Search Results (2,133)

This study examines how Bulgarian municipalities plan for disasters through the analysis of their municipal disaster protection plans’ public availability. These documents are legally mandated and form the cornerstone of local prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery. The research combined a systematic search for publicly accessible plans across all 265 municipalities with a detailed review of the plans from the 27 regional centers. A GIS dataset was constructed linking municipalities with plan availability, population data, and direct links to documents. The analysis revealed that while most municipalities publish disaster-related documentation, accessibility remains uneven and many documents are hidden in poorly organized websites or uploaded as scanned image-only PDFs, limiting usability. Structural analysis of regional center plans showed that all cover the legally required hazards of earthquake, flood, and nuclear or radiological accidents, but the depth, clarity, and inclusion of additional risks vary widely. Only a few municipalities integrate climate change and emerging hazards, while most remain focused on traditional risks. The findings point to a gap between formal compliance with the Disaster Protection Act and effective public-oriented disaster planning. Full article

Access to safe water and sanitation remains a pressing challenge in Sub-Saharan Africa. Rapid urbanisation, fragile governance, and increasing climate hazards continue to undermine the sustainability of WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) services. This study examines whether Mozambique’s normative and institutional framework effectively supports sustainable urban WASH service delivery in Beira, the country’s second-largest city. Combining a critical policy review with six semi-structured interviews involving institutional actors and community leaders, the research employs a qualitative, phenomenological design to explore the interaction between national frameworks and local practices. Findings reveal five interrelated dimensions shaping sustainability: governance coordination, infrastructure robustness and maintenance, community participation, climate resilience, and financial viability. Although post-disaster investments and recent policy reforms have led to improvements, significant challenges persist. These include overlapping institutional mandates, underdeveloped preventive maintenance systems, limited recognition and support for community-led initiatives, fragmented climate adaptation efforts, and strong dependence on external funding. The study also reveals how historical legacies, particularly colonial-era governance structures, continue to shape water and sanitation delivery. By integrating policy analysis with local perspectives, the paper contributes to debates on WASH sustainability in African cities, particularly in climate-vulnerable secondary urban centres. It highlights the need for systemic reforms that clarify institutional roles, institutionalise maintenance practices, formalise community engagement, embed nature-based adaptation strategies, and strengthen financial transparency. These changes are essential if Beira, and similar cities across sub-Saharan Africa, are to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 6 under mounting climate pressure. Full article

Wet-snow avalanches constitute a major geomorphic hazard in southeastern Tibet, where warm, humid climatic conditions and a steep, high-relief terrain generate failure mechanisms that are distinct from those in cold, dry snow environments. This study investigates the snowpack conditions underlying avalanche initiation in this region by integrating UAV-based multi-sensor surveys with field validation. Ground-penetrating radar (GPR), infrared thermography, and optical imaging were employed to characterize snow depth, stratigraphy, liquid water content (LWC), snow water equivalent (SWE), and surface temperature across an inaccessible avalanche channel. Calibration at representative wet-snow sites established an appropriate LWC inversion model and clarified the dielectric properties of avalanche-prone snow. Results revealed SWE up to 1092.98 mm and LWC exceeding 13.8%, well above the critical thresholds for wet-snow instability, alongside near-isothermal profiles and weak bonding at the snow–ground interface. Stratigraphic and UAV-based observations consistently showed poorly bonded, water-saturated snow layers with ice lenses. These findings provide new insights into the hydro-thermal controls of wet-snow avalanche release under monsoonal influence and demonstrate the value of UAV-based surveys for advancing the monitoring and early warning of snow-related hazards in high-relief mountain systems. Full article

Fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) is a well-established health hazard, yet population-level causal evidence on the long-term effects of its chemical constituents and their interactions with environmental and socioeconomic factors remains scarce. This study leveraged quasi-experimental variation in PM_2.5 exposure across Guangdong province, China, during 2007–2018 to evaluate its causal impact on emergency department (ED) visits. We applied a Difference-in-Differences (DID) causal inference framework to obtain counterfactual estimates of long-term exposure effects and complemented this with generalized Weighted Quantile Sum (gWQS) regression to treat PM_2.5 as a complex mixture, quantify joint effects, and identify toxic components. The results showed that each interquartile increase in long-term PM_2.5 exposure was associated with a 10.2% rise in ED visits, with nitrate (weight = 0.299) and sulfate (0.294) contributing the most strongly, while organic matter exerted greater effects in less-developed regions. Temperature variation further modified these effects, with a 1 °C increase in average summer temperature associated with a 3.3% increase and a decrease in winter temperature linked to a 0.54% increase in constituent-related ED visits. Socioeconomic stratification revealed heterogeneous toxicity profiles across regions. These findings provide robust causal evidence on constituent-specific risks of PM_2.5, highlight the utility of integrating causal and mixture methods for complex exposures, and support targeted emission control and climate-adaptive strategies to protect vulnerable populations. Full article

Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) have emerged as globally concerning environmental contaminants, posing serious threats to ecosystem health and public safety. This systematic review summarizes global research trends on ARGs across three key aspects: (i) identification and distribution in river and lake ecosystems, (ii) sources and environmental behaviors, and (iii) ecological and human health risks. Concentration data of ARGs in various rivers and lakes across China were compiled to reveal their spatial distribution patterns. The analysis of ARGs sources and environmental behaviors provides essential insights for designing effective mitigation strategies. Furthermore, this review highlights the potential ecological and human health hazards of ARGs and discusses limitations and improvement directions of current risk assessment methodologies. The main findings indicate that ARGs are widely present in rivers and lakes across China; higher abundances occur in eastern and southern regions compared with central–western and northern areas, such as 4.93 × 10²–8.10 × 10³ copies/mL in Qinghai Lake and 6.7 × 10⁷–1.76 × 10⁸ copies/mL in Taihu Lake. The environmental behaviors of ARGs are highly complex, involving multiple mechanisms and influenced by climatic conditions, nutrient levels, and additional environmental factors. Based on these findings, future efforts should prioritize long-term site-specific monitoring, evaluate their prolonged impacts on aquatic ecosystems, and develop integrated risk assessment models to support evidence-based environmental management. Full article

Drought is a major climatic hazard affecting water resources, agriculture, and livelihoods in semi-arid regions, with increasing severity under climate change. This study assessed long-term drought in Dura City, Palestine, from 2000 to 2023 using the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) at 3-, 6-, and 12-month timescales. Monthly precipitation and temperature data were obtained from local meteorological stations, with mean annual precipitation of 408 mm and average summer and winter temperatures of 28 °C and 12 °C, respectively. Trends were analyzed using the Mann–Kendall test and Sen’s slope estimator. SPI-3 values ranged from −3.13 to 3.87, including 67 moderates to severe drought months and 12 extreme wet months. SPI-6 ranged from −2.97 to 2.53, showing 34 drought months and 40 wet months, while SPI-12 ranged from −1.94 to 2.32, reflecting generally stable long-term precipitation. Annual rainfall exhibited no significant trend (Sen’s slope = −1.34 mm/year, p = 0.785), whereas yearly average temperature increased significantly by 0.054 °C/year (p = 0.02), raising evapotranspiration and drought risk. Results indicate high short- and medium-term drought variability despite stable annual precipitation, underscoring the need for integrated water management strategies, including rainwater harvesting, groundwater protection, and efficient irrigation, to improve resilience under evolving climate conditions. Full article

