Mitigation on EARTH Magazine

Comment: After a disaster, should you gamble on returning? Paradise edition

Wed, 13 Feb 2019 14:39:02 -0500

Not much is left of Paradise, Calif., after the deadly Camp Fire scorched the area in November 2018. California Army National Guard soldiers helped conduct search operations and clear debris. Credit: bottom: U.S. Air National Guard, CC BY 2.0; top: U.S. Air National Guard photo by Senior Airman Crystal Housman, CC BY 2.0.

Rumor has it that Paradise, Calif., might have originally been named “Par-O-Dice,” after a saloon that was supposedly there during the gold rush days, when the community first started. Or the origin of the name might come entirely from the town’s self-description as “a heavenly place to live.” Regardless of how it was named, Paradise is now gone. In November 2018, the Camp Fire burned most of Paradise to the ground. Will it be rebuilt? Should it be rebuilt?

Natural solutions could save $50 billion in Gulf Coast flood damages

Tue, 03 Jul 2018 11:49:00 -0400

Along the Gulf Coast — where Hurricane Harvey struck in 2017 — combining natural protections, like restored wetlands, with built infrastructure could prevent half or more of the flood damages expected to occur by 2030. Credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture/USAF Tech. Sgt. Larry Reid Jr.

As coastal development skyrockets and the effects of climate change escalate, flooding is becoming an increasingly common threat. A new statistical analysis of the costs and benefits of various coastal protection methods along the U.S. Gulf Coast suggests communities could prevent a significant amount of flood damage by implementing a combination of natural defenses and built infrastructure.

Hazards in paradise: Indonesia prepares for natural disasters

Tue, 05 Jun 2018 15:07:47 -0400

Mount Agung on Bali erupts in November 2017. It is one of nearly 80 volcanoes in Indonesia that have erupted in recorded history. Credit: Michael W. Ishak, CC BY-SA 4.0.

With a little imagination, it’s not hard to see a natural hazard map of Indonesia as a dartboard with many bull’s-eyes. Throw a dart anywhere in the vicinity of the 18,000 islands that make up the Indonesian Archipelago, and it will almost certainly land close to more than one active volcano, and near areas severely impacted by past earthquakes and tsunamis, as well as dozens of fires, floods, tornadoes and landslides, which all routinely disrupt this country’s lush beauty.

Down to Earth With: Conservation engineer Emily Pidgeon

Mon, 19 Mar 2018 14:29:28 -0400

Emily Pidgeon, senior director of the oceans and climate program at Conservation International, led the formation of the Blue Carbon Initiative, an international nonprofit organization that works to mitigate climate change by protecting coastal ecosystems. Credit: Sarah Derouin.

“I can be a very blunt object,” says Emily Pidgeon, describing how she moves through the world and how she approaches her work. Her Australian accent, drawling yet punctuated, rises above the din of the lunch crowd at a café. She pauses a moment, and declares herself a larrikin. “Do you know that word, larrikin?” She explains that Australians have a larrikin culture — they’re troublemakers, but in a good way. “We have a healthy disrespect for authority,” she says, sipping her tea.

When schools shake: Keeping students and teachers safe during earthquakes

Fri, 11 Aug 2017 14:05:24 -0400

This school in Nepal collapsed during the 2015 magnitude-7.8 Gorkha earthquake. Blue metal schooldesks can be seen crushed between the pancaked floors. No students were present because the quake occurred on a Saturday. Credit: both: Anne Sanquini, GeoHazards International.

When the magnitude-7.8 Gorkha earthquake rocked Nepal on April 25, 2015, it destroyed 19,000 classrooms and damaged more than 30,000 others. The quake — in which nearly 9,000 people died and 22,000 others were injured — struck on a Saturday, when schools in Nepal are not in session. Still, more than 500 students and teachers died in collapsing school buildings, according to data from the Nepal Ministry of Education. Had those damaged classrooms been filled with students and teachers, the death toll would have been far higher.

