Natural hazards articles within Nature

Featured

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Artificial intelligence-based forecasting improves the reliability of predicting extreme flood events in ungauged watersheds, with predictions at five days lead time that are as good as current systems are for same-day predictions.

    • Grey Nearing
    • , Deborah Cohen
    •  & Yossi Matias
  • Article
    | Open Access

    High-resolution vertical land motion and elevation datasets combined with projections of sea-level rise of 32 major US coastal cities shows that a considerable amount of land area, population, and properties are threatened by relative sea-level rise by 2050.

    • Leonard O. Ohenhen
    • , Manoochehr Shirzaei
    •  & Robert J. Nicholls
  • Article |

    Analysis of high-resolution annual data shows that global human settlements have expanded continuously and rapidly into flood zones, with those in the most hazardous zones increasing by 122% from 1985 to 2015.

    • Jun Rentschler
    • , Paolo Avner
    •  & Stéphane Hallegatte
  • Article
    | Open Access

    We identify a seasonal advance of intense tropical cyclones that is closely related to the seasonal advance of rapid intensification events, favoured by the observed earlier onset of favourable oceanic conditions.

    • Kaiyue Shan
    • , Yanluan Lin
    •  & Fengfei Song
  • Article
    | Open Access

    A global assessment shows that the wildland–urban interface occurs on all continents, showing its broad-scale patterns and providing a basis for future research on dynamics and socioeconomic and biophysical processes.

    • Franz Schug
    • , Avi Bar-Massada
    •  & Volker C. Radeloff
  • Article |

    Observations and samples from the central Himalayas show that a giant rockslide occurring around 1190 ad in the Annapurna massif led to the collapse of an elevated palaeo-summit, illustrating the episodic mode of erosion of the glaciated high relief by mega-rockslides.

    • Jérôme Lavé
    • , Cyrielle Guérin
    •  & Valier Galy
  • Article
    | Open Access

    An assessment of ice-dam failures in six mountain regions shows that extreme peak flows and volumes have declined sharply since 1900, and that ice-dam floods today originate at higher elevations and earlier in the year.

    • Georg Veh
    • , Natalie Lützow
    •  & Oliver Korup
  • Article |

    Theoretical and experimental analysis of the effect of grain shape in bed load sediment transport is performed and a shape-corrected sediment transport law that provides greater accuracy in predictions is proposed.

    • Eric Deal
    • , Jeremy G. Venditti
    •  & J. Taylor Perron
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Analysis of Landsat imagery from the past two decades allows quantification of the changes in salt marsh ecosystems, as well as associated carbon emissions resulting from net global losses.

    • Anthony D. Campbell
    • , Lola Fatoyinbo
    •  & David Lagomasino
  • Article
    | Open Access

    As observed for the 2021 Fagradalsfjall eruption in Iceland, a release of tectonic stress followed by a decline in deformation and seismicity rate may be a characteristic precursory activity for a certain class of eruptions.

    • Freysteinn Sigmundsson
    • , Michelle Parks
    •  & Thorbjörg Ágústsdóttir
  • Article
    | Open Access

    The 2021 eruption of Mount Nyiragongo, DR Congo demonstrated that magma storage close to the surface in open systems means that eruptions may occur with very short-term precursory activity, raising major challenges for their monitoring.

    • D. Smittarello
    • , B. Smets
    •  & A. Syavulisembo Muhindo
  • Article |

    January 2022 saw the first observations of a tsunami resulting from a large emergent volcanic eruption (Hunga Tonga) captured using modern instrumentation, with broad implications for hazard management in similar geophysical settings.

    • Patrick Lynett
    • , Maile McCann
    •  & Gizem Ezgi Cinar
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Unprecedented floods and droughts bring new challenges for risk reduction, as is clear from this analysis of the drivers of changing impacts in many cases worldwide, with implications for efficient governance and investment in integrated management.

    • Heidi Kreibich
    • , Anne F. Van Loon
    •  & Giuliano Di Baldassarre
  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Hunga Tonga eruption represents a natural experiment, being a clearly identifiable near-point source producing gravity waves across a broad range of spatiotemporal and frequency scales, observed by a diverse array of instruments worldwide.

    • Corwin J. Wright
    • , Neil P. Hindley
    •  & Jia Yue
  • Article
    | Open Access

    By analysing sea-level, atmospheric and satellite data captured after eruption of the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai volcano, as well as numerical and analytical models, it is shown that global tsunamis can be triggered by acoustic-gravity waves.

    • R. Omira
    • , R. S. Ramalho
    •  & M. A. Baptista
  • Article
    | Open Access

    A deep learning model trained on prompt elastogravity signal (PEGS) recorded by seismometers in Japan predicts in real time the final magnitude of large earthquakes faster than methods based on elastic waves.

