A Global Assessment of Post-Fire Debris Flows
The world is getting hotter. Wildfires are burning more frequently and for longer. Long after they scorch our planet’s surface, the dirt and rock left behind are easily mobilized by rainfall. On steep slopes, rain carries these remains and incorporates them into turbulent debris flows with the power to take away lives and destroy infrastructure downslope. I’m a member of the Landslide Hazards Group - a subset of the Hydrological Sciences Laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center - where I work to develop a global model for assessing the hazards of these debris flows in near real time.
Landslide Prediction
What if we could forecast the next landslide? It’s not easy, but science is getting ever closer to doing so.
I couple physical and hydrological models to predict hazardous conditions on hillslopes, and utilizes machine learning to assess the probability of a landslide. This information is crucial for residents and governments alike.
My work is part of a multi-million dollar grant involving several research and governmental agencies, and is led by Nobel Laureate, Robert Lempert, with additional direction by Dr. Josh Roering.
Read more about it here.
The hazards of flooding
With the advent of more extreme storms around our planet, there is a need to provide early warning to communities near flood-prone rivers.
I’ve previously partnered with other researchers at NASA to help implement a deep-learning based tool that takes in real-time river stage and forecasted rainfall to anticipate extreme flood events several hours in advance. This gives community leaders the resources to issues warnings accordingly.