID-19 (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 2020). Most of these chemicals are not contaminants of concern nor target analytes. However, if environmental samples were to be contaminated with them adverse impacts on either analytical instruments or data quality could be realized. Examples include ethanol and isopropanol that could impact data generated by Methods 8015 or 8260, or compounds including silver that could impact Methods 6010 or 6020. • Sometimes the simplest answer is the best-in this case the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has pointed to soap and water as one of the most effective ways to deactivate the virus. The soap most commonly used for environmental decontamination during routine samples collection is the product Alconox® (Alconox, Inc., White Plains, New York). In addition to any contaminant-appropriate cleaning solvent, using Alconox followed by a water rinse should eliminate data quality concerns associated with the use of disinfection agents on field instruments and sampling equipment. As evident by the above, supporting the continuity of environmental work during the COVID-19 pandemic has been a multifaceted evolution. Nowhere is this more apparent than at those project sites that have had to operate through the pandemic. One such example is an environmental construction project in Brooklyn that has been among the small percentage of construction projects that NYC deemed "essential" and has safely worked straight through the crisis in a U.S. epicenter. The following discussion shares more from this example. This environmental remediation construction project, located in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, was implemented under the New York State Brownfield cleanup program which promotes the voluntary cleanup of underutilized, contaminated properties ("brownfields") so they can be redeveloped and reused. The remediation of the site was undertaken to make way for the construction of a large package distribution hub in the heart of NYC. The result will be conversion of an impaired property that included underutilized, abandoned buildings into a new facility that will bring a variety of jobs into the local community. The site has had a variety of historic commercial and industrial uses dating back to the 1800s. These historic operations resulted in the release of dense nonaqueous phase liquids (DNAPL) that impacted soil and groundwater at the site. The nature and extent of the impacts were defined through several rounds of remedial investigations. Based on the results of the investigations and in consideration of the site setting, zoning (commercial/industrial) and future redevelopment plans, the state regulators selected a remedy that focused on addressing "source material" (i.e., soil saturated with DNAPL). The selected remedy included excavation of approximately 14,000 cubic yards of material from multiple areas up to depths ranging between 15-and 23-feet below existing grade. The design included segregat-ing excavated material to allow reuse of clean material and offsite disposal of impacted material. Excavations were to be backfilled with clean, imported soil which in some areas was amended with gypsum to promote biodegradation. The resulting remedy implementation was a complex construction project being performed with limited available space in the middle of Brooklyn. In order to allow the excavation activities to be completed to depth, a steel sheet piling system was installed. In addition, based on the relatively shallow depth to groundwater, extraction wells were installed and a groundwater treatment system was constructed to allow dewatering of the excavations and onsite treatment of the water prior to being discharged into a nearby body of water in accordance with a state-issued permit. Prior to initiating excavation activities, a large temporary fabric structure was erected over each excavation area and was equipped with an air handling system to treat the air from within the structures to mitigate odors associated with the site impacts. The remedial construction was coordinated and sequenced to avoid disrupting other site activities that were supporting the redevelopment of the site. As if the hazards associated with this complex remediation project did not provide enough health and safety challenges, in the middle of the site remediation activities, COVID-19 struck the United States and in late March 2020, Brooklyn was officially identified as a global epicenter for COVID-19 cases. This all happened in a short timeframe following New York's Governor announcing the first confirmed COVID-19 case in NYC on March 2, 2020. For the project management team, protection of on-site workers and the public was of the utmost importance from the onset of the project. But when it came to how best to manage the risk of COVID-19 at a construction site, there was no "playbook" that could be referenced. To further complicate things, knowledge about the spread of the disease was continuing to evolve. In early March, the project team realized that the COVID-19 pandemic had the potential to spread uncontrolled and that it could inherently risk the health and safety of site workers. Early protocols to control the spread of COVID-19 were focused on office-type settings. The project team recognized this early on, and the differences associated with an active remedial construction site. As a result, the team started working on a COVID-19 Continuity Plan written specifically for the site, with a goal of having it inplace in less than a week. Development of the COVID-19 Continuity Plan had to consider a variety of factors such as: • Protecting site workers without creating a bigger hazard for a given task. • Establishing clear protocol and procedures to allow timely decision making across multiple companies to address a confirmed positive case at the site should one occur. • Complying with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act requirements relative to information disclosure. • Establishing requirements for monitoring and protecting site workers and documenting such measures. • Enabling the plan to evolve and adjust with the evolution of the science, field observations, and directives issued by outside agencies