RESILIENCY RESOURCES

• Johns Hopkins Research Makes Waves With Better Flood Damage Forecasting

  Natural disaster risk modeling provides a reliable and affordable way for governments to estimate expected damage caused by rivers overflowing their banks.

• Extreme Weather Could Burn Many Investment Portfolios By Mid-Century

  Climate change is one of the most pressing challenges facing humanity today, with potentially severe implications for infrastructure assets. Infrastructure investments have long lifetimes, typically spanning several decades, and are designed to operate under specific climatic conditions. However, climate change is causing more frequent and intense extreme weather events, which can damage or disrupt infrastructure assets. These physical risks can lead to direct losses, increased maintenance costs, and lower asset values.

• El Niño May Be Drying Out The Southern Hemisphere — Here's How That Affects The Whole Planet

  It is a well-known fact that water is the key to life on Earth. But it is less well known that only about 1% of all water on the planet is fresh water available to humans, plants, or land-based animals. The rest is in the oceans, or locked up in polar ice sheets and rocks. In a climate changing world, the global distribution of that 1% takes on a whole new significance.

• Climate Adaptation Projects Sometimes Exacerbate The Problems They Try To Solve

  Across the globe, a "climate adaptation industry" sometimes imposes solutions that exacerbate the problems they aim to solve. Frequently, this comes at the cost of vulnerable communities.

• Extreme Weather Is Outpacing Even The Worst-Case Scenarios Of Our Forecasting Models

  In the wake of the destructive Hurricane Otis, we find ourselves at a pivotal moment in the history of weather forecasting. This rare and alarming event, described by the U.S. National Hurricane Center as a "nightmare scenario," broke records for the fastest intensification rate over a 12-hour period in the eastern Pacific. Otis not only caught residents and authorities off guard, but also exposed the limitations of our current predictive tools.
• Preserving Paradise: How Honolulu Is Combating Climate Change

  The last state to join the U.S. is leading in resiliency planning, serving as a model for others as storms and floods worsen.

• Free Will And Cybersecurity

  Even with federal regulations mandating action for municipal water and wastewater systems unfinished, the commitment to protect the public should compel utilities to improve cybersecurity.
• Coastal Project Sheds Light On Importance Of Community Collaboration

  In the 1970s, if you took a helicopter ride from New York City to the Montauk Point Lighthouse that sits on the eastern tip of Long Island, New York, you could have spotted a woman in her 60s crawling along the 65-foot cliff under the beacon, packing and shaping earth with her bare hands and her small garden hoe.

• What Is A Strong El Niño? Meteorologists Anticipate A Big Impact In Winter 2023, But The Forecasts Don’t All Agree

  Winter is still weeks away, but meteorologists are already talking about a snowy winter ahead in the southern Rockies and the Sierra Nevada. They anticipate more storms in the U.S. South and Northeast, and warmer, drier conditions across the already dry Pacific Northwest and the upper Midwest. One phrase comes up repeatedly with these projections: a strong El Niño is coming.
• WWEMA Window: Designing Wastewater Treatment Equipment For Resiliency

  It is a known issue that wastewater infrastructure is aging and is in need of significant investment to upgrade or replace systems to operate safely. Age is not the only factor driving system replacements. Wastewater itself has changed, which means what flows through collection systems and into treatment plants is different than what it was 50 years ago. At home, lower-flow toilets translate to less water to move flushed solids.