Flooding poses a major hazard to rapidly urbanising cities in Southeast Asia, and risks are projected to intensify under climate change. Accurate risk assessment, however, is hindered by scarcity of hydrological and topographic data. Focusing on the Lower Prek Thnot River Basin, a peri-urban catchment of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, the study applied the Rainfall–Runoff–Inundation model and systematically augmented inputs: hourly satellite rainfall data, field-surveyed river cross-sections and representation of hydraulic infrastructure such as weirs and pumping. Validation used Sentinel-1 SAR-derived flood-extent maps for the October 2020 event. Scenario comparison shows that rainfall input and channel geometry act synergistically: omitting either degrades performance and spatial realism. The best configuration (Sim. 5) Accuracy = 0.891, Hit Ratio = 0.546 and True Ratio = 0.701 against Sentinel-1, and reproduced inundation upstream of weirs while reducing overestimation in urban districts through pumping emulation. At the study’s 500 m grid, updating land use from 2002 to 2020 had only a minor effect relative to rainfall, geometry and infrastructure. The results demonstrate that targeted data augmentation—combining satellite products, field surveys and operational infrastructure—can deliver robust inundation maps under data scarcity, supporting hazard mapping and resilience-oriented flood management in rapidly urbanising basins. Full article

Tropical cyclones (TCs) can lead to significant social and economic losses, with the fisheries sector being especially vulnerable to their impacts. There is a growing need to develop new methods for impact assessment, especially as regards assessments in real time and impact forecasting. The objective of this paper was to develop an open-source, automated toolkit that can assess the impact of TCs on fishing activity by tracking changes in the number of fishing boats caused by a TC event using publicly available satellite and cyclone intensity data. The toolkit can provide retrospective analyses of how fishing activity was affected in a given country and year, and it can also nowcast/forecast likely fishing activity changes resulting from approaching or hypothetical TCs. The toolkit automates data extraction, processing, and the application of a Vector Generalized Linear Model to estimate a historical relationship between TCs and fishing activity. This relationship can then be used for nowcasting or forecasting likely TC impacts on fishing activity based on TC path, windspeed and translation speed. By providing timely, transparent, and scalable assessments of cyclone-related disruptions, the toolkit contributes to the sustainability and resilience of coastal fisheries and supports proactive risk management and informed policymaking in the face of climate-related hazards. Full article

Glacial lakes in the Upper Indus Basin (UIB) are rapidly evolving due to accelerated glacier retreat driven by climate change. Here we present a comprehensive inventory of glacial lakes using Sentinel-1 SAR data with adaptive backscatter thresholding, enabling consistent detection under challenging conditions and improving delineation accuracy. In August 2023, we identified 6019 glacial lakes at scales from 0.001 to 5.80 km², covering a cumulative area of 266 km² (~0.06% of the basin). Although more than 90% of the lakes are smaller than 0.1 km², large lakes (>0.1 km²) account for over 57% of the total lake area. Most lakes are concentrated between 4000 and 4600 m, coinciding with the main glacierized zone. Regional patterns reveal that the Hindu Kush and Himalayas are dominated by glacier erosion lakes (GELs) and moraine-dammed lakes (MDLs), reflecting widespread glacier retreat, whereas the Karakoram is characterized by numerous supraglacial lakes (SGLs) associated with extensive debris-covered glaciers. Compared to previous optical-based inventories, our SAR-based approach captures more lakes and better represents small and transient features such as SGLs. These findings provide a more accurate baseline for assessing cryospheric change and glacial lake hazards in one of the world’s most heavily glacierized basins. Full article

