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Displaying 15 of about 556 resultsRising climate-change-related flood risks are creating growing losses for both firms and the communities that depend on them
Losses rising as climate fuels more extreme weather events
Pittsburgh, Columbus among non-coastal areas facing risk
Businesses are leveraging new risk-mapping data
American businesses stand to lose more than 3 million days…
After major storms highlighted New York's weaknesses in the face of climate change, the city is erecting a $1.45-billion system of walls and floodgates to protect it from rising sea levels.
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The completed wall will reach as high as 16.5 feet, Foley said. The project will also include gates to prevent water from seeping into Manhattan, home of the…
On 20 May 2013, at 2:56 p.m., a tornado touched down in central Oklahoma. Over the next 40 minutes, it ripped through the towns of Newcastle, Moore, and south Oklahoma City. The storm destroyed dozens of houses and cars, two farms, two elementary schools, a strip mall, and several other buildings as it killed 24 people and injured hundreds.
Climate cha…
New research reveals the economic costs of behavioral responses to the pandemic in the U.S.
Throughout its unsteady course, the COVID-19 pandemic has altered the behavior of businesses and households. Those behavioral changes, intensified by government actions like mandatory closures, have had a reverberating impact on the U.S. economy.
A new st…
This paper presents an empirical modeling methodology to predict flood vulnerability and risk, considering factors of hazard distribution, property exposure, built environment, and socio-demographic and economic characteristics of a community. Effective assessment of flood vulnerability and risk is essential for communities to manage flood hazards.…
Using the 2017 Hurricane Harvey flood event as a test case, this study set up a series of sensitivity analyses to highlight three challenges associated with large‐scale flood inundation modeling, including (a) model parameterization, (b) errors in digital elevation models, and (c) effects of reservoir retention. Driven by radar‐based hourly rainfall dat…
This testimony summarizes GAO’s report on grid resilience to climate change. Specifically, the testimony discusses (1) potential climate change effects on the electricity grid; and (2) actions DOE and FERC have taken since 2014 to enhance electricity grid resilience to climate change effects, and additional actions these agencies could take. GAO reviewe…
This article proposes a framework for a methodology that combines multiple computational models, stakeholder interviews, and optimization to find an optimal protective strategy over time for critical coastal infrastructure while being constrained by budgetary considerations. Interdependent critical infrastructures in coastal regions, including transport…
Quanta Technology's objectives in performing this analysis were to perform a review of the emergency operations plans submitted by generating entities in Texas, identify best practices for generating entities regarding weatherization practices and to analyze the robustness of the Texas grid to deliver power under projected peak season conditions. Furthe…
This report describes what happened during the polar vortex and why some of the conditions occurred, and it presents lessons learned and recommendations for future actions. In early January of 2014, the Midwest, South Central, and East Coast regions of North America experienced a weather condition known as a polar vortex, where extreme cold weather cond…
The authors compiled a comprehensive database of large wildfires in western United States forests since 1970 and compared it with hydroclimatic and land-surface data. Here, we show that large wildfire activity increased suddenly and markedly in the mid-1980s, with higher large-wildfire frequency, longer wildfire durations, and longer wildfire seasons. T…
This study supports the Portland International Airport to study the long-term benefits of investing in a seismically resilient runway. Oregon has a significant potential in the next 50 years of experiencing an earthquake greater than magnitude-8.7 originating from the Cascadia Subduction Zone.
Such an earthquake will cause catastrophic damage and…
The primary aim of this study was to evaluate the presence, distribution, and potential human health implications of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in a residential neighborhood of Houston, Texas following a major hurricane. Hurricane Harvey made landfall along the Texas Gulf Coast as a Category 4 hurricane on August 25, 2017, producing unprece…
The primary aim of this study was to evaluate the presence, distribution, and potential human health implications of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in a residential neighborhood of Houston, Texas following a major hurricane. Hurricane Harvey made landfall along the Texas Gulf Coast as a Category 4 hurricane on August 25, 2017, producing unprece…
The 2018 Camp Fire in Butte County, California, was the state’s most destructive wildfre in history, destroying more than 14,600 homes. The wildfre caused widespread drinking water system chemical contamination resulting in acute and chronic health risks, requiring water use restrictions. Six months after the fre, the research team conducted a rapid com…