with jurisdiction. Driving the COVID-19 Continuity Plan from concept to implementation required the entire project team to offer input and contribute to the contents of the plan. This approach also gave the collective team ownership of the plan's success. The development of the COVID-19 Continuity Plan started with referencing and recognizing the existing protocol in place (those established in the various Company Plans, guidance issued by the Center for Disease Control, and requirements issued by regulators with jurisdiction). The project team then turned attention to the unique challenges offered by construction sites (when compared to office settings). Among other things, these included the different maintenance and cleaning approaches required for different temporary facilities, personnel in office trailers being in relatively close proximity, and certain facilities serving as "funnels" for personnel (i.e., sign-in trailer, break facilities and sanitary facilities). The project team recognized these had to become a focal point with the understanding that changes would represent a fundamental change with how site activities were performed. The COVID-19 Continuity Plan was successfully developed and in place by March 16, 2020 at which point the new cases per day in NYC were moving from hundreds to thousands (New York City Department of Health 2020). On March 18, 2020 the New York State Governor announced the deployment of the hospital ship USNS Comfort to New York Harbor in response to the rising COVID-19 cases ( Figure 3 ) and signed the 'New York State on Pause' Executive order on March 20, 2020, which shut down all "nonessential" businesses from operating in person. On March 20, 2020, NYC reported just over 4000 confirmed new cases of COVID 19 per day on route to an apex between 6000 and 7000 confirmed new cases per day that occurred on April 6, 2020 ( Figure 4 ; New York City Department of Health 2020). By March 24, 2020, NYC accounted for approximately 5% of the World's confirmed COVID cases and was the epicenter of the global pandemic. Some of the key aspects of the COVID-19 Continuity Plan that addressed the above challenges included: • Providing signage near common areas to encourage changes in behavior like washing hands frequently, encouraging physical distancing and wearing face coverings. • Requiring personnel screening to preemptively address personnel that have traveled to areas that had high rates of COVID-19 and to make sure personnel do not have symptoms or have had potential exposure to someone that has tested positive without performing the necessary self-quarantine. • Addressing common areas that served as "funnels" by controlling the flow of traffic and taking measures such as: ⚬ Having a designated person sign people in and out daily outside of the primary office trailer (to avoid touching pens, clip boards, trailer surfaces, etc.). ⚬ Cleaning high-contact surfaces (office trailers, equipment, temporary sanitary facilities, etc.). ⚬ Limiting personnel allowed in field office trailers and using other facilities to promote physical distancing. ⚬ Limiting personnel in break areas and establishing other break area options to promote physical distancing. ⚬ Establishing designated sanitary facilities to allow certain team members that regularly interact to utilize common facilities. • Adding sanitary facilities to allow personnel to clean hands with soap and water whenever they need to. • Adding hand sanitizer stations to allow personnel to follow hand cleaning with hand sanitizing. • Making face coverings available to personnel in the event they forgot their company-provided face covering. • Performing contract tracing for personnel at the site in the event that positive case is identified. • Documenting the above measures. While the COVID-19 Continuity Plan was very effective at addressing the initially understood challenges, it was by no means final and was continuously refined. Changes to the COVID-19 Continuity Plan were tracked through a formal addendum process to make sure the project team was utilizing the most recent version of the Plan. Plan compliance was confirmed through internal team "audits". The intent of these audits was to support the entire team to be as consistent as possible and to look for areas where the Plan could be strengthened. In addition, the site was subjected to numerous in-person reviews by local regulators for COVID-19 compliance with State and City directives. In every case, the site was found to meet or exceed the State and City requirements. The ultimate testament to the project team's efforts and the effectiveness of the COVID-19 Continuity Plan was that the Site has had zero confirmed COVID-19 cases with well over 50,000 work hours logged at the site. After the pandemic started to subside in NYC and businesses began to reopen, given the uncertainty the project team kept the strict requirements of the COVID-19 Continuity Plan in place even though they included requirements that were beyond the minimum requirements. This is a great example of a project team's shared vision to protect the site workers and public which allowed work important for the community to proceed safely. While the COVID-19 pandemic has forced a reset in how the remediation industry approaches hazard assessment and controls, it has also accelerated the deployment of innovative technologies that can allow work to continue where face to face interaction is not possible but might have once been considered essential. The following are just a few examples. An area that has rapidly advanced is the use of digital platforms and hardware that go well beyond simple real-time video phone connections between stakeholders or staff. Due to the physical constraints around hardware (and the implications related to safety) video conferencing alone does not have the capacity to ever totally replace faceto-face interaction between field crews and subject matter experts. This created an accelerated adoption of immersive technologies that allow both the field and remote staff to see/experience the same environment while communicating, offering a solution to connect field staff, subject matter experts, project managers, and regulators to engage and solve problems in real time. This includes headsets that attach to field staff hardhats and allow two-way hands-free audio and video communication with digital overlays in the field environment ( Figure 6 ). This category also includes 360° reality capture platforms and videography from unmanned aerial systems (or drones). While we have written about such tools in prior editions of this column, they continued to be underutilized but are now getting a boost as a result of concerns related to COVID-19. 