Planet at Risk

Human interference with the climate system is occurring, and climate change poses risks for human and natural systems . The assessment of impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability in the Working Group II contribution to the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report (WGII AR5) evaluates how patterns of risks and potential benefits are shifting due to climate change. It considers how impacts and risks related to climate change can be reduced and managed through adaptation and mitigation. The report assesses needs, options, opportunities, constraints, resilience, limits, and other aspects associated with adaptation.

Climate change involves complex interactions and changing likelihoods of diverse impacts. A focus on risk, which is new in this report, supports decision-making in the context of climate change, and complements other elements of the report. People and societies may perceive or rank risks and potential benefits differently, given diverse values and goals.

Compared to past WGII reports, the WGII AR5 assesses a substantially larger knowledge base of relevant scientific, technical, and socioeconomic literature. Increased literature has facilitated comprehensive assessment across a broader set of topics and sectors, with expanded coverage of human systems, adaptation, and the ocean. More

 

© 2014

Onagawa: The Japanese nuclear power plant that didn’t melt down on 3/11

Three years ago, the biggest recorded earthquake in Japanese history hit Tohoku prefecture, leaving more than 20,000 people dead or missing. On the heels of the destructive magnitude 9.0 earthquake came a tsunami that reached a run-up height of 30 meters in some areas, sweeping entire towns away in seconds.

Within the affected area were three nuclear power plants: the Fukushima Daiichi and Daini nuclear power plants operated by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), and the Onagawa Nuclear Power Station operated by the Tohoku Electric Power Company. While the three power stations shared similar disaster conditions, nuclear reactor types, dates of operation, and an identical regulatory regime, their fates were very different. The Fukushima Daiichi plant experienced fatal meltdowns and radiation releases. Fukushima Daini was damaged by the earthquake and tsunami, but the heroic efforts and improvisations of its operators resulted in the cold shutdown of all four operating reactors. Onagawa managed to remain generally intact, despite its proximity to the epicenter of the enormous earthquake.

“The earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, were natural disasters of a magnitude that shocked the entire world. Although triggered by these cataclysmic events, the subsequent accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant cannot be regarded as a natural disaster. It was a profoundly manmade disaster—that could and should have been foreseen and prevented.” - Kiyoshi Kurokawa, “Message from the Chairman,” The Official Report of The Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission

Everyone knows the name Fukushima, but few people, even in Japan, are familiar with the Onagawa power station. Fewer still know how Onagawa managed to avoid disaster. According to a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency mission that visited Onagawa and evaluated its performance, “the plant experienced very high levels of ground motion—the strongest shaking that any nuclear plant has ever experienced from an earthquake,” but it “shut down safely” and was “remarkably undamaged.”

Most people believe that Fukushima Daiichi’s meltdowns were predominantly due to the earthquake and tsunami. The survival of Onagawa, however, suggests otherwise. Onagawa was only 123 kilometers away from the epicenter—60 kilometers closer than Fukushima Daiichi—and the difference in seismic intensity at the two plants was negligible. Furthermore, the tsunami was bigger at Onagawa, reaching a height of 14.3 meters, compared with 13.1 meters at Fukushima Daiichi. The difference in outcomes at the two plants reveals the root cause of Fukushima Daiichi’s failures: the utility’s corporate “safety culture.”

Higher ground. While the Fukushima Daiichi and Onagawa plants are similar in many ways, the most obvious difference is that Tohoku Electric constructed Onagawa’s reactor buildings at a higher elevation than Tepco’s Fukushima reactor buildings. Before beginning construction, Tohoku Electric conducted surveys and simulations aimed at predicting tsunami levels. The initial predictions showed that tsunamis in the region historically had an average height of about 3 meters. Based on that, the company constructed its plant at 14.7 meters above sea level, almost five times that height. As more research was done, the estimated tsunami levels climbed higher, and Tohoku Electric conducted periodic checkups based on the new estimates.

Tepco, on the other hand, to make it easier to transport equipment and to save construction costs, in 1967 removed 25 meters from the 35-meter natural seawall of the Daiichi plant site and built the reactor buildings at a much lower elevation of 10 meters. According to the National Diet of Japan’s Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission (NAIIC), the initial construction was based on existing seismological information, but later research showed that tsunami levels had been underestimated. While Tohoku Electric learned from past earthquakes and tsunamis—including one in Chile on February 28, 2010—and continuously improved its countermeasures, Tepco overlooked these warnings. According to the NAIIC report, Tepco “resorted to delaying tactics, such as presenting alternative scientific studies and lobbying.”

