News

We are absolutely dismayed by the magnitude of the flooding tragedy in Texas. Sadly, this is not an isolated event, as many other regions in the United States are exposed to devastating flash floods.

A couple of days ago, in a conversation with KQED reporter Ezra...Read more about 2025 Texas flash floods: Could that happen in California?

World Weather Attribution, a scientific group that monitors extreme weather, has released a report investigating 67 extreme temperature events from May 2024-May 2025. The report presents two major findings:

1) "4 billion people — about 49% of the global population — experienced at least...Read more about World Weather Attribution Study-Extreme Heat

At a June 10, 2025 White House Press Conference to discuss the upcoming wildfire season, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, speaking to President Trump, said "You've been very clear that you want to see FEMA eliminated as it exists today, so I'm preparing all these governors that they...Read more about White House Plans to Eliminate FEMA "As It Exists Today"

The New York Times ("California’s Wildfires Could Be Brutal This Summer", June 16, 2025) and the Los Angeles Times ("California’s 2025 wildfire season was already going to be dangerous. Trump has made it worse", June 18, 2025) report that a high risk fire season lies ahead of...Read more about Concerns about the Upcoming Wildfire Season

The 8th Session of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction was help in Geneva on June 2-6, 2025. It was attended by 3000 participants from 164 countries. The theme of the meeting was “Every Day Counts, Act for Resilience Today." The main closing output of the meeting, called the Co...Read more about Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction 2025

The Desert Research Institute has recently published a study reviewing 43,000 atmospheric river storms across 122 watersheds on the West Coast of the U.S between 1980 and 2023. They found that "flood peaks were 2-4.5 times higher, on average, when soils were already wet." The key takeaway...Read more about Atmospheric River Storms and West Coast Flooding

The Los Angeles Times reports that approximately half of the post-fire debris has been successfully removed by mid-April ("As heavy as 100 Eiffel Towers: Monumental L.A. County fire debris removal could finish by June"). The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been responsible for the clean up,...Read more about Los Angeles Fire Debris Removal Progress

The Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) has issued a scoping report on fire recovery after the Los Angeles fires. To speed rebuilding, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass issued an executive order temporarily relaxing the "all-electric" building code regulation. The CLEE report...Read more about "All Electric" Fire Recovery?

The New York Times ("After Wildfires, L.A.’s Clear Skies Conceal a ‘Toxic Soup’") reports on a research project to monitor airborne toxins after the 2025 Los Angeles fires. The article follows a research group tracking volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, in ultra-fine particles...Read more about Post-Fire Airborne Toxins

On Urban Wire, Urban Institute authors Andrew Rumbach, Sara McTarnaghan, Kameron Lloyd, and Aleszu Bajak compare housing recovery rates after four major wildfires: the Carr and Camp Fires in Northern California (2018), the Marshall Fire in Boulder County, Colorado (2022), and the Maui...Read more about Housing Recovery Timelines After Major Wildfires

The Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation has issued a report, prepared by the Institute for Applied Economics, detailing the economic impacts of the 2025 L.A. fires. The report estimates that total property damage is between $28.0 billion and $53.8 billion and that business disruption...Read more about Los Angeles Wildfire Impacts

2025 Los Angeles Wildfires: is the worst still to come?

During a field trip, some colleagues from UC Berkeley watched the Palisades Fire getting started
yesterday morning around 10:30am (Photo: Palisades fire viewed from Sepulveda dam, Los Angeles on
January 07, 2025 / Matt Kondolf...Read more about 2025 Los Angeles Wildfires: is the worst still to come?

It’s been an honor to participate in the 35th Meeting of the EU Common Implementation Strategy’s Working Group on Floods. During two days in Brussels we learned about the recent floods in Europe, gaining insights on what happened and why, and that this occurrence will not be unique in coming...Read more about 35th Meeting of the EU Working Group on Floods

Following Hurricane Helene and now in the midst of Hurricane Milton, the New York Times has posted several articles that point to the limits on U.S. capacity to respond to multiple disasters.

On October 7th, the Times reported that only 9% of...Read more about U.S. Disaster Response Capacity

UC Berkeley's Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research recently sponsored an Interdisciplinary Climate & Equity Seed Grant program to "support the formation of interdisciplinary teams to prepare for external funding opportunities to advance innovative and...Read more about CCRM Members Receive Grant for Flood Risk Management Project

A New York Times article ("Fighting Fire with Fire in California") investigates how prescribed fires can reduce fire risks in the state of California. By burning off excess fuel built up over decades, "beneficial fires" can reduce the size and intensity of wildfires.

However...Read more about Prescribed Burns Reduce Fire Risk

A New York Times article ("Extreme Weather is Increasing Risk of Collapse for U.S. Bridges,") writes that extreme weather is putting U.S. bridges under greater pressure, with extreme heat and increased flooding adding stress to bridges already at risk due to aging. These bridges, the...Read more about U.S. Bridges and Extreme Weather

CCRM is pleased to announce that we have receive a planning grant from the National Science Foundation under the Centers for Research and Innovation in Science, the Environment and Society (CRISES) Program.

The CCRM project is entitled Catastrophic Risk and System-Scale...Read more about CCRM Receives NSF CRISES Planning Grant

The New York Times writes today about the challenges of collecting data on heat deaths ("Heat Kills, but It's Hard to Say How Many"). Accurate data is important for targeting preventive measures, but reliable data is not easily obtained. Essentially, the problem is that heat can exacerbate other...Read more about Heat Deaths can be Hard to Determine

According to an article by the New York Times ("'Window is Closing' to Halt the Outbreak of Bird Flu"), H5N1 infections have been reported in nearly 200 cattle herds in 13 U.S. states. Genetic studies indicate that this outbreak resulted from a "spillover of the virus from birds into...Read more about Concerns about Bird Flu in U.S. Cattle