flooding – envirobites

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?

Climate Ecosystems Environmental Science

Double trouble: how floods after bushfire affect the health of our rivers

March 19, 2020 Jackie Webb 0 Comments bushfire, climate extreme, flooding, rivers, Wildfire

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.

Climate Environmental Science

Drones prove to be useful tools for flood data collection

December 17, 2018December 21, 2018 Munim Deen 0 Comments coastal erosion, drones, flooding

As climate change leads to rising sea levels and coastal erosion, drones are proving to be a reliable, economical, and timely tool for real-time data collection of flooding and flood damage – especially in remote and resource-poor regions around the world.

Case Studies Climate Environmental Science Science through time

Summertime Sadness: Hurricanes and Water Quality

October 26, 2018October 29, 2018 Nick Iraola 0 Comments environmental policy, flooding, human impacts, hurricanes, river ecology, swine farms, water pollution, water quality

Hurricanes are natural disasters that can turn water quality nasty! Just how nasty depends on what’s on the land that’s being flooded. Hurricane Fran (1996) struck the Cape Fear region in southeastern North Carolina, and researchers from the University of North Carolina Wilmington noticed dissolved oxygen plummeted as a result of swamp water and swine farm waste flooding. The lack of oxygen in the water caused widespread death of fish and critters living in the bottom of the rivers, not to mention all that sewage introduced bacteria and disease into the environment! Swamp water flooding may be a natural, unavoidable consequence of hurricanes, but we must have policies and practices in place to reduce further degrading water quality from human activities.

Cities Climate Environmental Science Human Exposure and Public Health

Why coastal flood maps are wrong: the tale of compound hazards

August 8, 2018August 9, 2018 Mary Grace Lemon 0 Comments Climate Change, environmental policy, extreme weather, flooding, hurricanes, hydrology, sea level rise, urban hydrology, water management

Coastal flooding is expected to increase in frequency due to future sea level rise and more extreme weather, but most coastal flood hazards maps do not portray the increase risk. We dive deeper into how these maps are made and uncover why the current flood hazard maps may be misleading.