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Categories: Geoscience: Environmental Issues, Geoscience: Landslides

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Rapidly evolving floods are a major and growing hazard worldwide. Currently, their onset and evolution is hard to identify using existing systems. However, seismic sensors already in place to detect earthquakes could be a solution to this problem. Researchers show that a seismometer can sense a flood, such as the devastating one that hit Germany in July 2021, up to 1.5 km away. This could act as an early warning to save lives and lessen damage. They also found that being able to measure the 'seismic footprint' of the flood provides information on its magnitude, velocity and trajectory in real time, which could be used for future flood protection.

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Researchers recently published a study looking at land use changes from the past and the importance of taking factors such as socio-economic development and the dynamic nature of coastal environments into consideration to make these areas more resilient to climate change.

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A new large-scale analysis of hillslope connectivity at the continental scale was recently published. The study gives new understanding of mechanisms that determine how effectively hillslopes drive floods and landslides, as well as promote the presence of wetlands.

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Britain's transition from water power to coal-based steam power set the stage for the 19th century Industrial Revolution, which transformed much of Europe and North America into predominantly urban and industrialized societies. One long-held argument for this move 'away from the water' has been that Britain no longer had sufficient water resources to satisfy the increasing power demands of its textile mills.

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High temperatures, fuelled by climate change, dried out soils across Europe and the Northern Hemisphere this summer, finds a team of climate scientists.

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An opinion piece urgently calls for more research into the specific pathways by which civilization could potentially collapse due to climate change. Scientists have warned that climate change threatens the habitability of large regions of the Earth and even civilization itself, but surprisingly little research exists about how that collapse could happen and what can be done to prevent it.

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Researchers have reported that nitrate accumulated in soil bordering streams plays an important role in the increase of nitrate levels in stream water when it rains. Their findings may help reduce nitrogen pollution and improve water quality in downstream bodies of water, such as lakes and nearshore waters.

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Tiny amounts of crude oil on the water surface, less than one percent of the thickness of a hair, can damage seabird feathers, a new study finds.

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The Great Salt Lake is getting saltier, creating a serious threat to the ecosystems and the economies that depend on it. New research examines the trajectory the two halves of the lake might take on a path to hyper-salinity.

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Scientists have created a new type of nanomembrane that presents a less energy intensive way to fractionate hydrocarbons from crude oil. The global production of crude oil is currently around 80 million barrels per day. Hydrocarbons extracted from crude oil are the main ingredients for manufacturing fossil fuels, plastics, and polymers. The process by which they are extracted is extremely energy intensive. Membrane technology that can separate the molecules in crude oil by their different sizes and classes could be a far more energy efficient process, consuming 90% less energy.

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Landslides are inevitable, but landslide disasters are not. With this in mind, the U.S. Geological Survey has released a new report that details the strategic actions necessary to equitably reduce the Nation's risk from landslide hazards.

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Over the past decades, rising levels of ozone pollution have been interrupting pollination, impacting the livelihood of both plants and the animals that pollinate them. Researchers now explain how an excess of ground-level ozone can damage plant foliage, change plants' flowering patterns, and act as a barrier to pollinators finding blooms.

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More frequent and longer-lasting droughts caused by rising global temperatures pose significant risks to people and ecosystems around the world -- according to new research. The paper has quantified the projected impacts of alternative levels of global warming upon the probability and length of severe drought in the six countries.

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The ability of rainforests to store carbon can decrease in pace with climate change. This is due to photosynthesis rates in the leaves of rainforest species falling at higher temperatures and the trees' natural cooling systems failing during droughts. Increased heat threatens especially the species that store most carbon.

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Twelve years after an oil spill coated nearly 35 miles of the Kalamazoo River, new research confirms that turtles rehabilitated in the aftermath of the disaster had high long-term survival rates.

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Professors have developed a self-calibrating EDI to compare and analyze precipitation records from the Joseon Dynasty to date.

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At the beginning of the year, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the Middle East ranks among the regions with the worst air quality. There is a common misconception that desert dust is the most significant cause of air pollution from particulate matter in this region, but a new study has shown that more than 90 percent of the particulate matter that is detrimental to health originates from anthropogenic sources. This human-made fine particulate matter differs from the less harmful desert dust particles. Scientists determined this through ship borne measurements and verified it in elaborate modeling calculations. The anthropogenic particles are primarily caused by the production and use of fossil fuels such as oil and gas. They are generally smaller than desert dust and can penetrate deep into the lungs.

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Researchers use satellites to measure soil moisture around certain crops to solve a long-standing mystery about how water impacts agricultural production. The researchers found that models using soil moisture explain 30% to 120% more of the year-to-year variation in yield across crops than models that rely on rainfall. The research give scientists a better understanding of how crop yields will change under climate change.

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New research has confirmed that a popular sport fish exposed to sublethal levels of crude oil and released back into the wild exhibits altered behavior, decreased survival, and reduced spawning.

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Dirty windows can harbor potentially harmful pollutants under protective films of fatty acids from cooking emissions -- and these can hang around over long periods of time.