Tepco’s tsunami risk characterization and assessment was, in the judgment of one the world’s renowned tsunami experts, Costas Synolakis, director of the Tsunami Research Center at the University of Southern California, a “cascade of stupid errors that led to the disaster.”

Emergency response. Tohoku Electric also took a different approach to emergency response—one that was more organized, collaborative, and controlled than Tepco’s. Tohoku Electric established an emergency response center at the Onagawa plant, as well as at company headquarters, immediately after the earthquake. Throughout the disaster, headquarters supported the plant operators minute by minute. Supervisors and chief engineers were dispatched to the main control rooms of the damaged reactors to make decisions, and information was sent in a timely manner to all levels of the response team.

Why did the Tohoku Electric team remain more poised and unified than their counterparts at Tepco? According to the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Facilities Research Institute, Yanosuke Hirai, vice president of Tohoku Electric from 1960 to 1975—a time period that preceded the 1980 groundbreaking at Onagawa—was adamant about safety protocols and became a member of the Coastal Institution Research Association in 1963 because of his concern about the importance of protecting against natural disasters. With a senior employee in upper management advocating forcefully for safety, a strong safety culture formed within the company. Representatives of Tohoku Electric participated in seminars and panel discussions about earthquake and tsunami disaster prevention held by the Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization. The company implemented strict protocols for disaster response, and all workers were familiar with the steps to be taken when a tsunami was approaching.

These initiatives were not part of Tepco’s culture. The company had a mindset that its domination in the electricity industry was an indication of flawlessness. After the disaster, Hasuike Tooru, the former president of Tepco, described how management decided to lengthen the expected lifetime of power plants, even if there were severe safety consequences.

Safety culture. Government investigations of the Fukushima accident, as well as a statement by US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) chairwoman Allison MacFarlane, have explicitly acknowledged the vital role of safety culture, which the NRC has defined as “the core values and behaviors resulting from a collective commitment by leaders and individuals to emphasize safety over competing goals to ensure protection of people and the environment.”

The NAIIC report described the Fukushima accident as “made in Japan,” because Japan’s nuclear industry failed to absorb the lessons learned from Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. In the words of NAIIC chairman Kiyoshi Kurokawa, “It was this mindset that led to the disaster.” Safety culture has also been implicated as a primary root cause of the Chernobyl accident.

The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station’s meltdowns were not due to the natural disaster, but rather to a series of decisions by Tepco not to be proactive with safety, dating back to when the reactors were being constructed. With most other factors being similar, it was Tokohu Electric’s overall organizational practices and safety culture that saved the day for Onagawa. If safety and disaster response had been properly recognized, addressed, and implemented at Fukushima Daiichi—as they were within Tohoku Electric’s corporate safety culture—perhaps the disastrous meltdowns would have been prevented.

Editor's note: This article is adapted from a research paper based on material available in the public domain in Japan and the United States; the full version of the paper can be found here.

 

© 2014

Save the Date: World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction 2015

Subject to an anticipated decision of the UN General Assembly later in 2013, the Third United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR) is to take place in Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, from 14 to 18 March 2015 (five days inclusive).

Hosted by the Government of Japan in cooperation with the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), as secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, the WCDRR will review the implementation of the Hyogo Framework for Action and is expected to adopt a successor framework for disaster risk reduction.

The post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction will build on the knowledge and practice developed through the implementation of the International Framework for the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction of 1989, the Yokohama Strategy and Plan of Action of 1994, the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction of 1999 and the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters. Pursuant to General Assembly resolution 66/199, UNISDR will continue to ensure extensive and inclusive multi-stakeholder consultations for a post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction.

Kind regards,
UNISDR


*******************
International Day for Disaster Reduction 2013
http://www.unisdr.org/2013/iddr

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR)
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South Asia disunity 'hampers flood warnings'

A lack of co-operation between South Asian countries is preventing timely flood warnings that could save lives and property during the Monsoon season.

Erratic and extreme rainfall is causing catastrophic flooding, most recently in northwest India and Nepal following heavy rainfall in June.

But the sharing of hydrological data can be a sensitive issue because of disputes over water use.

Officials say a network is required to share data across borders.

