Media Watch
Los Angeles at Greater Flood Risk Than Government Estimates, Study Shows
The Wall Street Journal -
But the flood risk in Los Angeles is much greater than what the latest storm delivered, according to a study published in October. Hundreds of thousands of residents and billions of dollars in property are exposed to widespread flood risk in Los Angeles, a greater impact than federal flood zones suggest. “Watching these storms roll in really reaffirms how poorly prepared we are for any type of street and road flooding. We’re seeing highways and roads across California being impacted by floodwater, or downright blocked,” said Dr. Brett Sanders, a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at University of California, Irvine, and lead author of the study published in Nature Sustainability. [Subscription required, campus-wide access provided by UCI Libraries. Sign-up here: https://guides.lib.uci.edu/news/wsj] Read More
Atmospheric rivers over California’s wildfire burn scars raise fears of deadly mudslides – this is what cascading climate disasters look like
The Conversation -
Amir AghaKouchak, UCI professor of civil & environmental engineering and Earth system science writes, “I study cascading hazards like this, in which consecutive events lead to human disasters. Studies show climate change is raising the risk of multiple compound disasters, including new research showing increasing risks to energy infrastructure. … With compound and cascading events likely to become more common in a warming world, the ability to prepare for and manage multiple hazards will be increasingly essential.” Read More
Hospitals Are at Risk: Smartphone Attacks Could Release Deadly Microbes
SciTechDaily -
A team of researchers at the University of California, Irvine has found that negative pressure rooms, which are used in hospitals and laboratories to prevent the spread of deadly pathogens, can be compromised by an attacker using a smartphone. … “Someone could play a piece of music loaded on their smartphone or get it to transmit from a television or other audio device in or near a negative pressure room,” said senior co-author Mohammad Al Faruque, UCI professor of electrical engineering and computer science. “If that music is embedded with a tone that matches the resonant frequency of the pressure controls of one of these spaces, it could cause a malfunction and a leak of deadly microbes.” Read More
Floods’ Worst Ravages Will Be Visited Upon California’s Poorest
Capital & Main -
Researchers from UC Irvine last year reported that the damage from a “100-year flood,” so named for its rarity and ferocity, would land hardest on Black and low income L.A. residents. The reason? They live disproportionately in the low-lying communities nearest to the region’s dilapidated network of storm drains, dams, basins, levees and other water control mechanisms, which will overflow. In a worst-case scenario, the researchers said, major flooding would push water into Compton, Bell Gardens, Southgate, North Long Beach and other areas between the Dominguez Channel and the Los Angeles River — perhaps six feet deep. Read More
California, Nevada no longer under 'exceptional drought' conditions following severe influx of rainfall
ABC News -
But it will take several seasons at 120% to 200% the normal rain and snowfall to eliminate drought in the West, according to experts. A tough feat, considering the anthropogenic -- or human-induced -- warming many states in the West, including California and Nevada, are experiencing, Amir AghaKouchak, a professor at the University of California, Irvine who specializes in hydrological extremes and drought monitoring, told ABC News. Drought has "many dimensions," and climate change is expected to alter the relationship between drought and flooding in the West, AghaKouchak said. Read More
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
An Esp32-Based Potentiostat
Hackaday -
Ever wanted to make your own wireless chemical sensor? Researchers from the University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine) have got you covered with their ESP32-based potentiostat. … Potentiostats are instruments that analyze the electrical properties of an electroactive chemical cell. Read More
New findings show how Cyanobacteria spread biofilms on rocks to dissolve minerals as nutrition
Stone-Finder -
“Through a biological process that has evolved over millions of years, these tiny miners excavate rocks, extracting the minerals that are essential to the physiological functions, such as photosynthesis, that enable their survival,” said corresponding author David Kisailus, UCI professor of materials science and engineering. “Could humans use a similar biochemical approach to obtain and manipulate the minerals that we find valuable?” Read More