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Displaying 75 of about 109 resultsBy Robert Perkins
Pouring through 10 years' worth of Southern California seismic data with the scientific equivalent of a fine-tooth comb, Caltech seismologists have identified nearly two million previously unidentified tiny earthquakes that occurred between 2008 and 2017.
Their efforts, published online by the journal Science on April 18, e…
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How are you currently using geoinformatics in your work?
Primarily in the process of risk assessment. We are collecting, analysing and curating datasets to characterize socioeconomic exposure of buildings, people, assets and services to natural hazards as well as the geophysical nature of those hazards (meaning the hydrology, terrain, land use a…
By Eric Marx
An app that uses artificial intelligence to identify plant disease is being deployed in India as an early-warning system to stop the advance of a crop-destroying caterpillar that is having a devastating impact on maize crops in Africa.
Plantix, a diagnostics smartphone app developed by Berlin-based Progressive Environmental and Agricultur…
By Katharine Schwab
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The sad state of emergency response
Emergency planners have little technology to work with when it comes to understanding what is happening during a disaster. For floods, many emergency planners rely on static risk maps, which model the flow of water by assuming that rain is falling constantly everywhere. These maps are base…
WMO has issued its annual Airborne Dust Bulletin on the incidence and hazards of sand and dust storms, which have been highlighted by a massive Saharan plume which has blanketed many parts of the Caribbean.
This dust plume arrived from North Africa in the Eastern Caribbean on June 17. It has since affected a wide spatial extent of the greater Caribbean…
By Sarah Derouin
Data visualization and mapping are valuable tools in the fight against COVID-19. Geoscientists can help healthcare workers and shape public policy.
In the shadow of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), it can be difficult to manage research programs. Field seasons have been postponed, lab meetings have taken to online v…
GENEVA, January 29 2016 – Hundreds of scientists and policymakers today pledged to step up action on the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, a 15-year global agreement that aims to curb deaths and economic losses from natural and man-made hazards.
The first-ever UNISDR Science and Technology Conference, which drew 750 delegates to Geneva from…
In the summer of 2021, travelers in Colorado's Glenwood Canyon were safely evacuated before massive mounds of mud and rocks buried highways and destroyed bridges, thanks to a debris flow warning system developed in part by the U.S. Geological Survey. The system alerted Colorado Department of Transportation officials to intense rainfall events, providing…
In recent years, the World Bank has been exploring the use of artificial intelligence for disaster risk management, such as how to capture housing data with machine learning, and how to do it in a way that is responsible and does no harm. Building upon this work, new research is showing that by integrating machine learning with strategic aerial ima…
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Knowing the potential dangers posed by storm surge and high winds before a storm hits can help coastal communities and emergency responders prepare.Visualizations showing projected storm impacts can make the complex science behind the projections easy to understand and immediately available to individuals in the storm’s path, acco…
Global warming is here. As anticipated for more than 50 years now, the temperature and levels of atmospheric CO2 have increased.Various models were able to predict these increases with precision, and we are seeing the impact now. One of the main effects of the changes in the atmosphere are frequent forest fires, which are more common globally and have a…
GENEVA, 24 April 2012 - Innovations in technology have made it easier in the last decade to reduce disaster risks and plan for the future. The internet combined with technologies, such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS), now makes it possible to better understand and communicate the social and physical complexities of disasters.
This was clearly e…
GENEVA, 5 March 2012 - The UN Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, and HE Yoichi Otabe, the Japanese Ambassador to the International Organizations in Geneva, announced today the start of consultations on a new international blueprint for reducing disaster losses in advance of the World Conference on Disaster Reduction…
INCHEON, 8 November 2012 - Seoul's Cheong Gye Cheon, a once polluted river now restored to its former glory, captured the attention of development planners and disaster managers meeting here this week for a Leadership Forum at UNISDR's Global Education and Training Institute for Disaster Risk Reduction.
In the middle of a hectic week, over 30 governmen…
GENEVA, 20 January 2014 – The future resilience of the planet rests upon shortening the distance between emerging scientific evidence and actionable policy.
A High-Level Panel, titled ‘Perspectives on the Value of Earth Observations’, agreed on the importance of the “usability of information” in the International Strategy of Disaster Reduction and othe…