Experts and officials told the BBC that countries in the region are doing very little to help each other forecast floods.

Referring to the event last month, Chiranjibi Adhikary, chief district officer of Darchula district in western Nepal, which shares a border with India's flood-hit Uttarakhand state, said: "We received no warning from the Indian side about that devastating flood."

The flooding in the Mahakali river that criss-crosses India and Nepal claimed more than 30 lives on the Nepalese side and swept away many buildings at the district headquarters Khalanga.

Nearly 1,000 people have been confirmed dead because of the floods in the Indian side while thousands are still missing.

"We are still trying to contact them [the Indian authorities] to know what was the reason behind the floods, but there has been no telephone contact yet," Mr Adhikary told the BBC.

In western South Asia, the Kabul river that straddles Afghanistan and Pakistan was a major contributor to the massive floods in the Pakistani territory in 2010.

But, officials say, there was no communication on flood-forecasting between the two countries then, nor is there any now.

"The Kabul river is of course a flood threat to us even today but still we have no hydrological and rainfall data exchange with Afghanistan," said Mohammad Riyaj, Pakistan's chief meteorologist.

"It is something we need to do with urgency but this can be done only at the policy-making level."

One of the worst flood-hit countries in the region, Bangladesh, receives relatively little hydrological data from upstream Nepal.

Officials at Nepal's Department of Hydrology and Meteorology said they used to send the information to Dhaka by fax before but now staffing constraints have become a problem.

Pakistan does have a mechanism to receive limited hydrological data from India but officials say it is quite inadequate for meaningful flood forecasting.

"For instance, the Indian side informs the Indus Water Commission (a body under an agreement between New Delhi and Islamabad on the sharing of Indus river water) only when the water level in the Chenab river crosses 75,000 cusecs," says Mr Riyaj.

"That gives us much less time for evacuation and preparation for floods."

The Chenab is a major tributary of the Indus river that originates in Tibet and flows through India into Pakistan.

India and Pakistan have deep running disagreements on the sharing of Indus waters and have been involved in litigation.

Mr Riyaj said hydrological information on tributaries of the Chenab, including the Jhelum, Ravi and Sutlej rivers, that flow in from India would also be of great help for timely flood forecasting.

Officials in Bangladesh, however, said there had been some progress on hydrological data sharing with India as they were now getting information from three reading stations for the Ganges and four for the Bramhaputra in the Indian side.

The chief of Bangladesh's flood warning office, Amirul Hossain, said his country was also getting Bramhaputra's hydrological data from Chinese authorities in Tibet, where the river originates.

"But since our people are demanding that they should get flood warnings at least a week in advance, we would like to get the hydrological data from a bit further off areas in India so that we get more lead time for a forecast," Mr Hossain said.

Officials say the data Bangladesh gets from India at present are from nearby border areas.

Hydrological data is quite a sensitive issue in India, especially between states that have been at loggerheads over the sharing of water resources for quite some time.

The recent order by India's water resources ministry to its authorities regarding the constitution of the "classified data release committee" read: "The committee shall consider requests for release of classified data after due verification by the concerned chief engineer of the Central Water Commission and [the] receipt of [a] secrecy undertaking."

Rajendra Sharma, who heads Nepal's flood forecasting division at the country's meteorological office, said: "For genuine regional flood forecasting, all countries including India and China will have to actively participate in the exchange of hydrological and meteorological data."

Indian officials said they recognised the importance of cross border cooperation for effective flood forecasting.

Though he was optimistic that things could improve in future, M Shashidhar Reddy, vice chairman of India's National Disaster Management Authority, said: "Things which are on paper sometimes do not get translated into action." More

 

Take Action at Fukushima: An Open Letter to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon

Dear Secretary General Ban Ki-moon:

You no doubt observed the Fukushima disaster on March 11, 2011, with terror and worry: what would another nuclear disaster mean for state relations, especially in your home region of East Asia? Fortunately, it seemed, the effects were largely kept to Japan’s islands and were less than many experts anticipated. Within weeks the stories dissipated if not disappeared from the major media outlets, only to be resurrected with personal interest stories of a hero or an especially tragic case of a lost loved one.

