Natural Hazards

Course Description

This course is typically offered in Spring.This 4-credit lab course focuses on the physical processes that control natural disasters, why they may pose a risk to people or infrastructure, how to assess risk, and potential mitigation strategies. Labs are used to develop and analyze data characterizing these physical processes and defining risk; this work focuses on defining what can be measured, monitored, and predicted as the basis of the assessment. The first third of the course is devoted to solid earth hazards under the unifying paradigm of plate tectonics including earthquakes and volcanoes. The middle third of the course is devoted to weather hazards including storms/coastal hazards, floods, and landslides. The final third of the course is devoted to climate change, focusing on how hazards may change including extreme weather, heat waves/droughts, wildfire and feedbacks among hazards such as fire, erosion, and landslides. A critical aspect of the course is use of geoscience data tools to identify and analyze risk from topographic, remote sensing, hydrologic, and other data streams combined with hazard products developed by states, NOAA, FEMA, USGS, and other agencies.

Code

EES 5051

Credits

4

Subject

EES