Rising Sea Levels Call for Rising Wetlands
Amid the search for protection against rising sea levels, many have turned to remediating or reconstructing traditional wetland ecosystems.
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flooding
Where Categorizing Hurricanes Falls Short
Hurricane Katrina was one of the most devastating hurricanes in history, leading to over 1800 fatalities and tying Hurricane Harvey as the costliest hurricane on record. But at the time Katrina made landfall, it was “only” ranked as Category 3 by the Saffir-Simpson scale, which goes up to Category 5. So why did Katrina, at only Category 3, cause so much more destruction than most Category 5 storms? And what does that tell us about what the Saffir-Simpson scale is missing?
Read moreDouble trouble: how floods after bushfire affect the health of our rivers
Between Christmas 2019 and the 2020 New Year, forested mountain ranges across drought-stricken areas in Eastern Australia came alight, with fires ravaging 11 million hectares of bush (Eucalyptus woodlands and rainforests) – a size comparable to England’s land area. These megafires threw the states of New South Wales and Victoria into a state of emergency. The bushfire crisis took a sudden turn when heavy rainfall flooded the scorched land in the span of just two weeks. Unfortunately, while rainfall might appear to be a blessing in light of the megafires, the resulting floods were ultimately not sweet relief for rivers.
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