But the crisis is not over. Today, Martin Fackler reported in the New York Times that radioactively polluted water is leaking out of the plants and that the site is in a new state of emergency. Mitsuhei Murata, Japan’s former ambassador to Switzerland, wrote a letter last year that brought international attention to the thousands of radioactive spent fuel rods at the site and the danger their vulnerability presents; he has testified to this several times before Japan’s parliament. International experts, independent and of the International Atomic Energy Agency, have commented that the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s plans for the removal of the rods from the site and their storage in a safer, if still temporary, location are optimistic if not unrealistic.

The news media has done an adequate if meager job of reporting the many issues the fuel rods present. The radioactive fuel must be continuously cooled in order to stay safe; the improvised electric system that maintains this cooling has failed several times, once for more than 24 hours, both on its own and because of hungry rats. The mechanism that stands between safety and a fire at the Fukushima Daiichi plant is, to say the least, precarious. (And, as has been clear to many since the beginning, TEPCO hope to shirk its responsibility: first, in its safety and maintenance of the site; second, in paying its costs to Japan.)

One can only speculate to the extent of the consequences of a spent fuel fire, but, unarguably, once a fire ignites (from lack of cooling water or from an earthquake-caused spill), even the best case scenario would be an unprecedented global disaster. Possible consequences are the evacuation of Tokyo’s 35 million people, permanent disuse of Japan’s land, and poisoned food crops in the United States. These are not fantastic projections, but reasonable, if not conservative, expectations.

Yet, unimaginably but all too familiarly, the situation is still relegated to the back pages of our papers, and thus to the back of our leaders’ minds. This reminds me of our international approach to solving climate change, which I have partaken in for decades, first in the United Nations and then as the Secretary General of the Parliamentary Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro: we have a latent but very serious issue that we can likely fix but lack the resolve and political will to do so. As you well know, a successful climate change agreement has eluded us.

In comparison with climate change, however, the radioactive fuel rod issue at Fukushima is both easier to solve and more urgent. Any Japanese can tell you another serious earthquake will hit Japan well inside the next decade. That is to say, this situation must be resolved quickly.

Still, even if possible to solve, the issue needs constant attention and competent and well funded actors. So who might take charge? The International Atomic Energy Agency said last week that it will take TEPCO 40 years to secure the radioactive fuel rods in more appropriate storage containers. TEPCO is already refusing to pay Japan billions of Yen in cleanup costs, and does not have the technology or wherewithal to perform the task competently and expediently. Yet, so far the Japanese government has only looked to TEPCO.

The next obvious choice outside Japan is the United States, for their technological superiority, money, and leadership. Early after the accident, the U.S. Department of Defense offered assistance to Japan, but the Japanese denied their help. It remains to be seen whether that door has permanently closed. This would not be a benevolent action: the U.S. sits in harm’s way in the case of a fuel pool fire; residents of California, Oregon, and Washington have already received much radiation. U.S.-led action, except perhaps by Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, is unlikely: U.S. senators and representatives continues to demonstrate their impotence at home or abroad.

I have long been advocating for an international team of independent experts to investigate the situation. The United Nations is one appropriate body to assemble and deliver such a team. The IAEA, however, should not take on the responsibility.

The IAEA’s mission is to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy. Concerns of proliferation are not applicable here, and the disaster itself has certainly called into question (again) what the peaceful use of nuclear energy means and whether it should be promoted. While the agency has recently urged safety improvements at Fukushima, the official line of thinking is still, incorrectly and impossibly, to use TEPCO to carry out the process.

We are not only waiting for a bigger disaster. One is already unfolding before us. The health consequences of the released radiation are large: despite what major news outlets are reporting, we will see a significant jump in thyroid and other cancers in Japan in four to five years. Congenital malformations will likely begin to appear. The premature reporting of some UN agencies and the press at large has been irresponsible: do we have no notion of what “precaution” means? These latent effects will cripple much of Japan’s young population within the decade.
Our myopia, in Japan and internationally, is tragic. One bright spot was the UN Special Rapporteur Anand Grover’s fact-finding mission in Japan last year; I hope you back his findings and circulate them widely.

We have already waited too long, as we did for climate change, to take international action on Fukushima. But now it is clear that we cannot allow Japan to take care of an issue that could affect all of us.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, I urge you to use your unique position as the head of the United Nations to galvanize political will and organize an independent assessment team of international scientists and engineers to solve the Fukushima radioactive spent fuel rod issue before we are forced to reckon with the fallout of another disaster. Japan and the world should not have to suffer more because we choose to wait.

