In the last decade alone, California has been hit with back-to-back cycles of historic drought followed by historic rain, snow and flooding. “I’m personally concerned about this because our levee systems are very, very old and basically made out of soil,” said Amir AghaKouchak, a UC Irvine professor. AghaKouchak co-authored a 2020 study on the impacts of climate change on levees protecting critical infrastructure–transmission lines, roads, railroads, natural gas and petroleum pipelines in densely populated areas such as Southern California’s coastal communities. [Subscription required, you can request an electronic copy of the article by sending an email to communications@uci.edu.] Read More