Mountain glaciers are sensitive indicators of climate variability, and their retreat since the end of the Little Ice Age (LIA) has strongly reshaped alpine environments worldwide. In the Greater Caucasus, glacier shrinkage has accelerated over the past century, yet detailed multi-temporal reconstructions remain limited for many glaciers. Here, we reconstruct the post-LIA evolution of Tsaneri–Nageba Glacier, one of largest ice bodies in the Georgian Caucasus, and document the development of its newly formed proglacial lake. Using a combination of geomorphological mapping, historical maps, multi-temporal satellite imagery, Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle (UAV) photogrammetry, and sonar bathymetry, we quantify glacier change from ~1820 to 2025 and provide the first direct measurements of a proglacial lake in the Tsaneri–Nageba system—and indeed in the Georgian Caucasus as a whole. Our results reveal that Tsaneri–Nageba Glacier has shrunk from ~48 km² at its LIA maximum to ~30.6 km² in 2025, a loss of −43.5% (or −0.21% yr⁻¹). The pace of shrinkage intensified after 2000, with the steepest losses recorded between 2014 and 2025. Terminus positions shifted up-valley by nearly 3.9 km (Tsaneri) and 4.3 km (Nageba), accompanied by fragmentation of the former compound valley glacier into smaller ice bodies. Long-term meteorological records confirm strong climatic forcing, with pronounced summer warming since the 1990s and declining winter precipitation. A proglacial lake started to form in mid-summer 2015, which by 03/09/15 had a surface area of ~14,366 m², expanding to ~106,945 m² by 10/07/2025. The lake is in contact with glacier ice and is thus prone to calving. It is dammed by unconsolidated moraines and bounded by steep, active slopes, making it susceptible to generating a glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF). By providing the first quantitative measurements of a proglacial lake in the region, this study establishes a baseline for future monitoring and risk assessment. The findings highlight the urgency of integrating glaciological, geomorphological, and hazard studies to support community safety and water resource planning in the Caucasus. Full article

Environmental information fraud, such as greenwashing, severely impedes the achievement of global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Blockchain technology, as an innovation tool with a sustainability orientation, offers new possibilities for improving the reliability of supply chain information oversight. However, its practical application mechanisms and policy value in green supply chain governance remain unclear. This study focuses on the greenwashing behavior of core enterprises and constructs an incomplete information game model to compare and analyze the inherent mechanisms of traditional regulation (TR) and blockchain-based digital supply chain regulation (DSCR). By simulating the strategic choices of enterprises between “genuine production” and “greenwashing” within a supply chain network, this research finds that when the quality of on-chain information reaches a certain threshold, the blockchain consensus mechanism can more accurately reveal corporate moral hazards, such as information manipulation, significantly reducing the incidence of greenwashing. As the number of enterprises participating in the blockchain network increases, the reliance on high-quality information in the DSCR model decreases, and regulatory efficiency is further enhanced through network effects. The findings provide theoretical support for designing regulatory strategies against greenwashing: Blockchain technology can build a trustworthy supply chain ecosystem through cross-enterprise data verification, directly supporting the SDG 12 goal of “Responsible Production.” Its decentralized nature helps optimize industrial infrastructure (SDG 9) and indirectly promotes climate action (SDG 13). This study suggests that regulatory agencies use policy tools such as “establishing on-chain information quality standards” and “incentivizing enterprises to join the blockchain network” to strengthen the practical application of the model, while also addressing implementation challenges such as data authenticity and digital infrastructure compatibility. Full article

Natural threats are becoming increasingly frequent and difficult to anticipate, urging public authorities and stakeholders to adopt sustainable methodologies and tools capable of continuously supplying historical and real-time data on hazards and their impacts. Such tools enable the prompt activation of recovery actions, enhance the resilience of citizens and the built environment, and contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This paper presents an interoperable and multipurpose framework developed within the MULTICLIMACT project (GA n. 101123538), designed to enhance urban smartness and sustainability, and to support and improve resilience in municipal decision-making. The framework integrates heterogeneous data sources into a unified environment, covering infrastructures, buildings, and social systems. It also includes physiological monitoring, which collects physiological parameters from wearable sensors in a privacy-preserving way, and microclimate monitoring, which records indoor air quality in inhabited environments. Simulation-based analyses are applied to capture cascading effects of disruptions, while multidimensional indicators (societal, economic, operational, and health-related) are used to quantify resilience. The approach was implemented in the Italian municipality of Camerino, where hazard monitoring systems, impact assessment tools, and indoor comfort data were integrated and validated in the SCP-MULTICLIMACT platform. The proposed approach offers a replicable model for integrating environmental and health data in support of climate resilience and sustainable urban development. Full article

