This paper demonstrates a novel method of evaluating emergency responder accessibility at the city scale during fluvial and surface water flood events of varying magnitudes. Results suggest that surface water flood events within the city of Leicester, UK, may cause more disruption to emergency responders when compared to fluvial flood events of the same magnitude. This study provides evidence to guide strategic planning for decision makers prior to and during flood events.

Surface analytical methods (the electrochemical method and atomic force microscopy imaging) are applied to examine good environmental status of seawaters. The present overview emphasize advantages of combining surface analytical methods applied for hazardous situation in the Adriatic Sea such as monitoring of the first aggregation phases of dissolved organic matter in order to potentially predict the massive mucilage formation and testing of oil spill cleanup.

SANIFS (Southern Adriatic Northern Ionian coastal Forecasting System) is a coastal-ocean operational system based on the unstructured grid finite-element three-dimensional hydrodynamic SHYFEM model, which provides short-term forecasts. The operational chain is based on a downscaling approach starting from the large-scale system for the entire Mediterranean Basin (MFS, Mediterranean Forecasting System), which provides initial and boundary condition fields for the nested system.

The motivation of this study is to use lightning observations to improve the precipitation forecast at the short range (3 h). For this purpose 20 case studies, occurring in fall 2012, were analyzed using a meteorological model, whose set-up is applicable in real-time weather forecasting. Lightning observations were provided by the LINET network. Results show a systematic improvement of the 3 h precipitation forecast when lightning observations are used.

Despite a proliferation of resilience measurement frameworks, empirical evidence for them is scant. This article presents a framework and tool for measuring community flood resilience, being tested in 75 communities in 8 countries. Eighty-eight indicators or sources of resilience are collected. If a flood occurs, outcome measures are recorded. By comparing pre-flood characteristics to post-flood outcomes, we aim to empirically verify sources of resilience, something which has never been done.

Rockfall is an highly destructive and unpredictable natural phenomenon. The design of protective structures needs a design falling block. Nowadays, the size of this block depends on the designer's personal judgement and expertise. We propose a statistical methodology to evaluate the return period of a given falling volume from observations and records in historical catalogues. This would allow us to implement modern reliability-based design approaches in protective engineering works.

The purpose of this article is to show the extreme temperature regime of heat waves across Africa over recent years (1981–2015). Heat waves have been quantified using the Heat Wave Magnitude Index daily (HWMId), which merges the duration and the intensity of extreme temperature events into a single numerical index. The analysis show an increasing number of heat waves of both maxima and minima temperatures in the last decades.

Hindcasted wave data were used to define proper environmental conditions at sea, with the aim of estimating the design conditions of an innovative quay wall concept. The results of a computational fluid dynamics model are used to optimise the design of a non-reflective quay wall of Vlorë Harbour. The proposed method based on numerical modelling allows for the identification of the best site-specific solution and for a location devoid of any wave measurements.

This paper calculates the coseismic displacement produced during the 16 April 2016 M_w 7.0 Kumamoto earthquake from a pair of digital surface models (DSMs), acquired before and after the earthquake from airborne lidar data. A window matching search approach based on the correlation coefficient was used for this purpose. Results are consistent with the coseismic displacement estimated from strong-motion acceleration records and with the surveyed surface rupture.