A new study examined decades of atmospheric river storms across the West Coast to pinpoint the conditions that lead to catastrophic flooding. The research, published June 4 in the Journal of Hydrometeorology, analyzed more than 43,000 atmospheric river storms across 122 watersheds on the West Coast between 1980 and 2023.
The research used satellite imagery to identify where winter flooding occurs, which can improve flood risk awareness and inform how to best redirect floodwaters to replenish groundwater supplies.
Guo Yu, assistant research professor of hydrometeorology, along with collaborator Luke McGuire from the University of Arizona, received a three-year grant from the USGS Water Resources Research Act Program. The funding will be used to expand his work examining how repeated wildfires impact flooding risk in communities.
A new study in Science Advances finds that compounding effects of flood drivers can complicate and exacerbate the risk of extreme floods in watersheds around the world. DRI’s Guo Yu, Ph.D., assistant research professor of hydrometeorology, co-authored the research.
A conversation with Guo Yu and Jeremy Giovando about their new research examining post-fire flood frequency. The study expands on previous frameworks to account for the compounding impacts of repeated wildfires on flood risk, using a southern California watershed as a case study.
DRI’s Anne Heggli is partnering with the National Weather Service to understand flood risk from rain-on-snow storms in real-time, protecting communities and enabling water conservation throughout Nevada and California.
In this story, we highlight the work of DRI interns Phillips Nguyen and Alexius Jessup-Raju, two students from Truckee Meadows Community College, as they explore natural hazards and their impacts on house ownership and aquatic environments.
Researchers found that urbanization and climate change are changing the strength and seasonality of flooding in the Las Vegas region.
In a new study, Guo Yu, Ph.D., examined the most common drivers (rainfall, snowmelt, and rain-on-snow events) of historic floods and investigated the impact of different flood types on the resulting flood frequencies.