NH
Natural Hazards

Risk management

Navigating the Ongoing and Predicted Disaster of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil): Career and Insights with Expert Prof. Enner

June 17, 2024
Severe flooding that left the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, submerged.

We are honoured to hear from Dr. Enner Alcântara, Professor at the São Paulo State University (UNESP) and leader of the Remote Sensing, Spatial Analysis, Environmental Modelling and Natural Disasters Research Group. His research in remote sensing has played a crucial role in recognising, managing and mitigating the impacts of disasters, bringing out significant contributions. Today, we’ll ex ...[Read More]

Earth Citizens and Natural Hazards: a few words from the perspective of our environment, the inhabited planet, Earth

December 4, 2023
Earth Citizens and Natural Hazards: a few words from the perspective of our environment, the inhabited planet, Earth

In January 2023, I visited the Amazon Forest in Suriname. During my visit, I met indigenous people known as the Saramaccers, a Maroon tribe residing in the heart of the Amazon Forest. I found it fascinating that the Saramaccers consider themselves an integral part of nature. Their motto is ‘If you respect nature, nature will be your friend and stand by you’. Nature extends a helping ha ...[Read More]

Is culture the missing link to disaster risk reduction?

September 11, 2023
The City of Kobe, Chuo Ward (photo credit: Asimina Voskaki)

Sophocles, a great tragic writer of Classical Athens, said that “success is dependent on effort”. When it comes to disaster risk reduction, are we doing enough to develop a culture of resilience and how do cultural factors affect people’s willingness to protect themselves and build an effective disaster reduction and reconstruction mechanism? In 1995 (17/01/1995), Kobe, Osaka (Ja ...[Read More]

The 2023 Carnival disaster in São Paulo: an all time record for rainfall in Brazil

May 22, 2023
The 2023 Carnival disaster in São Paulo: an all time record for rainfall in Brazil

In February 2023, Brazil experienced its largest rainfall event on record, which devastated the northern coast of the state of São Paulo. This event caused landslides, floods, and numerous fatalities, making it even more tragic than previous disasters in the region, which already have been elaborated on in another blog post. The situation highlights the urgent need for effective emergency manageme ...[Read More]

Unravelling the Complex Drivers of Wildfires in the Era of Climate Change

and February 27, 2023
Unravelling the Complex Drivers of Wildfires in the Era of Climate Change

In the last decades, the strength of climate change has been evident across the globe in many weather and climate extremes occurrences, including heatwaves and droughts. Those events are involved in all fire stages and influence all aspects of the fire regime [1].    Climate change is driving unprecedented wildfire in the Mediterranean region  The Mediterranean region is a climate change hots ...[Read More]

COVID-19 and natural hazards: a complex multi-risk scenario

January 16, 2023
COVID-19 and natural hazards: a complex multi-risk scenario

COVID-19 has been a disruptive ‘tsunami’ that most countries were not prepared to handle. The pandemic has been representing a global slow-onset long-lasting disaster that has drastically challenged all emergency management systems worldwide. The pandemic slow-onset disaster has been characterized by a prolonged emergency phase with varying intensity levels, and a cyclic behavior, where the interp ...[Read More]

Let’s begin the recovery before the disaster

October 24, 2022
Let’s begin the recovery before the disaster

Every natural event that causes damage to the built environment must be followed by recovery; however, this phase of disaster risk management has received less attention from academics than the others [1]. In all its aspects, disaster recovery has remained a contentious topic, with experts debating its definition, approaches, objectives, activities, and even when it should begin and finish [2–4]. ...[Read More]

Repression Without Resistance: Answering Natural Hazards Related Disasters

June 27, 2022
Repression Without Resistance: Answering Natural Hazards Related Disasters

Answering disasters triggered by natural hazards is a profoundly political process; who can tell us about this is Isabelle Desportes with her study cases of Ethiopia (the 2016 drought), Myanmar (cyclone Komen in 2015) and Zimbabwe (the 2016/2019 drought). Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Dr Isabelle Desportes, a researcher who approaches disaster risk governance from the angle of politic ...[Read More]

Life with dust: its impacts and how to catch it

April 4, 2022
Life with dust: its impacts and how to catch it

In today’s interview, we have the pleasure to meet Dr Slobodan Nickovic, who won the prestigious 2022 Plinius Medal. Slobodan is a research consultant at the Republic Hydrometeorological Service of Serbia, and at the Institute of Physics in Belgrade, Serbia. Throughout his career, he worked for national and international educational, scientific, and operational institutions including the Uni ...[Read More]

Building a risk-aware culture

November 1, 2021
Building a risk-aware culture

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “The future depends on what you do today”. In the past months, we have witnessed extreme weather events, wildfires, earthquakes, and volcanic activity in different parts of the world. Although this activity is ordinary for a living planet like Earth, it can disturb the modern way of living and put people at risk. Even for the events that can be predicted with a higher deg ...[Read More]