Projects

Floods are the deadliest and most costly natural hazard worldwide, so it is important to obtain highly reliable information about global flooding events. This project aims to integrate flood inundation information from multiple sources into the DisasterAWARE® (All-hazard Warnings, Analysis, and Risk Evaluation) platform, providing...

Over the past decade, increasing wildfire frequency and intensity in the United States has led to several devastating wildfire seasons. The United States’ fire-prone landscape is more densely settled and developed than in previous years, resulting in steeply rising fire-suppression costs. The Weather Research Forecasting...

Volcanic ash clouds pose a great danger to air traffic safety, leading to flight cancellations and creating a ripple effect on the airline industry’s economy. Real time satellite observations can provide crucial information for re-routing air traffic around the hazardous volcanic clouds. Nickolay Krotkov’s A.37 project...

Francis Monaldo’s A.37 project, “Development and Implementation of Remote Sensing Techniques for Oil Spill Monitoring and Storm Damage Assessment in an Operational Context,” is collaborating with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to improve the algorithms that identify the United States’ coastal oil spills...

Compared to other hazards such as floods and earthquakes, landslides are small, making them more challenging to observe. As a result, there has been no global network for determining when they might occur. Despite their size, landslides are a pervasive hazard – killing thousands of...

The moments immediately following a disaster are crucial to a swift recovery, yet it can be difficult for first responders to find reliable disaster information with such a tight timeframe. Sang-Ho Yun’s research project aims to provide rapid mapping of disaster damage using synthetic aperture...

 Hail is the costliest severe weather hazard for the insurance industry, damaging assets such as homes, businesses, agriculture, and infrastructure. Since most insurance companies do not reserve enough capital to cover catastrophes, they require reinsurance – insurance for insurance companies. The reinsurance industry uses...

Weather-related hazards, such as flash flooding and hurricane surges, are natural phenomena that can have devastating impacts on communities worldwide. As a result, disaster responders must react as quickly as possible to mitigate the impact on people and their homes. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) –...

Tsunamis are one of the most powerful and destructive natural forces. Triggered by earthquakes, tsunami waves typically reach shores anywhere between 15 to 30 minutes after a quake occurs. Current tsunami early warning systems in the Cascadia subduction zone struggle to respond within the first...

Cities are complex systems with interconnected “lifeline networks” enabled by critical infrastructure, which can be severely damaged or destroyed in the aftermath of a natural disaster. Following Hurricanes Maria and Katrina and the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, for example, damage to critical systems resulted in...