Today’s risks will be tomorrow’s normal. That means tough decisions have to be made about human settlements having to retreat from areas most at risk, whether from floods or bushfires.
It’s not enough to continue to build cities and towns based on business-as-usual planning principles. We need to plan and design our urban spaces around the idea that flooding is inevitable.
The expert advice is to never drive, walk, or ride through flood waters. Unfortunately, however, this is advice often not heeded. Research on psychology and floods reveals clues as to why.
Unless you’ve lived through it, it’s hard to understand how stressful a catastrophic flood can be - both in the moment and long after the event. That’s especially true for vulnerable populations.
By collaborating with Indigenous ranger groups, we can make strategic fire and land management practices economically sustainable for traditional landowners.
Infrastructure is often seen as the main way to reduce the impacts of climate-related disasters like floods and drought. But cities are complex systems with many factors affecting their resilience.
Climate change is a true existential threat for small island nations, but the US has done little to help the Marshall Islands, which it administered for decades.