Heavy metal contaminants from mining can live in ecosystems for centuries. A new global database shows where the problem is worst.
floods
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Machine Learning Highlights Ways to Improve Flood Mitigation
New research shows that home flood insurance coverage is often a reactive purchase in response to flooding, while top-down policies that focus on community resilience may offer more robust protection.
Posted inNews
Hurricane Harvey Filled Houston with Sediment
The storm’s record-setting rains moved an equally impressive amount of sediment and elevated the risk and expense of absorbing all that muck.
Posted inNews
Paleostorm Chasers Test a New Detection Tool
A method typically used to date sediments shows promise for documenting tropical storms through history—information needed for future projections of storm activity.
Posted inNews
Natural Floodplains Are Quickly Vanishing
From 1992 to 2019, 600,000 square kilometers of natural floodplains were lost globally due to land conversion.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Seismometers Listening at Rivers to Measure Sediment Transport
Bedload sediment, transported throughout an alpine catchment by a flood, was remotely tracked in detail by analyzing the ground vibrations recorded by a network of 24 seismic sensors.
Posted inNews
Farming Is Intensifying Floods in the South American Plains
The replacement of native vegetation by crops has raised groundwater levels in the Pampas, a new study suggests.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Specious Timescales from Sedimentary Layers
Changing environments can dramatically change how quickly layers form in sedimentary rocks, leading to incorrect time estimates.
Posted inEditors' Vox
Unlocking the Secrets of Floods: Breakthroughs in Riverine and Coastal Modeling
To enhance flood modeling, it is imperative to gain a comprehensive understanding of the causative mechanisms and cutting-edge models and tools, while also acknowledging their uncertainties.
Posted inNews
Forecasting Earthquake-Induced Floods
Surface-rupturing earthquakes can abruptly reroute rivers when fault scarps function like dams. Researchers have now successfully modeled such an event that occurred in New Zealand.