    • Andrea Licciardi
    • , Quentin Bletery
    •  & Kévin Juhel
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate forecast systems are used to develop and evaluate global predictions of marine heatwaves (MHWs), highlighting the feasibility of predicting MHWs and providing a foundation for operational MHW forecasts to support climate adaptation and resilience.

    • Michael G. Jacox
    • , Michael A. Alexander
    •  & Desiree Tommasi
  • Article |

    Analysis of tide gauge observations shows that, in contrast to the current assumption of stationary storm surge extremes in Europe, the surge contribution to changes in extreme sea levels since 1960 is similar to that of sea-level rise, influencing future coastal planning.

    • Francisco M. Calafat
    • , Thomas Wahl
    •  & Sarah N. Sparrow
  • Article |

    The amount of carbon dioxide released by the Australian wildfires of 2019–2020 is uncertain, but is estimated here using satellite observations of carbon monoxide to be more than twice the amount suggested by fire inventories.

    • Ivar R. van der Velde
    • , Guido R. van der Werf
    •  & Ilse Aben
  • Article |

    A multidisciplinary method for managing triggered seismicity is developed using detailed subsurface information to calibrate geomechanical and earthquake source physics models, and is applied to the Val d’Agri oil field in seismically active southern Italy.

    • Bradford H. Hager
    • , James Dieterich
    •  & Andreas Plesch
  • Article |

    Thirty years of geothermal heat production at Coso in California depleted shear stresses within the geothermal reservoir, which changed its faulting style and inhibited aftershocks from the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake.

    • Kyungjae Im
    • , Jean-Philippe Avouac
    •  & Derek Elsworth
  • Article |

    Large forest fires in Alaska and the Northwest Territories can ‘overwinter’ and then reignite in the following fire season, contributing up to one-third of the burned area in individual years.

    • Rebecca C. Scholten
    • , Randi Jandt
    •  & Sander Veraverbeke
  • Article |

    Numerical simulations indicate that seismological observations of large megathrust earthquakes are better matched by crack-like ruptures on persistently weak faults than by self-healing pulse-like ruptures on stronger faults.

    • Valère Lambert
    • , Nadia Lapusta
    •  & Stephen Perry
  • Article |

    Ocean heatwaves displace surface isotherms by tens to thousands of kilometres—comparable to shifts associated with long-term warming trends—potentially driving rapid redistributions of marine species.

    • Michael G. Jacox
    • , Michael A. Alexander
    •  & James D. Scott
  • Article |

    The worldwide distribution and water supply of water towers (snowy or glacierized mountain ranges) is indexed, showing that the most important water towers are also the most vulnerable to socio-economic and climate-change stresses, with huge potential negative impacts on populations downstream.

    • W. W. Immerzeel
    • , A. F. Lutz
    •  & J. E. M. Baillie
  • Article |

    Changes in the average size distribution of earthquakes are used to discriminate between foreshocks and aftershocks, and a traffic light classification is proposed for the real-time assessment of the probability of a subsequent larger event.

    • Laura Gulia
    •  & Stefan Wiemer
  • Letter |

    Analysis of a dataset of high-sensitivity Tohoku–Hokkaido seismograph records shows that pairs of subduction-type earthquakes of different sizes have very similar initial characteristics, implying that the final size of an earthquake cannot be reliably predicted from these.

    • Satoshi Ide
  • Letter |

    Analysis of a comprehensive European flood dataset reveals regional changes in river flood discharges in the past five decades that are consistent with models suggesting that climate-driven changes are already happening.

    • Günter Blöschl
    • , Julia Hall
    •  & Nenad Živković
  • Letter |

    Radio interferometric observations of lightning over the Netherlands reveal small needle-shaped plasma structures associated with the positive leader channels, explaining why cloud-to-ground lightning connects to the ground multiple times.

    • B. M. Hare
    • , O. Scholten
    •  & P. Zucca
  • Letter |

    Neural networks trained on data from about 130,000 aftershocks from around 100 large earthquakes improve predictions of the spatial distribution of aftershocks and suggest physical quantities that may control earthquake triggering.

    • Phoebe M. R. DeVries
    • , Fernanda Viégas
    •  & Brendan J. Meade
  • Letter |

    Two populations of Anolis lizards that survived Hurricanes Irma and Maria had larger toepads, longer forelimbs and shorter hindlimbs relative to the pre-hurricane populations, which suggests hurricane-induced natural selection.

    • Colin M. Donihue
    • , Anthony Herrel
    •  & Jonathan B. Losos
  • Letter |

    The translation speed of tropical cyclones has decreased globally by 10% over the past 70 years, compounding the increases in cyclone-related local rainfall that have resulted from anthropogenic warming.

    • James P. Kossin
  • Letter |

    Ground-based observations during a thunderstorm provide conclusive evidence of positrons being produced after lightning, confirming that lightning can trigger photonuclear reactions.

    • Teruaki Enoto
    • , Yuuki Wada
    •  & Harufumi Tsuchiya