Yours truly,

Akio Matsumura

-Former Special Advisor to the United Nations Development Program
-Founder and Secretary General of the Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders for Human Survival
-Secretary General of the 1992 Parliamentary Earth Summit Conference in Rio de Janeiro More

 

 

Business as usual could result in sea level rise of up to seven metres - Club of Rome

Only a complete overhaul of our economic growth and international negotiations can prevent sea level rises that will destroy coastal cities like New York and London experts warn

New York, USA, 28 April: Energy expert Ian Dunlop and policy-planner and scholar Tapio Kanninen delivered a stark message in New York at the end of April that even limiting global warming to 2°C could eventually produce sea level rises of up to 6 to 7 metres (23 feet), wiping out coastal cities like New York, London, Shanghai and Tokyo. They told shocked audiences at the United Nations that if we continue with current policies, temperatures could rise 4°C or more, leading to sea level rises of up to 70 metres (230 feet).

Kanninen and Dunlop were in New York to address a series of packed meetings and panel discussions, organised by the Finnish Mission to the United Nations,Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, the Club of Rome, the Temple of Understanding and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

They presented new evidence demonstrating the severity of the crisis of global sustainability and global survivability and discussed with diplomats, political decision‐makers, sustainable development experts and NGOs how to persuade the UN and other international institutions to take immediate emergency action.

Commenting on recent scientific findings, Ian Dunlop - with over 30 years’ experience at the Royal Shell Group as engineer and senior executive and a former leader of Australia's Emissions trading panel said: “Today’s leadersrefuse to accept that climate change science and the concept of peak oil condemns the international community to a catastrophic future. Why are we stillexploring for fossil fuels, since we can only burn of 20-30% of reserves if we wish to keep climate change to the 2 °C limit, while current policies will result in warming of4-6 °C?” he asked.

This level of temperature rise means that the globe can only carry 0.5-1 billion people, not the present 7 billion, leading experts evaluate.

Tapio Kanninen, a former long time UN staff member and policy-planner, said that scientists have determined a number of "tipping points" that exponentially and dramatically accelerate global warming trends. As they begin to kick in, in a matter of years not decades, we must take action before it is too late to avert a catastrophe.

The severity of the global crisis goes unrecognised: we need a global emergency response and newpolicy models

Dr Kanninen said current international and nationalinstitutional and political systems are incapable of preventing the increasing severe global crises; it requires a change in the entire system plus an emergency response. If runaway climate change leads to rising sea levels the next move has to be to urgently overhaul the UN and our global governance system so it is capable of dealing with rapidly changing global and regional conditions.

Ian Dunlop said that many scientists and practitioners are wrongly dubbed ‘alarmist’, but diplomats, politicians and the whole intergovernmental system have failed to grasp the severity of the crisis. If we fail to act we could find ourselves like a ‘ship of fools’ floating on rising sea levels.

Failing to institute a major global policy change will inevitably lead to the gradual implosion of the economic, ecological and social structures on which we depend, andthey called for “An urgent joint effort by member states, NGOs and scholars to improve the quality of global negotiations on climate change and sustainable development”.

The Club of Rome raised similar issues 40 years ago and recent research has confirmed that its projections ofindustrial collapse in the early 21st century aresurprisingly close to actually data gathered. In his recent book Crisis of Global Sustainability Dr Kanninen evaluates the Club's history and impact, as well as describing the future global crisis if no action is taken.

Setting up new structures

Faced with the reality gap between what scientists predict and what politicians are prepared to do, part of the solution to global inertia lies in creating an independent Global Crisis Network of regional, national and local centres with a global coordination unit that will interact with a revamped UN. Eventually, the UN Charter has to be totally rewritten to correspond to thenew global reality.

The Club of Rome is an international think-tank, based in Switzerland, with 1500 members and over 30 National Associations. Its mission is to undertake forward-looking analysis and assessment on measures for a happier, more resilient, sustainable planet. www.clubofrome.org

The Limits to Growth, a 1972 report to the Club of Rome was written by Denis Meadows, Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers and William Behrens III. It used computer models to project possible future scenarios with different assumptions of how humans would react to earth’s physical limitations.

Dr Tapio Kanninen is Senior Fellow at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and a Co-Director of the Project on Sustainable Global Governance. He was Chief of the Policy Planning Unit in the Department of Political Affairs (1998–2005) at the United Nations and worked earlier to set up a global environmental statistical framework in a UNEP-funded project in the UN Statistical Division. He is a member of the Club of Rome.

