The Vanishing Biodiversity of the Brazilian Cerrados
The Cerrados are a mosaic of savannas, grasslands, and tropical dry forests that once covered about one-fifth of Brazil, an area the size of Alaska. Among the world’s oldest and most diverse…
Category: Humanitarian Aid and Risk Assessment
Hurricane Mitch: a View from the Ground
We had spent the past several months reading national and municipal level disaster impact reports, reviewing funding proposals for community reconstruction, and talking to different…
Large-Scale Risks and Extreme Events
Several years ago, I was invited to give a talk in Europe to a large audience of industry representatives, government officials and experts from academia. The main topic was “new…
Accountable to Whom?
The kid across the street falls off his bike, I go across and help him up, noticing he has cut his knee and it’s bleeding. I get the first-aid kit from the garage, clean the knee and put a plaster on…
Seeking Higher Ground
Plans to build Castanhão, the largest dam in Ceará, Brazil, have existed for a century. Incredulous that the project would ever begin, much less be finished, residents of the proposed flood zone…
