In the first semester of 2011, natural disasters had a devastating impact on human society. Preliminary EM-DAT figures showed the occurrence of 108 natural disasters, which killed more than 23,000 people, affected nearly 44 million others and caused more than US 3 billion of economic damages. Sixty-one countries experienced a natural disaster,” according to the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) in Brussels, Belgium. The ...

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Centers are currently experiencing heavy downpours, heatwaves and coastal flooding, and these are expected to increase in the coming decades due to climate variability and change. The United States Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) 2009 Climate Impacts Report concluded that “human-induced climate change is happening now, the impacts are already apparent, and greater impacts are projected, particularly if [gre...

Perusing headlines across the United States, the poetic refrain of Samuel Coleridge comes to mind: “Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.” The refrain referenced oceans, but it seems increasingly applicable as many parts of the United States and the globe struggle with water challenges. A national report a few years ago opined that “abundant supplies of fresh drinking water can no longer be taken for granted.” In her 1998 book, Th...