Ian Dunlop is an Australian Energy Expert, a fellow to the Centre of Policy Development and a former senior executive at the Royal Dutch Shell Group. He is Chair of Safe Climate Australia, Deputy Convenor of the Australian Association for the Study of Peak Oil and a Club of Rome member.

Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung is a German political foundation with over 100 offices around the world, including an active UN office. It is the Germany's oldest organisation to promote democracy, political education, and promote students of outstanding intellectual abilities.

The Temple of Understanding is an interfaith NGO working to promote global survivability, and an active member of the NGO community working on the inside of the United Nations to advance social justice.

Crisis of Global Sustainability is published by Routledge. Paperback: £18.99, $29.95
978-0-415-69417-9; Master eBook ISBN10 : 0203071867. Master eBook ISBN13 : 978-0-203-07186-1. To order copies go to: http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415694179/

For more information about the ideas behind the book: www.crisisofglobalsustainability.com

Ian Dunlop's presentation on same issues as he spoke at the UN can be seen here:http://vimeo.com/53540204

 

Untitled

Medellin, Colombia - Scientists are finding a new suspect to blame for flood disasters around the world, and it’s not climate change: It’s sediment.

Researchers in Spain have found the number of yearly floods and related disasters around the world has jumped more than 9 times since the 1950s - to more than 180 per year - and that the trends in rainfall attributed to climate change are not enough to explain such a rise.

Instead, the dramatic rise of water-related disasters seems to follow GDP, the researchers found. As economies around the world grow, people are clearing more and more forests to make way for cities and farms. Without trees to retain soil, excess dirt and rocks are poured into rivers, damaging their capacity to cope with storms.

Sediments are produced when water, wind, ice or changes in temperature break up rocks and soil into small bits, in a process called erosion. Erosion is a natural process that shapes the landscape and transports nutrients.

However, human impacts on land - especially deforestation - have significantly increased erosion rates all around the world.

A 2010 study by the University of Cantabria in Santander, Spain and the Universidad Nacional de La Plata in Argentina looked at sediments and their connection with economic growth, using the La Plata River in South America as a case study.

The study found while unpopulated Andean regions showed no major increase in erosion, in places near the Sao Paulo metropolitan area sedimentations rates increased “gently” starting in the mid-1980s and then sharply since 2000, showing more than tenfold growth in about 20 years.

A 2012 follow-up study by the Earth Science Department at the University of Cantabria found that as GDP increased in northern Spain, so did the rates of sediment production, and also the number of water-triggered disasters in the region.

Colombia’s Magdalena River

The researchers’ hypothesis is that human contributions to erosion have risen to an extent that the world is now undergoing “global geomorphic change”, which makes floods and landslides worse, regardless of the changes in the weather.

The Magdalena River in Colombia is a dramatic illustration of the changes, and the inter-relationships between economic growth, sediments and flooding.

The Magdalena is born in the Colombian Andes, and flows north into the Caribbean Sea. More than 80 percent of Colombians live in the Magdalena Basin, and about 85 percent of Colombia’s GDP is generated there.

Once it was the swiftest way to move between cities in Colombia’s interior and the Atlantic Ocean. But current navigation on the Magdalena is very limited, partly because of excess sediments accumulated in the riverbed.

The Magdalena flooded in 2010 and 2011 when rainy seasons enhanced by the La Niña phenomenon caused the worst climate-linked tragedy in Colombian history, affecting more than four million Colombians. Two-and-a-half million became climate refugees. One million hectares of cropland were flooded, and more than 800 roads destroyed. The country spent more than $3.9bn in emergency humanitarian aid to cope with the tragedy. More

I have to question if this is partly to blame for the flooding in Pakistan in 2010 and 2011? Editor

 

Aftermath of Pakistan's Recent Earthquake

The aftermath of of the earthquake in Iran close to the Pakistan border has hit many

villages very hard and they desperately need help to rebuild.

Pacific Northwest and Himalayas Could Experience Major Earthquakes, Geophysicists Say

Dec. 4, 2012 — Research by Stanford scientists focuses on geologic features and activity in the Himalayas and Pacific Northwest that could mean those areas are primed for major earthquakes.