360° photography has dropped in price and is now an attractive option at construction and remediation operation sites to provide enhanced visualization and digital replicas of site conditions and construction or investigation progress. The ability to capture site details thoroughly and quickly, available in almost real-time to entire collaboration teams has allowed for more team members to replace physical site visits with virtual site visits. Using 360° photos, project managers can see the latest changes and compare them sideby-side with three-dimensional models and digital plans. In addition to providing a convenient, remote source of verification, several platforms exist that can store crucial asset information within the photo. Just by clicking a generator or valve in the photo, users can see pertinent details that can enable quick changes and prevent rework. Drone deployment has been more routine over the last few years for applications including emergency responses, site inspections and construction projects, collecting geospatial data, thermal and multispectral imagery data, and straightforward site video and still photos. At the onset of the global pandemic, drones continued to be used to virtually access sites and complete work. Drones will continue to sustain their value in the future as we do more and more work with drone fleets, new sensors, and new ways of connecting remotely to live flights. Likewise, personnel remote monitoring will likely see a jump in utilization. As we potentially see a trend in lone worker scenarios that otherwise had been staffed with twoperson crews, there are increasing opportunities for the use of remote personnel monitors and sensors to ensure the well-being of our staff. Another digital technology that has emerged is the immersive virtual stakeholder meeting. With COVID-19 travel restrictions and physical distancing policies, conducting physical, in-person stakeholder meetings is nearly impossible, as well as hazardous, in most circumstances. In response to this challenge, you can still conduct the meeting via an immersive, 360° experience that replaces the physical components of a stakeholder meeting with digital assets. The user can walk throughout a virtual meeting space, access a digital meeting agenda, view media related to the meeting (posters, video clips, etc.), and chat and interact with other meeting participants through a social platform (Figure 7) . Luckily, most services in the world of environmental restoration and compliance are inherently essential to public health and safety. That said, what once passed for a "normal" operating model is not viable to go back to. The pandemic will push organizations to make major shifts in their operational strategies, based on what is viable and sustainable in the face of the long-term potential for large-scale disruptions. Consequently, owners looking to hire environmental service providers will place a higher value on characteristics like: • Agility-the ability to track changing scenarios that may affect the ability to complete work and adjust quickly in response • Accessibility-the ability to connect field personnel and subject matter experts without the need for travel • Technology-tools that can support the execution and accuracy of field work, the capture of related data, and interaction with the data to drive insights • Supply ecosystems-building a network of suppliers that provides options to rely upon in the face of regional disruptions In addition to the above and the traditional technical arenas that drive actual remediation progress and performance, another theme that has emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic involves the value that can be created by having a strong culture of innovation and early technology adoption. Everett Rogers developed a theory of innovation diffusion related to how ideas spread and ultimately are adopted or fail (Rogers 2003) . Innovation diffusion theory defines five categories: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. The innovators and early adopters are characterized by a willingness to test out new technologies before they are established in the mainstream as business as usual. In a disrupted world, organizations of innovators and early adopters have a clear advantage; their innovation cultures embrace a "fail-fast mentality," leading to a foothold in emerging technologies that may not have been broadly deployed pre-COVID-19, but could be quickly scaled up to support business continuity. Organizations that have not been engaged in such programs may find themselves at a serious disadvantage, as it is a tremendous challenge over the short time scale of a disrupting event like the pandemic to access the necessary technical knowledge or expedite the investments and training required to scale up fast enough to make a difference. This will be a big opportunity for those that are willing to embrace it! See which states and cities have told residents to stay at home COVID-19 will fuel the next wave of innovation: This global pandemic will shape businesses for decades to come. Entrepreneur, Crisis Management Example of a 360° virtual meeting platform Every US state is now under a major disaster declaration amid coronavirus pandemic. CNBC COVID-19: Data Tracking progress on the economic costs of disasters under the indicators of the sustainable development goals United Nations. 2020. COVID-19 to slash global economic output by $8.5 trillion over next two years. Department of Economic and Social Affairs News List N: Disinfectants for use against SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19 John Horst, P.E., corresponding author, is executive director of Corporate Development and Innovation at Arcadis North America, 10 Friends Lane, Suite 200, Newtown, PA 18940; (267)