Risk management

Mitigating Soil Erosion After Wildfires

Antonio Girona-García and Diana Vieira May 31, 2021

2020 Sobral de São Miguel wildfire (Serra da Estrela, Portugal). Credit: Diana Vieira

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]. Let’s see together the issues and the mitigation solut ...[Read More]

LANDAWARE: the international network on landslide early warning systems

Gabriele Amato May 17, 2021

For today’s interview, it gives me great pleasure to host Dr Manfred Stähli, who will tell us about a new initiative in the field of Landslide Early Warning Systems (LEWS), which is attracting the attention and participation of researchers from many countries. This initiative is called LandAware. Manfred is a senior scientist in mountain hydrology, slope stability and early warning systems a ...[Read More]

Floods in the Anthropocene: the good, the bad and the ugly

Giulia Roder March 22, 2021

Floods and people: Who shapes whom? Credits: Pixabay (free for commercial use, no attribution required)

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 alter ...[Read More]

The earthquake traffic light

Gabriele Amato November 9, 2020

Dr. Laura Gulia is a senior post-doc at the University of Bologna, Department of Physics and Astronomy. She has a strong experience in statistical seismology, seismicity analysis as well as seismic hazard and risk assessment. Recently, she investigated the spatio-temporal evolution of the earthquake size distribution throughout a seismic sequence focusing on the b-value, a parameter characterizing ...[Read More]