• What tropical countries can teach the U.K. about flood management

    Climate change has caused a change in the patterns of rainfall in the United Kingdom: rather than a procession of predictable showers, a new type of rain emerged — localized storms, dropping a lot of water in one place over a short period of time; villages and towns were overwhelmed; tropical countries have had a long experience with the type of rainfall

  • DHS unveils critical infrastructure Web site

    Designed to provide stakeholders and the public with easily accessible information about their role in safeguarding critical infrastructure and key resources (CIKR); the new CIKR Resource Center will offer information on Web-based seminars on the tools, trends, issues, and best practices for infrastructure protection and resilience; resources concerning potential vulnerabilities for chemical facilities; and guidance for all response partners on how best to prepare for and provide a unified response to disasters and emergencies

  • Oregon's bridges to be readied for the Big One

    There are 2,671 bridges in Oregon’s highway system; researchers develop a computer model which, for the first time, gives state authorities bridge-by-bridge estimates of damage, repair cost, and traffic delay costs associated with a shattering western Oregon quake; the new tool would allow engineers to prioritize which of the state’s bridges should get seismic upgrades

  • New Army Corps of Engineers' policy instructs project designers to take rising sea levels into account

    The Army Corps will from now on incorporate estimates of rising sea levels in all its plans for flood control, navigation, and other water projects; the corps has had a planning policy for rising sea levels since 1986, but the instructions were less than a page long, buried in a 1,000-page document and largely ignored; the new policy is articulated in a 44-page stand-alone document

  • Cyber threats now targeting traditional companies

    U.S. companies, even small and medium size, are more and more exposed to cyber threats from organized crime, foreign intelligence services, and probably terrorist organizations; 85 percent of U.S. critical infrastructure is owned and operated by private companies — and these companies are especially vulnerable to determined attacks which may ruin or seriously disrupt company operations

  • E.coli helps mend cracked pipes

    Aberdeen University students show how specific strains of E. coli, which are not deadly or poisonous to humans, could be used automatically to mend cracks that occur in household water pipes, cooling pipes in laboratory experiments, or water pipes in power plants

  • U.K. agency to increase flood protection

    The number of properties in England and Wales at significant risk of flooding could increase from 570,000 in 2009 to over 900,000 by 2035 at current levels of flood-defense investment; the Environment Agency says it is planning for the long haul, saying it is already planning to manage a predicted 1 meter rise in sea levels, and a predicted 10 percent increase in wave heights and wind speeds, both of which will increase the threat from coastal surges

  • ASCE holds its 5th ASCE Forensic Engineering Congress

    The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) says that the unifying theme of the event will be a reflection on a quarter century of construction pathology — understanding why and how structures fail

  • H1N1-induced work-from-home may clog Internet

    Telecommuting is a good idea — up to a point; if, as a result of a pandemic, too many people decide to work from home, this could threaten to overwhelm the Internet, rendering it useless as a way for communicating and conducting transactions vital to public safety and the economy

  • The brief

    Vetting a chip with a hidden agenda is not easy, and chip makers cannot afford to test every chip; also, today only Intel and a few other companies still design and manufacture all their own chips in their own fabrication plants; other chip designers — including LSI Corp. and, most recently, Sony — have gone “fabless,” outsourcing their manufacturing to off-shore facilities known as foundries

  • Earthquake-proof airport terminal in Istanbul airport

    Large swaths of Turkey are earthquake prone; the 1999 Kocaeli earthquake, for example, killed 17,000 people, injured 50,000, and destroyed 27,000 buildings, leaving 500,000 homeless; estimates of property losses range from $3 billion to $6.5 billion; engineers claim they have made the terminal at Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport earthquake-proof

  • Washington State will put seismic sensors on viaduct

    Alaskan Way Viaduct in Washington State is crumbling, but it still carries more than 100,000 cars per day, and remains the city’s second-busiest north-south arterial after Interstate 5; until a $4.2 billion replacement project opens in 2015, the state will place sensors that on the viaduct which will close the elevated roadway at the first sign of seismic activity

  • Louisiana levee to use stabilizing fabric

    The 1,600-foot earthen levee, which runs south from the Old Estelle Pump Station, has failed twice, once in the early 1990s and again in 2007 when two sections totaling 600 feet long slumped badly; Army Corps of Engineers will use geotextile fabric to stabilize known trouble spots before raising the levee from 10 feet to 14.5 feet

  • The brief

    Smart grid technologies may themselves introduce new problems, such as increasing the vulnerability to cyber attack, as power grid resources become increasingly linked to the Internet

  • Despite concerns, development still heads to the coast

    Many scientists predict that by 2100, sea levels would rise more than one meter; still, Florida has opened more vulnerable areas along the Atlantic coast to construction — and has done so more than any other state