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How do natural hazards cascade to cause disasters?

Track connections between hurricanes, wildfires, climate change and other risks, urge Amir AghaKouchak and colleagues.
  1. Amir AghaKouchak

    1. Amir AghaKouchak is associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Irvine, California, USA.

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  2. Laurie S. Huning

    1. Laurie S. Huning is a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Irvine, California, USA.

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  3. Felicia Chiang

    1. Felicia Chiang is a PhD student at the University of California, Irvine, California, USA.

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  4. Mojtaba Sadegh

    1. Mojtaba Sadegh is assistant professor in civil engineering at Boise State University, Boise, Idaho, USA.

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  5. Farshid Vahedifard

    1. Farshid Vahedifard is associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Mississippi State University, Mississippi, USA.

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  6. Omid Mazdiyasni

    1. Omid Mazdiyasni is a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Irvine, California, USA.

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  7. Hamed Moftakhari

    1. Hamed Moftakhari is assistant professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA.

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  8. Iman Mallakpour

    1. Iman Mallakpour is a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Irvine, California, USA.

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Firefighters monitor smoke and flames from a wildfire in California

A wildfire in Montecito, California, in December 2017. The following month, heavy rain falling on the burnt slopes caused a mudslide that killed 21 people. Credit: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty

This has been an exceptional year so far for natural disasters. Typhoons in Asia and Hurricane Florence hitting the US east coast have caused extensive damage, flooding and mudslides. In the past two months, Scandinavia, Spain and Portugal, the United Kingdom, North America and South Africa experienced fierce forest blazes. Just outside Athens in July, one of the deadliest conflagrations in recorded history raged through coastal towns, killing 99 people. In the same month in Mendocino, California, an area larger than Los Angeles was scorched — more than 1,800 square kilometres — killing a firefighter and destroying almost 300 homes. Sweden suffered more than 50 wildfires, some even within the Arctic Circle.

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Nature 561, 458-460 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-06783-6

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