Tinted detail of a photo: Road broken into slabs and buckled chunks of asphalt amid heaped soil, with a bent crash barrier and damaged buildings beside it, leading to a roundabout under a hazy setting sun.
NH
Natural Hazards

Natural Hazards

Diagnosing drought in northeast Brazil

A dam, an almost empty water reservoir and a small abandoned boat

Worldwide, drought has put lives and livelihoods under serious threat. People are increasingly suffering from drought, but we often also aggravate drought ourselves. Fortunately, solutions to drought problems are mainly in our own hands as well. Drought is not just a water problem. It is a societal problem.   Droughts: a local problem with global …[Read More]

Tackling the leaks in the transport network with Maria Pregnolato

Tackling the leaks in the transport network with Maria Pregnolato

Transport networks are crucial to our lives, from commuting to work to reach health care facilities, from the transport of goods to leisure travelling. To quote Robin Chase, an American transport entrepreneur: “Transportation is […] the glue of our daily lives. When it goes well, we don’t see it. When it goes wrong, it negatively …[Read More]

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

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

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]

2020: The escalation of extreme rainfall events in Brazil

2020: The escalation of extreme rainfall events in Brazil

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]

Education in pandemic times, a digital help

Education in pandemic times, a digital help

It has been a long year since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. We all had to adjust and deal with a completely new reality, and it hasn’t always been easy. The adjustment has involved every aspect of life including the education system. When contact restrictions are in place and you cannot meet in person …[Read More]

Advances in earthquakes forecasting pass through machine learning

Advances in earthquakes forecasting pass through machine learning

In today’s interview, we meet Dr Fabio Corbi, a researcher at IGAG-CNR, the Institute of Environmental Geology and Geoengineering of the Italian National Research Council. Fabio has experience in analogue modelling of megathrust earthquakes and he is currently exploring the potentiality of machine learning in this research field. Hi Fabio, would you briefly tell us …[Read More]

Collaboration in Science: A Necessity Not A Luxury

Collaboration in Science: A Necessity Not A Luxury

Collaboration in science is of paramount importance for the development of new ideas and tools that progress our common knowledge. However, you might have felt at times that, for example, the competition for funding or the inequality of access to resources have undermined collaboration opportunities. In this blog post, we host the reflections and actions …[Read More]