Comment: Assessing the threat from massive rock slope failures in the Norwegian fjordlands

Mon, 16 May 2016 11:44:29 -0400

Florence Magnin is installing temperature loggers at 1,400 meters above Loen Lake on an unstable slope at Hoggrenningsnibba Mountain. In the background across the lake, a rockslide scar can be seen at Ramnefjellet Mountain; it is the failure surface of two previous rockslides that caused displacement waves in 1905 and 1936 (with maximum wave runups of 40.5 and 74.2 meters), which killed 61 and 74 people, respectively. Credit: Reginald L. Hermanns.

All high-latitude coastlines with pronounced relief are characteristically incised by deep fjords — carved by repeated glacial cycles — reaching far into the mountain landscapes. What is not characteristic of all of these coastlines is settlements, as these landscapes tend to be quite inhospitable, not to mention dangerous, thanks to the likelihood of rockslides. Norway, however, with thousands of people living on and visiting its fjordlands, is a different story. In recent years, Norway’s geological community has worked to reduce the risks posed by landslides to fjordland communities.

First tsunami refuge under construction on Washington coast

Mon, 02 Feb 2015 13:18:07 -0500

A tsunami evacuation refuge — the first of its kind in the country — will soon occupy the roof of a newly built gymnasium at Ocosta Elementary School in Westport, Wash. Credit: TCF Architecture.

In April 2013, voters in two counties on Washington’s Pacific coast approved a $13.8 million bond for school renovations in the shared Ocosta School District. The bond had failed twice before, but this time — when the measure included funds to construct a “tsunami refuge for students, staff, and community” — it passed with the support of 70 percent of voters in Grays Harbor and Pacific counties. It will be the first structure of its kind in the country.

Comment: Supersites: Sharing geoscience data for science and society

Mon, 05 Jan 2015 09:31:09 -0500

The Geohazard Supersites and Natural Laboratories initiative, a network of Earth-observing institutions, can designate certain natural disasters "event supersites" to help coordinate the collection and distribution of crucial data needed by first responders and scientists. Such data helped produce this map of surface deformation caused by the magnitude-7 earthquake in Haiti in January 2010. Credit: Eric Fielding/JPL/NASA/JAXA.

When major geologic hazards strike, they gain global attention. Disaster responders and scientists want remote sensing and in-situ observations of the site in order to respond faster and learn more about the event. Satellites operated by many countries as well as commercial entities provide eyes in the sky, while ground-based networks of seismic, geodetic, geochemical and other instrumentation keep ears to the ground. In the past decade, the United Nations has organized the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), a collaboration of 89 institutions and organizations that sustain comprehensive Earth-observing capabilities for the benefit of humankind. GEO has six global objectives, including the Geohazard Supersites and Natural Laboratories (GSNL) initiative. GSNL is a unique international collaboration focused on sharing spaceborne and other geophysical data to understand geohazards and to promote preparedness and hazard mitigation. GSNL has had several successes already and is poised for many more.

Comment: How much hazard mitigation is enough?

Thu, 30 Oct 2014 12:24:17 -0400

Aerial views of the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy to the New Jersey coast. Credit: New Jersey National Guard.

After Hurricane Sandy caused about $65 billion of damage to the U.S. East Coast in 2012, the question of how to reduce damage from future storms came under extensive discussion. This question illustrates the complexity of preparing for natural disasters.

Voices: Humans at high temperatures

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 03:51:09 -0500

Reconsidering the economic implications of climate change

How much will it cost to implement plans to mitigate climate change? And if we don’t implement changes, what will the cost of climate change be?

Economists tend to examine questions like these with cost-benefit analyses. For example, in the climate change debate, if a climate change policy will produce more gains to society than it will cost to implement, a cost-benefit analysis might suggest we should embrace the policy. To date, virtually all cost-benefit analyses of greenhouse gas reductions have suggested that mitigation policies cost more than the benefits they produce, at least in the short run. But most of these analyses have probably dramatically underestimated the economic impacts of a warming climate by not factoring in an important process: what happens to humans when temperatures rise.