2023 Media Watch Archives
Mudflow & flooding concerns in Orange County
KTLA - News -
“When a fire happens, it removes the vegetation from the hill slopes and the vegetation usually serves to hold the soil in place, so the soil becomes less stable.“ “Ariane Jong-Levinger, is a PhD candidate in civil and environmental engineering at UC Irvine who studies flooding issues caused by fires. We asked her how long it generally takes for hillside communities like this one [Silverado] to get back to normal.” [Starts 7:28] Read More
This map shows which parts of San Francisco are most at risk of flooding
SF Chronicle -
Brett Sanders, a civil and environmental engineering professor at UC Irvine who specializes in creating flood assessments, said rainfall in San Francisco over New Year’s Eve was “an extreme event that probably approaches a 50-to-100 year event or more.” … “The combined effects of a really wet storm with aging infrastructure and with changing land use — collectively, all those three factors led to intense flooding across the region,” Sanders said. [Subscription required, you can request an electronic copy of the article by sending an email to communications@uci.edu.] Read More
Robot fireflies and okra band-aids: 2022's nature-inspired solutions
Japan Times (AFP) -
“Nature has spent hundreds of millions of years optimizing elegant solutions to extremely complicated problems,” said Alon Gorodetsky, [associate professor], a biomedical engineer at the University of California, Irvine. “So if we look to nature, we can shortcut our development process and get to a valuable solution right away,” he said. … “Nature really is the epitome of innovation and engineering,” Gorodetsky added. Read More