by admin | Dec 12, 2015 | Climate, Disaster, Resilience, Urban Planning
As I write this today, representatives of 190 nations are in Paris apparently have reached a historic consensus on a new climate agreement. Because I am not there and you will read about it in the news soon enough, this article is not about that agreement, but about...
by admin | Sep 23, 2015 | Climate, Drought, Urban Planning, Water
Drought is just different from other kinds of disasters. It has a very slow onset, so slow that affected regions often do not realize they are ensnared in a prolonged drought until months or even years have passed and water supplies are severely depleted. How do we...
by admin | Sep 19, 2015 | Disaster, Public safety, Urban Planning
Paradise is not always paradise. Hawaii generally is vulnerable to a number of potential disasters, including tsunamis, hurricanes, floods, drought, and, in the case of the Big Island, volcanoes (although not of the explosive variety). The entire archipelago is...
by admin | Aug 23, 2015 | Climate, Economic development, Environment, Infrastructure, Resilience, Urban Planning, Water
For a number of years, the American Society of Civil Engineers has been issuing an annual report card on the condition of the nation’s infrastructure. Generally speaking, those grades have not been good: In 2013, the nation’s grade point average was a D+....
by admin | Jul 28, 2015 | Blogging, Climate, Disaster, Disaster policy, Economics, Education, Geography, Resilience, Urban Planning
Interdisciplinary disaster studies are still relatively new, compared to long-standing fields like geology or even psychology. I spent last week (July 19-23) in Broomfield, Colorado, first at the Natural Hazards Workshop, sponsored by the University of Colorado’s...
