• Monitoring Potentially Hazardous Near-Earth Asteroids

    An enormous number of near-Earth asteroids are posing a potential hazard to our planet. Faced with potential threats of to Earth by asteroid impact, researchers have been focusing on asteroid defense. Monitoring of and early warning about near-Earth asteroids is the premise of planetary defense.

  • DHS Unveils New Cybersecurity Performance Goals for Critical Infrastructure

    DHS released the Cybersecurity Performance Goals (CPGs), voluntary practices that outline the highest-priority baseline measures businesses and critical infrastructure owners of all sizes can take to protect themselves against cyber threats.

  • It Is Double Trouble When Two Disasters Strike the Electrical Transmission Infrastructure

    One natural disaster can knock out electric service to millions. A new study suggests that back-to-back disasters could cause catastrophic damage, but the research also identifies new ways to monitor and maintain power grids. The study, using AI, highlights the fragility of power grid networks.

  • The “Cassandra of the Subways” on Hurricane Sandy, Ten Years Later

    Starting in the 1990s, geophysicist Klaus Jacob started warning publicly that New York could eventually see a catastrophic storm abetted by climate change. From 2008 to 2019, he served on the New York City Panel on Climate Change, a scientific body that informs the city’s efforts to adapt infrastructure to changing climate. Most famously, he produced eearily precise projectionof where the subways would flood. 

  • Faster-Developing, Wetter Hurricanes to Come

    Climate change sets the stage for hurricanes to rapidly intensify faster, bringing wetter storms to the U.S. Atlantic Coast and other coastlines. A warmer world heightens the risk of flooding.

  • Improving Recovery of Critical Systems after Cyberattacks

    Researchers aim to develop fast, accurate and efficient recovery mechanisms that, when coupled with the expeditious damage assessment techniques he has already developed, will offer an “integrated suite solution.” This will allow affected CI systems to continue running while providing as many critical functionalities as possible.

  • Q&A with the Experts: Puerto Rico

    In 2018, as part of an effort to improve Puerto Rico’s resilience in the face of repeated, and devastating, natural disasters, RAND experts offered 270 specific courses of action needed across infrastructure, communities, and natural systems. Four years later, some of these experts reflect on the progress made – and not made – in shoring up the island’s resilience.

  • Hurricane Ian Shows That Coastal Hospitals Aren’t Ready for Climate Change

    As rapidly intensifying storms and rising sea levels threaten coastal cities from Texas to the tip of Maine, Hurricane Ian has just demonstrated what researchers have warned: Hundreds of hospitals in the U.S. are not ready for climate change.

  • Greater Resilience Through Nature-Inspired Power Grids

    Researchers are looking to nature to build better power grids that are more resistant to various potential disturbances like natural disasters or cyberattacks.

  • Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage: How an Attack Could Have Been Carried Out and Why Europe Was Defenseless

    Whatever caused the damage to the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea, it appears to be the first major attack on critical “subsea” (underwater) infrastructure in Europe. This raises the question of the vulnerabilities of European pipelines, electricity and internet cables, and other maritime infrastructure. Europe will have to revisit its policies for protecting them.

  • Magnesium Market Highlights Continuing Fragility of Global Supply Chains

    Magnesium is a critical input for major and emerging economies’ economic and industrial development. It has diverse high-tech applications in a wide range of sectors, from renewable energy to aerospace, defense to transport, and telecommunications to agriculture. The problem is that for both industry and governments, magnesium supply chains are vulnerable to sudden disruptions.

  • The U.S. Needs to Prepare for More Billion-Dollar Climate Disasters Like Hurricane Ian

    Billion-dollar disasters such as Hurricane Ian are on the rise in the United States. Officials should take swift action to reduce the damage and protect Americans.

  • Violent Extremists, terrorists Targeting U.S. Critical Infrastructure

    Violent extremists and terrorist organizations of numerous ideological persuasions have conducted devastating attacks on critical infrastructure in the United States. Today’s terrorism threat picture in the U.S. is incredibly fluid, dynamic, and dangerous, and under this backdrop authorities are increasingly worried about an uptick in terrorist plotting against critical infrastructure.

  • Puerto Rico: A U.S. Territory in Crisis

    The Caribbean island, which shares a close yet fraught relationship with the rest of the United States, faces a multilayered economic and social crisis rooted in long-standing policy and compounded by natural disasters, the COVID-19 pandemic, migration, and government mismanagement.

  • Barrier Islands Are Natural Coast Guards That Absorb Impacts from Hurricanes and Storms

    When hurricanes and storms make landfall, barrier islands absorb much of their force, reducing wave energy and protecting inland areas. Islands that have been preserved in their natural state can move with storms, shifting their shapes over time. But many human activities, such as turning these islands into tourist attractions –for example, Florida’s Sanibel Island and South Carolina’s Pawleys Island — interfere with these natural movements, making the islands more vulnerable.