Government agencies have detailed plans for responding to disasters, like the Dec. 10-11, 2021 tornados. But one issue doesn’t get enough attention: cleaning up the mess left behind.
Suburban infrastructure growth has resulted in functional landscapes designed to serve the growing needs of urban peripheries.
Zhu Hongzhi/Unsplash
Emergency responders and military personnel need to think creatively – even imaginatively – to save lives under pressure. Analyzing the Grenfell Tower Fire in London reveals useful lessons.
The Maria Fire billows above Santa Paula, California on Oct. 31.
AP/Noah Berger
‘California is America fast-forward,’ writes one scholar. Does that mean that the dystopian infernos that have consumed parts of the state are simply a picture of what awaits the rest of America?
Wind whips embers from a tree burned by a wildfire in Riverside, Calif. Oct. 31, 2019.
AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu
Instead of suppressing wildfire, the Karuk Tribe in the Pacific Northwest is using it as an integral part of its climate change management plan. Federal, state and local agencies are taking note.
Drones are increasingly used to gather information and inform research. As technology develops longer-lasting batteries and more sensitive cameras, the role of drones in research will continue to grow.
(Shutterstock)
Some Californians want to ban people from living in wildfire-prone areas. Behavioral economics offers a less heavy-handed approach to reducing the costs and risks.
A helicopter drops water while battling the Saddle Ridge Fire in Porter Ranch, Calif., on Oct. 11, 2019.
AP Photo/Noah Berger
Faith Kearns, University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources et Max Moritz, University of California, Santa Barbara
Two fire researchers argue that recent fires in Northern and Southern California show why health and social equity need to be part of fire preparedness.
A fire rages through wetlands close to Cape Town in February 2017.
EPA/Nic Bothma
As deforestation rates in Brazil rise, it’s worth asking whether the country can repeat the successes of the last decade. Current trends don’t bode well.
Cars sit submerged in water from Hurricane Dorian in Freeport, Bahamas.
AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa
The usual way we calculate the economic damage of natural disasters underestimates their true toll – which is key to understanding the costs of climate change.
Buttongrass survives and rapidly regrows after a fire. Tasmania, Australia.
Tim Rudman/Flickr
Wildfire Specialist at the University of California Cooperative Extension; Adjunct Professor Bren School of Environmental Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara
Professor of Civil, Environmental & Ecological Engineering, Director of the Healthy Plumbing Consortium and Center for Plumbing Safety, Purdue University