Science communication

To be or not to be a ‘natural’ disaster: that is the question

Giulia Roder August 17, 2020

City ruins of an earthquake (unknown location). Source: Pixabay 2016.

The story of science is replete with theories that only become accepted by the scientific community after long and protracted uphill battles, said Howard Wolinsky in his commentary in Science and Society in 2008. Sometimes they are rejected, ridiculed, or they take time to be validated, digested, and likely accepted. However, in my opinion, the scientific discussion over new hypotheses is at the h ...[Read More]

Faults and earthquakes as friends and not foes

Afroz Shah August 3, 2020

Figure 1: The earthquakes with magnitude > 7 with a focal depth of 50 km are plotted on the satellite image to show the global distribution of earthquakes, and their relationship with the plate boundaries. The figure is created using the open-source application Natural Hazards Viewer of NOAA (2020), and data are obtained on 26th June 2020.

The earthquakes’ occurrence on the planet Earth is largely considered synonymous with disasters and people generally perceive geological faults as a threat to life and belongings. However, there are exceptions since a small community of earthquake researchers relate the occurrence of earthquakes with the lithospheric plate interactions where movement on faults causes earthquakes. Therefore, ...[Read More]

Vitor Silva: 2020 Natural Hazards division medallist story

Giulia Roder April 6, 2020

Seismic risk training workshop for students organized at the EAFIT University in Medellin, Colombia (Photo credits: Vitor Silva)

In today’s interview, we talk with Dr Vitor Silva, who was awarded the 2020 Natural Hazard Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award for his fundamental contributions to the research on earthquake risk assessment. Seismic risk is the probable building damage and the number of people that are expected to be hurt or killed if a likely earthquake on a particular fault occurs. Disaster risk ca ...[Read More]

Blog column – PICTURE YOUR RESEARCH!

Giulia Roder March 23, 2020

Working on natural hazards brings you to places (physically and virtually) you might never have discovered otherwise. You look at the world while asking questions about places, situations, relationships, and interactions of the natural processes surrounding you, inspiring your scientific potential. The Natural hazard Early Career Scientists Team is interested in your natural hazard research and wo ...[Read More]