Research briefs

California’s experience with droughts and floods have forced it to develop a diverse toolkit for managing water. Researchers suggest that “far-sighted incrementalism” could be the way to bridge the tension between economic growth and environmental protection.

A new study unveils the increasing exposure of coastal communities to minor and extreme floods as sea levels rise. The study represents a new approach for assessing flood risks associated with sea level rise and highlights the importance of planning for flooding. The results offer actionable information to decision-makers in coastal communities throughout the United States.

New research finds that the practice of subsurface fluid injection used in 'fracking' and wastewater disposal could cause significant, rapidly spreading earthquake activity beyond the fluid diffusion zone. The results account for the observation that the frequency of man-made earthquakes in some regions of the U.S. surpass natural earthquake hotspots.

New research from University of Alberta geographers uses traditional Indigenous knowledge to better understand spring flooding in the Kashechewan First Nation, located in the southwestern James Bay region. Results show that climate change and human-induced changes have exacerbated the timing and extent of spring flooding in the region.

University of Illinois scientists have linked historical crop insurance, climate, soil and corn yield data to quantify the effects of excessive rainfall on corn yield. They found that crop productivity can be affected in various ways, including direct physical damage, delayed planting and harvesting, restricted root growth, oxygen deficiency and nutrient loss.

For the first time, scientists at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) have linked human activities with patterns of drought around the world. The researchers found that greenhouse gases were influencing drought risk as far back as the early 1900's.

In a new study, a team of scientists reports on a successful attempt to control induced seismicity during the deepest-ever hydraulic stimulation of a geothermal well in Helsinki, Finland. This is an important step in the development and further exploitation of Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) technology.

As climate change grips Kenya, new research reveals that pastoralists are implementing dynamic climate adaptation measures, such as diversifying their herd species and investing more in water tanks. But these strategies are not always effective and pastoralists are not able to cope with the fluctuations in climate.

A new study by an international team of climate researchers shows that the extreme weather events in summer 2018 were connected by a newly identified pattern of the jet stream encircling the Earth. The jet stream formed a "stalled wave pattern" in the atmosphere, which made weather conditions more persistent and extreme in the affected regions.

New research by the University of Melbourne shows that ocean waves, and the winds that generate them, are increasing in magnitude and have been doing so for the last 30 years. These changes were determined by creating and analysing a database of approximately 4 billion satellite measurements of wind speed and wave height between 1985 and 2018.