About

Professor Luke Juran is associated with the Center for Geospatial Information Technology (CGIT) at Virginia Tech, which collaborates across research, education, and outreach with a transdisciplinary approach, addressing complex problems with geospatial science. The center focuses on applying geospatial science to improve quality of life, environment, and community through smart decision making, utilizing extensive knowledge in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to develop powerful, user-friendly geospatial tools. CGIT's work involves transforming spatial data into secure, intuitive decision-making tools that empower agencies, researchers, and communities across the Commonwealth of Virginia, with applications ranging from highway safety and crash analysis to statewide broadband and environmental initiatives.

Research topics

• Geography
• Sociology
• Engineering
• Environmental science
• Business
• Computer Security
• Political Science
• Computer Science
• Public administration
• Operations research
• Environmental protection
• Environmental resource management
• Ecology
• Risk analysis (engineering)
• Water resource management
• Environmental planning
• Cartography
• Socioeconomics
• Medicine
• Regional science

Selected publications

• Disaster Literacy Toolkit: Basic Disaster Literacy Scale (BDLS), Educational Needs Scale (D-LENS), and D-COPES Assessment Model

  2026-01-01

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• The Role of Households and Communities in Disaster Response and Recovery

  2025-01-27

  book-chapterSenior author

  This chapter examines disaster management in the Pacific by providing insight on household and community roles before, during, and in the early recovery phase. This chapter demonstrates that intangible communal features such as kinship, social capital, reciprocity, collective labor, traditional leadership, and other social protection mechanisms greatly impact disaster response and recovery. In particular, the nexus of household, community, village leader, and faith represent a unique and effective social infrastructure. Given limited state resources and built infrastructure, this chapter argues that formal, state-centric response to disasters is severely limited without the fundamental roles assumed by households and communities. Thus, it is imperative to bring households and communities to the center stage of any discussion to fully understand what transpires in the disaster context in the Pacific and lesser-developed countries. Ultimately, this chapter seeks to advance disaster management in Oceania and small island developing states through positive examples of community resilience.

  PublisherDOI

• Disaster Recovery and Businesses

  2025-01-27

  book-chapterSenior author

  This chapter presents a conceptual framework to demonstrate the implications of variables such as hazard type, duration of the disaster, and spatial extent on business recovery. Factors that commonly affect recovery are discussed, including business sector, impacts on stakeholders (e.g., employees, customers, and competitors), product substitutability and complementarity, and pre-disaster financial position. Challenges confronted by small businesses are also discussed as is managing disruptions to hard infrastructure, soft infrastructure, and supply chains. The importance of household-neighborhood-business recovery interactions is highlighted, and examples from natural disasters and the recent COVID-19 pandemic are provided throughout the chapter. In general, business recovery is not only a function of the hazard characteristics but more so the underlying conditions and vulnerabilities of the business itself. Ultimately, the factors identified as having the greatest impact on a business’ likelihood of failure after a disaster are the same as those that influence failure during normal times.

  PublisherDOI

• Conclusions and Futures

  2025-01-27

  book-chapterSenior author

  This concluding chapter further examines the response and recovery stages as useful concepts that have direct implications for planning, policy, and scholarly research. Response and recovery are integral components of a continuous management process through which diverse ecosystem actors collectively reduce the effects of disasters across numerous synergistic activities. The chapter first links response and recovery to mitigation and preparedness, which constitute the two traditional pre-disaster stages of the disaster management cycle. Next, a discussion on vulnerability, risk, and resilience is provided followed by a discussion on social vulnerability and social inclusion. While the goals of response and recovery are to save lives, reduce suffering and property loss, and return conditions to pre-disaster levels or preferably better, the effects upon and mainstreaming of vulnerable and marginalized communities remain prominent challenges. Finally, conclusions on the handbook and disaster management are drawn.

  PublisherDOI

• Computer Modeling to Inform Disaster Recovery

  2025-01-27

  book-chapterSenior author

  Hurricane Matthew (2016) resulted in dozens of fatalities and considerable economic and structural damage. Using Hurricane Matthew as a reference event, this study delineates the flood inundation extent of Rockfish Creek at Hope Mills, North Carolina, using the Height Above Nearest Drainage (HAND) model and National Water Model (NWM) reanalysis discharge dataset. The HAND-derived inundation extent is compared to a US Geological Survey (USGS) inundation map, which was produced using field-verified high-water marks (HWMs). The HAND model performed well compared to the USGS HWM model. Thus, this study indicates that the HAND model is suitable for reconstructing historical flood inundation. However, limitations are detailed as are avenues to improve HAND model results. The HAND model can be operationalized for planning and predictive purposes, which is not the case for all inundation models. Further, researchers and practitioners could benefit from the model advantages of low data, computational, and time requirements.

  PublisherDOI

• The Routledge Handbook of Disaster Response and Recovery

  2025-01-27 · 6 citations

  bookSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Development of the Basic Disaster Literacy Scale: A Multidimensional Approach to Assessing Disaster Preparedness, Educational Needs, and Competency

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Introduction

  2025-01-27

  book-chapterSenior author

  The objectives of this chapter are twofold. The first objective is to briefly introduce two stages of the disaster management cycle: response and recovery. Response encompasses the numerous actions (e.g., search and rescue (SAR), emergency medical care, and relief disbursement) taken during and immediately following an extreme event. These activities protect against further loss and damage and seek to promote public health and safety. Recovery begins in the latter part of the response stage and overlaps with the subsequent stage of mitigation. Recovery is the slow, multidimensional process of returning society to pre-disaster levels or preferably better. The second objective is to describe the organization of the handbook and summarize its contents. This edited volume contains 36 chapters, including the introductory and concluding chapters, with 17 chapters dedicated each to both response and recovery.

  PublisherDOI

• Sustainability of groundwater resources in the eastern middle Ganga plain, India: analyzing drivers of storage changes and depletion

  Sustainable Water Resources Management · 2025-12-02

  article
  PublisherDOI

• CONTROL OF AQUIFER MATERIAL ON GROUNDWATER MINERALIZATION AND MAPPING CONTAMINANTS IN A MULTI-AQUIFER SYSTEM OF THE CENTRAL GANGA PLAIN, INDIA

  Abstracts with programs - Geological Society of America · 2025-01-01

  article
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Morgan C. MacDonald

  University of New Brunswick

  6 shared

• Anamaria Bukvic

  Virginia Tech

  4 shared

• Lynn M. Resler

  3 shared

• Korine N. Kolivras

  Virginia Tech

  3 shared

• Sanam K. Aksha

  3 shared

• Venkataramana Sridhar

  Virginia Tech

  3 shared

• Robert Oliver

  3 shared

• Jincy Jose

  Indian Institute of Technology Madras

  2 shared

Labs

• Center for Geospatial Information TechnologyPI

  1-2 sentence research focus

Awards & honors

• Higher Education Partnership for Disaster Resilient Infrastr…
• Scholars Program (2022-2023)
• COVID-19 Rapid Response Fund (2020)
• COVID-19 Rapid Response Seed Grant (2020)
• India Faculty Travel Grant (2018)