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How to Deal with Winter Droughts and Water Shortages
Warmer winters and sparse rainfall have dried up southern Europe. Water scarcity in Italy, France and other countries is threatening this year’s harvests. What to do?
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Building a Database on Public Response to Severe Weather Hazards
The public is being surveyed on perceptions and response to flash floods, tornados, severe thunderstorms and winter weather under a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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Crowdsourced Reports Can Quickly Identify an Earthquake’s Impact
Within minutes, a statistical model based on a global database of public reports of ground shaking can be used to identify an earthquake as a high- or low-impact event, according to a new study.
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Ohio Chemical Spill Draws Focus on Railroad Dangers
The U.S. has one of the most extensive rail networks in the world, but diminishing safety standards puts people and the environment at risk. The latest accident has drawn sharp focus onto the safety standards of the highly profitable freight rail industry and its prolific lobbying against regulation.
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The Train Derailment in Ohio Was a Disaster Waiting to Happen
The derailment of a freight train filled with volatile chemicals in rural Ohio earlier this month captured the headlines, but researchers and chemical spill experts say it’s a situation that plays out far too often across the country. Trains carry hazardous chemicals everyday. They’re also dangerously unregulated.
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The Most Advanced Bay Area Earthquake Simulations to Be Publicly Available
Accurately modeling the effects of an earthquake is possible, but it requires intricate physics-based models that can only be run on advanced supercomputers. The data from such models are invaluable for the earthquake research community and engineers seeking to build and retrofit earthquake-resilient homes, businesses, and infrastructure. Supercomputer-generated simulations will soon be accessible on an open-access website.
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Next-Generation Storm Forecasting Project Aims to Save Lives
Severe storms have greatly impacted the Southeastern United States over the years. A key to dealing with storms and minimizing their severity is early forecasting and detection.
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Can Space Dust Slow Global Warming?
Scientists believe dust launched from the moon could reduce solar radiation enough to lessen the impact of climate change.
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Train Derailments Get More Headlines, but Truck Crashes Involving Hazardous Chemicals Are More Frequent and Deadly in U.S.
Highway crash of hazmat-carrying trucks do not draw national attention the way train derailments do, or trigger a flood of calls for more trucking regulation like the U.S. is seeing for train regulation. Truck crashes tend to be local and less dramatic than a pile of derailed train cars on fire, even if they’re deadlier. Federal data shows that rail has had far fewer incidents, deaths and damage when moving hazardous materials in the U.S. than trucks.
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Breakthrough Alert Messaging for a Mobile Public
It is in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) that the danger and damage from the growing risk of wildfires is most prevalent. Of paramount importance is alerting people in the path of fires and enabling their safe evacuation from the area.
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Homes in Flood Zones Are Overvalued by Billions: Study
Flooding is a costly and deadly natural hazard across the United States, and climate change will only make floods more frequent and more destructive. Failure to account for climate change means low-income homeowners could see their home values plunge.
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Earthquake in Turkey Exposes Gap Between Seismic Knowledge and Action – but It Is Possible to Prepare
The final death toll is likely to place the recent earthquake in Turkey and Syria among the worst natural disaster. The sobering question to us, as disaster mitigation scholars, is whether this enormous loss of lives, homes and livelihoods could have been avoided. There is no way to prevent an earthquake from occurring, but what can be prevented – or at least curtailed – is the scale of the calamity caused by these inevitable tremors.
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Mitigating the Impact of Extreme Weather and Climate Uncertainty on Reservoirs
Abrupt weather extremes, changing climate and frequent natural hazards such as floods and droughts create challenges for our nation’s aging reservoir systems. Researchers are working to help mitigate these problems.
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More Places to Experience Floods as Extreme Weather Events Become More Frequent and Intensify
As extreme weather events become more frequent and intensify, the number of people and places exposed to flooding events is likely to grow. But until now, surprisingly little was known about how floodplain development patterns vary across communities.
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Floods, Rising Sea Levels Push Planned Internal Migration
Climate change could force billions to move by the end of the century, displaced by floods and rising sea levels. Some communities are already adapting through managed retreat and moving people to other areas.
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The long view
Strengthening School Violence Prevention
Violence by K-12 students is disturbingly common. Ensuring that schools have effective ways to identify and prevent such incidents is becoming increasingly important. Expanding intervention options and supporting K-12 school efforts in Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management (BTAM) would help.
Huge Areas May Face Possibly Fatal Heat Waves if Warming Continues
A new assessment warns that if Earth’s average temperature reaches 2 degrees C over the preindustrial average, widespread areas may become too hot during extreme heat events for many people to survive without artificial cooling.
Trump’s Cuts to Federal Wildfire Crews Could Have “Scary” Consequences
President Donald Trump’s moves to slash the federal workforce have gutted the ranks of wildland firefighters and support personnel, fire professionals warn, leaving communities to face deadly consequences when big blazes arrive this summer. States, tribes and fire chiefs are preparing for a fire season with minimal federal support.