Ryan E. Tompkins, University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources e Susan Kocher, University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources
After another devastating wildfire year in the West, the Biden administration has a plan to ramp up forest thinning and prescribed burns. Two foresters explain why these projects are so important.
Residents had to be rescued as Hurricane Ida flooded coastal Louisiana in August 2021.
Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images
A hurricane that wreaked havoc from Louisiana to New York City, the Texas freeze and devastating western wildfires topped NOAA’s list of billion-dollar disasters in 2021.
Vehicles line up during a drive-through COVID-19 vaccine clinic at St. Lawrence College in Kingston, Ont., in early January 2022.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Lars Hagberg
Canada’s emergency management system is poorly funded and lacks consistent attention between disasters. This chronic underfunding has undermined public confidence and trust in emergency management.
A woman and children who were stranded by high water due to flooding are rescued by a volunteer operating a boat in Abbotsford, B.C., in November 2021. The Insurance Institute of Canada forecasts that annual insured losses from natural disasters could increase to $5 billion within the next 10 years.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
Although insurance is important in natural disaster recovery, government and property owners also play an important role in protecting Canadians against the impact of catastrophic weather events.
Wildfires that swept through Sequoia National Forest in California in September 2021 were so severe they killed ancient trees that had adapted to survive fires.
AP Photo/Noah Berger
Climate models can’t see tornadoes, but they can recognize the conditions for tornadoes to form. An atmospheric scientist explains what that means for forecasting future risks.
Damage in Mayfield, Kentucky, after a tornado swept through the area on Dec. 11, 2021.
Brett Carlsen/Getty Images
The eruption in East Java that claimed 22 lives on Saturday was likely triggered by weather conditions rather than by internal unrest inside Mount Semeru, which would have been easier to monitor.
People wade through high water to evacuate a flooded home in LaPlace, La., after Hurricane Ida struck.
Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images
The most vulnerable communities are being pushed deeper into poverty with each climate-related disaster. Part of the problem is that government aid helps the wealthiest people most.
A cabin is illuminated by firetruck lights as the Caldor Fire burns near Lake Tahoe in California on Aug. 31, 2021.
Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Matthew E. Kahn, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Private companies rate all kinds of investments, from stocks to used cars. Now, they’re starting to analyze climate risks to local real estate – but how reliable are their findings?
Floods across Germany in July 2021 signalled the need for improved disaster preparedness.
SamuelFrancisJohnson/Pixabay
Today’s building codes were implemented as a result of devastating natural disasters that resulted in the loss of human lives and billions of dollars. But they aren’t retroactively applied.
Flooding is seen in the Manayunk section of Philadelphia after the remnants of Hurricane Ida, Sept. 2, 2021.
AP Photo/Matt Rourke
More than half of the world’s population lives in cities, and that share is growing. Rapid climate change could make many cities unlivable in the coming decades without major investments to adapt.
Melizabeth Uhi, a school principal, stands in front of her destroyed home in Vanuatu, a week after Cyclone Pam tore through the South Pacific archipelago in 2015.
Nick Perry/AP
As climate change amplifies the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, evacuations are likely to become increasingly common and costly – in human and economic terms.
Small inland towns can offer a haven for people escaping coastal climate change.
Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
If rural communities plan carefully – and some already are – they can reinvent themselves as the perfect homes for people fleeing wildfire and hurricane zones.
Tools for a prescribed burn conducted in the Sierra Nevada in November 2019.
Susan Kocher
Susan Kocher, University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources e Ryan E. Tompkins, University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources
Two forest researchers whose own communities were threatened by fires in 2021 explain how historic policies left forests at high risk of megafires.