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]
Dr Fausto Guzzetti, current Research Director of the National Research Council (CNR) in Italy, has been awarded the 2021 Sergey Soloviev Medal for “his fundamental contributions to the field of natural hazards and his remarkable efforts to link the scientific community and civil protection authorities to mitigate risk for exposed populations”. From his passion for mountains and caves and his “hope ...[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 to dozens of fatalities and hundreds of homeless people, as well ...[Read More]
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 your students, your teachers, how do you continue to provide this crucial service? All univ ...[Read More]
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 about you and your career? ...[Read More]
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 of Dr Omar AlThuwaynee, who, after experien ...[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 summer 2020. Here the video of the downburst recorded during ...[Read More]
In this interview, I talk with Chris Conway about his experience as a volcanologist in Japan, which is one of the countries with the highest volcanic threat in the world. You will read how studying crystals found within erupted lava flows can help hazard mitigation at active volcanoes and how volcanic hazard is managed in Japan. Hi Chris!! Thank you for accepting this interview, first and foremo ...[Read More]
On November 2nd, EGU opened the call for abstracts and communicated that 2021 will see the General Assembly going again fully virtual. It seems a very considerate choice, giving that the COVID-19 pandemic still pervades our lives and makes impossible safe planning of events that include travelling and in-person contacts so far ahead in time. Let’s see what we have to know to get ready for it based ...[Read More]
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]