WASHINGTON More than half of the structures in the contiguous United States are exposed to potentially devastating natural hazards such as floods, tornadoes and wildfires according to a new study in the AGU journal
Earth s Future, which publishes interdisciplinary research on the past, present and future of our planet and its inhabitants.
Increasing temperatures and environmental changes contribute to this trend, and the research also shines the light on another culprit: the way humans develop open land, towns and cities. We know that climate change is increasing the risk of damage from some natural hazards, said Virginia Iglesias, a research scientist with the University of Colorado Boulder Earth Lab and lead author of the paper. But are losses also increasing because of the way that we are developing our cities, our towns?
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Credit: Johannes Uhl
Cities are not all the same, or at least their evolution isn t, according to new research from the University of Colorado Boulder.
These findings, out this week in
Nature Communications Earth and Environment and
Earth System Science Data, buck the historical view that most cities in the United States developed in similar ways. Using a century s worth of urban spatial data, the researchers found a long history of urban size (how big a place is) decoupling from urban form (the shape and structure of a city), leading to cities not all evolving the same or even close.
The researchers hope that by providing this look at the past with this unique data set, they ll be able to glimpse the future, including the impact of population growth on cities or how cities might develop in response to environmental factors like sea level rise or wildfire risk.