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Disaster Management

Understanding disasters in advance so we can be prepared in the moment. Our research explores the human, environmental and economic impacts of disasters, enabling us to proactively prevent–and reactively recover–from emergencies.

An aerial shot of a pumping plant for the California Aqueduct. The channel continues through pipes into the background toward parched hills.
Photo Credit
halbergman via iStock
While reducing demand is important, most successful cases of groundwater recovery also involve moving huge amounts of water to meet demand.

Why some regions are winning the fight against groundwater depletion

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An anemometer against clouds and sky.
Photo Credit
Pixfly via iStock
3D printed instrumentation means that national meteorological services in Africa can take full ownership of their networks, building, repairing and sustaining them independently.

3D-printed weather station initiative enhances local monitoring in Southern Africa
A super cargo ship is tended to by cranes and trucks in a commercial terminal. Lights from the port brighten the dimming sky, with mountains and low clouds in the distance.
Photo Credit
SHansche via iStock
Curtailing overconsumption may be the easiest target for reducing the societal and environmental impacts of climate change.

UCSB professor tapped to co-author the seventh IPCC assessment report on climate change mitigation
grains and pulses with scoops in baskets.
Photo Credit
Pierivb via iStock
Addressing world hunger requires an accurate account of those in need.

Global measure underestimates the severity of food insecurity
A forest sits atop an eroding bluff.
Photo Credit
Maksim Safaniuk via iStock
Anna Trugman researches how plants respond to climate change, while Gen Li studies erosion and weathering — the natural processes that break down rocks and transport sediment.

Two UCSB professors recognized for contributions to the Earth sciences
A hotshot in an orange hardhat, yellow Nomex jacket and sunglasses glances to the right backlit by an inferno engulfing the pines a few dozen yards behind him, with the book cover to the right.
Photo Credit
Jordan Thomas/ Penguin Publishing Group
Centuries of misguided policy, politics and prejudice have primed the land for the unprecedented infernos that wildland firefighters now face every year.

Hotshots, history and the human choices behind megafires
mudslide into ocean
Photo Credit
iStock

Eckart Meiburg receives NSF award to study sediment dynamics behind mudslides and erosion
A turbid river flows down from the mountains through a mixed woodland. Gravel, cobbles, and boulders line the river channel. Clouds obscure the very peaks of the mountains above the trees.
Photo Credit
Sergey Kuznetsov via iStock
Rivers wash mountains to the sea. How quickly they do this has major implications for natural hazards and fundamental Earth science.

Years after an earthquake, rivers still carry the mountains downstream
Dead corn and cracked earth under an orange sky.
Photo Credit
piyaset via iStock
Warmer air can suck more moisture in dry regions and dump more rain in wet regions. New research reveals that the atmosphere’s drying capacity is outpacing increases to rainfall.

The atmosphere’s growing thirst is making droughts worse, even where it rains
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Professors Somayeh Dodge and Alan Murray receive UCGIS awards
Stork plaza, the UCen, and music building with the ocean in the background.
Photo Credit
Matt Perko

UCSB is well positioned for fire preparedness
CERT training
Photo Credit
Sarah Kidwell

Help is on the way: UCSB staff train to pitch in during a disaster
David Valentine
Photo Credit
Matt Perko
David Valentine

Discoveries from Disasters: A conversation with oceanographer David Valentine
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