Winter road icing poses significant safety risks, particularly on steep urban slopes with vulnerable populations. While thermal-comfort indices such as UTCI, PMV, and PET have been used for summer conditions, this study focuses on operational indices that quantify road-icing risk. This study introduces and empirically validates two novel indices—Freezing Intensity (FI) and Cold Intensity (CI)—designed to quantify the likelihood and severity of road icing. A case study was conducted on Namgyeong-maeul Road in Daedeok-gu, Daejeon, South Korea, where IoT-based environmental monitoring, including automated weather stations, thermal cameras, and drone imaging, was deployed from December 2024 to January 2025. Results demonstrate that road heating systems (RHS) effectively increased surface temperatures by an average of 4.1 °C compared to non-heated segments, with maximum differences exceeding 12.5 °C. The FI of non-heated slopes reached critical levels above 2400, whereas heated roads reduced FI to near zero. Similarly, CI values dropped from hazardous levels (~12) to below 6 in heated zones, reducing icing severity by more than 50%. These findings confirm that FI and CI can serve as robust metrics for operational assessment of RHS performance, complementing traditional heat-related indices. By integrating FI and CI into monitoring and design, policymakers and engineers can establish data-driven activation thresholds, optimize energy efficiency, and ensure safer winter mobility for vulnerable groups. This research provides a structured operational framework for winter road icing quantification, advancing climate adaptation strategies equivalent in rigor to summer climate indices. Compared with temperature-only monitoring, FI and CI improved operational responsiveness and reduced residual icing duration by ≈50%. Full article

As climate disasters intensify, their financial shockwaves increasingly threaten residential stability and the resilience of the U.S. mortgage market. While prior research links natural disasters to payment delinquency, far less is known about foreclosure—the terminal outcome of housing distress. We construct a novel property-level panel covering 55 flood, wildfire, and hurricane events, integrating transactional, mortgage, and insurance data. A difference-in-differences framework compares foreclosure rates for damaged parcels with nearby undamaged controls within narrowly defined hazard perimeters. Results show that flooding substantially increases foreclosure risk: inundated properties experience a 0.29-percentage-point rise in foreclosure likelihood within three years, with effects concentrated outside federally mandated flood-insurance zones. In contrast, wildfire and hurricane wind damage are associated with lower foreclosure incidence, likely reflecting standard insurance coverage and rapid post-event price recovery. These findings suggest that physical destruction alone does not drive credit distress; rather, insurance liquidity and post-disaster equity dynamics mediate outcomes. Policy interventions that expand flood insurance coverage, stabilize insurance markets, and embed climate metrics in mortgage underwriting could reduce systemic exposure. Absent such measures, climate-driven foreclosures could account for nearly 30% of lender losses by 2035, posing growing risks to both household wealth and financial stability. Full article

Resilience through urban planning has gained prominence since the adoption of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015–2030), particularly in regions exposed to multiple natural hazards. This study examines how six Western Mediterranean countries—Spain, France, Italy, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco—address disaster risk prevention through urban and spatial planning. Although these countries share a similar geodynamic and climatic context, their approaches to integrating hazard prevention into planning frameworks vary significantly due to institutional, technical, and legal factors. Special attention is given to the case of Morocco, where delays in hazard integration are evident, particularly in the Maghreb region. Limited access to historical data, weak inter-agency coordination, and insufficient scientific capacity hinder effective planning. In response, Morocco has developed the Urbanization Suitability Map (USM) program, a non-binding planning tool inspired by the French Natural Risk Prevention Plan (PPRN). The USM tool overlays hazard information to guide land use decisions and mitigate risks such as floods, landslides, and seismic activity. Using a qualitative comparative analysis of regulatory texts, national planning strategies, and mapping instruments, this study identifies contrasting levels of disaster risk reduction integration across the six countries. The Moroccan USM initiative stands out as a pragmatic response to governance gaps and offers a transferable model for other countries with similar constraints. The findings underscore the need for clearer legislation, improved data systems, and multi-level coordination to enhance urban resilience. Recommendations are provided to strengthen hazard-informed planning practices and support more adaptive and sustainable land management in risk-prone areas. Full article