Natural Hazards Science Articles

Studies of environmental damage left behind by the massive December 2004 tsunami find widespread destruction in India, both above and below ground.

Storms

The chances of getting killed by lightning in Canada are generally less than one in a million. But some people's odds of encountering a deadly strike are much higher than average.

An Alabama lake has dutifully recorded when catastrophic hurricanes have pounded the coast during the last 700 years.

Atlantic hurricanes from 1995 to 2005 arose much more frequently and ferociously than normal.

The parade of hurricanes hitting the United States has not grown faster and more furious over the last century.

Severe winter storms that leave behind million of dollars in damage have become less common in the United States over the last five decades. But at the same time, individual storms have become more massive and destructive.

Satellite images show that the north Pacific Ocean has recently become much cloudier, particularly during winter.

Landslides

If an unstable hillside above Tidal Inlet in Glacier Bay National Park suddenly collapses, it would generate a tsunami large enough to damage any ships cruising in its path.

Northern British Columbia was subject to a rash of large landslides in the past decade, and they happened in places that terrain specialists normally consider stable.

Lakes held in place by a glacial moraine can potentially cause a devastating flash flood if the dam of rubble suddenly gives way.

Landslides have killed 80 people in northwestern British Columbia since the mid-1800s.

Landslides on Mount Meager have dumped clay and rock several meters deep into the Pemberton Valley at least three times during the last 7300 years.

A wildfire following a century of sediment accumulating in a steep creek channel created conditions that took only a moderate summer rainfall to trigger a large landslide into Kootenay Lake.

The first substantial rainstorm after a severe forest fire can trigger large-scale erosion, even on shallow slopes.

Wildfires

A look at the history of forest fires and drought in Canada and Alaska finds three striking trends emerging over forty years.

Despite the recent widespread devastation from wildfires in California, fires in the state are rare events these days relative to the past.

Tackling the build-up of fuels in British Columbia's fire-protected forests has consequences not just for reducing the risk of large, catastrophic fires; there are many other costs and benefits.

A comprehensive initial attack strategy stopped wildfire from burning an estimated 457,500 ha of boreal forest between 1983 and 1998 in northeastern Alberta.

Firefighting managers and Okanagan Valley residents believe that hot, dry, windy weather is largely to blame for British Columbia's catastrophic wildfires during the summer of 2003.