We research the causes, mechanics and consequences of flooding, landslides, volcanoes and cascading hazards (e.g., an earthquake causing landsliding into rivers leading to increased flood risk). Research in this area consists of numerical modelling, remote sensing and field investigations, and we also work with social scientists to understand how different communities perceive, adapt to, and mitigate these risks. Work has included projects in India (observing debris flow events in Ladakh, and flooding in the Ganga River Basin), Nepal (investigating flooding in the Kathmandu basin and along the Karnali river), Ethiopia (exploring volcanic hazards along the rift valley) and the Americas and Caribbean (observing debris flow and pyroclastic flows in Guatemala, Chile and Monserrat). Some of our researchers are also members of the Edinburgh Geohazards research group in the Institute of Earth and Planetary Sciences. Visit the Edinburgh GeoHazards research group Current projects Tomorrow’s Cities Tomorrow’s Cities is the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Urban Disaster Risk Hub – a five-year global interdisciplinary research hub. Our aim is to catalyse a transition from crisis management to multi-hazard risk-informed planning and decision-making, for cities in low-and-middle-income countries. Visit the Tomorrow's Cities website Ixchel: Building understanding of the physical, cultural and socio-economic drivers of risk for strengthening resilience in the Guatemalan cordillera Ixchel builds on existing work with indigenous and low-income ladino (mixed race) survivors of disaster events such as Hurricane Stan in 2005 and the eruption of the Fuego volcano in 2018. It is focused on the landslides, debris flows and volcanic pyroclastic flows that affect Guatemala every year and disproportionately affect the most vulnerable sectors of the population. A capstone output of this project will be a docunovela – a televised series about disaster risk in a context of persistent coloniality produced in collaboration with local media makers. More information on this project award on *ERE Future proofing strategies FOr RESilient transport networks against Extreme Events (FORESEE) Transportation systemic risks are not well understood across modes, regions, and critical interdependent sectors, creating uncertainty about risks resulting from a major system disruption. There is a lack of resilience schemes, especially for the long term, integrated into transport infrastructure due to the inability to monetize resilience for investment decisions, and there are also strong barriers to its implementation to operating practice. The overall objective of FORESEE is to develop and demonstrate a reliable and easily implementable toolkit for providing short and long term resilience schemes against traffic disruption due to flooding, landslide and structural damage for rail and road corridors and multimodal terminals. Visit the FORESEE website Publications *Affiliated authors highlighted in bold (2015) Erosion during extreme flood events dominates Holocene canyon evolution in northeast Iceland. PNAS. 112, 2355–2360. *Authors: Baynes, E.R.C., Attal, M., Niedermann, S., Kirstein, L.A., Dugmore, A.J., Naylor, M. View publication (2020)The interaction between concentrated pyroclastic density currents and snow: a case study from the 2008 mixed-avalanche from Volcan Llaima (Chile). Bulletin of Volcanology. 82, 75. *Authors: Breard, E.C.P., Calder, E.S., Ruth, D.C.S. View publication (2015) Prediction of flash flood hazard impact from Himalayan river profiles. Geophysical Research Letters. 42, 5888–5894. *Authors: Devrani, R., Singh, V., Mudd, S.M., Sinclair, H.D. View publication (2020) Dynamic flood topographies in the Terai region of Nepal. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms. 45, 3092–3102. *Authors: Dingle, E.H., Creed, M.J., Sinclair, H.D., Gautam, D., Gourmelen, N., Borthwick, A.G.L., Attal, M. View publication * Edinburgh Research Explorer (ERE) is the University's research information system and is managed by Library and University Collections. This article was published on 2024-07-01
