Wildfires are a natural element in many ecosystems and play a central role in their dynamics. For example, they clear forest floors and liberate nutrients that can replenish the soil. However, changes in fire regimes induced by anthropogenic factors (such as climate change and land uses) have resulted in fire patterns that harm ecosystems [1]. …[Read More]
The interplay between human societies and floods dates back to Old World civilizations. Floodplains have provided the potential for prosperous agriculture and for the development of organised communities and urban cultures. Contextually, flood events have caused millions of fatalities and invaluable economic losses throughout history. Over the past decades, human activities have increasingly altered the …[Read More]
In summer 2020, extreme rainfall events dumped up to 320 mm of rain in a single day in the Baixada Santista metropolitan region, São Paulo state, breaking Brazil’s record for the biggest rainfall in a single event and demonstrating one of the greatest threats of climate change. The damage caused by the associated landslides led …[Read More]
In the afternoon of August 29, 2020, an intense supercell, which is a thunderstorm characterized by the presence of a deep, persistently rotating updraft, affected the province of Verona in the north of Italy (Figure 1). It was not the first event of this kind; several other events, including tornado episodes, had already occurred during …[Read More]
Soil moisture and rainfall are the two fundamental variables in the water and energy cycle and their knowledge in many applications is crucial. For instance, for predicting the occurrence and the magnitude of flood and landslide events the knowledge of the initial soil moisture condition and of rainfall amount is mandatory. In the last decade, …[Read More]
In this post, I had the pleasure to interview Paolo Tarolli, a very active member of the EGU community and a brilliant scientist. He is Professor in Water Resources Management and Integrated Watershed Management, and head of Earth Surface Processes and Society research group at the Università degli Studi di Padova (Italy). He has a …[Read More]
Sooner or later in your career, you have turned lunch breaks, entire weekends or nights into a job search. Looking for a job can be like dating: it can either be an easy going match, quickly finding the right job position for you, or it might be a long and unsatisfying search over millions of …[Read More]
Today I have the pleasure to interview Dr. Evangelos Tziritis, a brilliant scientist and a friend. He will talk to us about Natural groundwater quality hazard and its implications. This blog aim is to discuss Natural Hazards. Therefore, today we will focus on the natural component of water quality, disregarding anthropogenic sources. Evangelos is a …[Read More]
Today we have the honor to have Prof. Victor Jetten as our guest. Throughout his career Victor, has been working in modelling of natural hazard and land degradation processes. Starting with biomass and grazing capacity, the effects of logging on the natural rain forest water balance, he then moved to soil erosion and land degradation processes …[Read More]
Today I have the pleasure to post an interview on International Research Projects. The interviewee, Dr. Cees van Westen, does not need any introduction for those who work in the field on Natural Hazards. Today, he will “speak” as the coordinator of the CHANGES project and further information can be asked directly to him if this …[Read More]