A big one in the Himalayas

The Himalayan range was formed, and remains currently active, due to the collision of the Indian and Asian continental plates. Scientists have known for some time that India is subducting under Asia, and have recently begun studying the complexity of this volatile collision zone in greater detail, particularly the fault that separates the two plates, the Main Himalayan Thrust (MHT).

Previous observations had indicated a relatively uniform fault plane that dipped a few degrees to the north. To produce a clearer picture of the fault, Warren Caldwell, a geophysics doctoral student at Stanford, has analyzed seismic data from 20 seismometers deployed for two years across the Himalayas by colleagues at the National Geophysical Research Institute of India.

The data imaged a thrust dipping a gentle two to four degrees northward, as has been previously inferred, but also revealed a segment of the thrust that dips more steeply (15 degrees downward) for 20 kilometers. Such a ramp has been postulated to be a nucleation point for massive earthquakes in the Himalaya.

Although Caldwell emphasized that his research focuses on imaging the fault, not on predicting earthquakes, he noted that the MHT has historically been responsible for a magnitude 8 to 9 earthquake every several hundred years.

"What we're observing doesn't bear on where we are in the earthquake cycle, but it has implications in predicting earthquake magnitude," Caldwell said. "From our imaging, the ramp location is a bit farther north than has been previously observed, which would create a larger rupture width and a larger magnitude earthquake."

Caldwell will present a poster detailing the research on Dec. 4 at the meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

Caldwell's adviser, geophysics Professor Simon Klemperer, added that recent detections of magma and water around the MHT indicate which segments of the thrust will rupture during an earthquake.

"We think that the big thrust vault will probably rupture southward to the Earth's surface, but we don't expect significant rupture north of there," Klemperer said. The findings are important for creating risk assessments and disaster plans for the heavily populated cities in the region.

Klemperer spoke about the evolution of geophysical studies of the Himalayas Dec. 3 at the same meeting in San Francisco.

Measuring small tremors in the Pacific Northwest

The Cascadia subduction zone, which stretches from northern California to Vancouver Island, has not experienced a major seismic event since it ruptured in 1700, an 8.7-9.2 magnitude earthquake that shook the region and created a tsunami that reached Japan. And while many geophysicists believe the fault is due for a similar scale event, the relative lack of any earthquake data in the Pacific Northwest makes it difficult to predict how ground motion from a future event would propagate in the Cascadia area, which runs through Seattle, Portland and Vancouver.

Stanford postdoctoral scholar Annemarie Baltay will present research on how measurements of small seismic tremors in the region can be utilized to determine how ground motion from larger events might behave. Baltay's research involves measuring low amplitude tectonic tremor that occurs 30 kilometers below Earth's surface, at the intersections of tectonic plates, roughly over the course of a month each year.

By analyzing how the tremor signal decays along and away from the Cascadia subduction zone, Baltay can calculate how ground motion activity from a larger earthquake will dissipate. An important application of the work will be to help inform new construction how best to mitigate damage should a large earthquake strike.

"We can't predict when an earthquake will occur, but we can try to be very prepared for them," Baltay said. "Looking at these episodic tremor events can help us constrain what the ground motion might be like in a certain place during an earthquake."

Though Baltay has focused on the Cascadia subduction zone, she said that the technique could be applied in areas of high earthquake risk around the world, such as Alaska and Japan. More

 

Hurricane Sandy may hit nuclear plants in New York, NJ, PA, Conn

Hurricane Sandy may hit nuclear plants in New York, NJ, PA, Conn

by repost
Monday Oct 29th, 2012 8:27 AM

Hurricane Sandy, expected to make landfall in New York tonight, 10/29/12, is predicted to hit as many as 26 nuclear power plants, none of which is equipped to handle the damage.

Hurricane Sandy May Score a Direct Hit On Spent Fuel Pools at Nuclear Plant
New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut Nuclear Plants In Path of Storm

By Washington's Blog
Global Research, October 29, 2012

Preface: We hope and expect that the severity of the hurricane is being overblown, and that the nuclear plants in the Northeast will ride out the storm without any incident.

We noted Friday that more than a dozen nuclear plants are near Hurricane Sandy’s path.

Nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen says that there are actually 26 nuclear plants in the path of the hurricane, and that the spent fuel pools in the plants don’t have backup pumps (summary via EneNews):
■You’ll hear in the next 2 days, “We’ve safely shutdown the plant”
■What Fukushima taught us is that doesn’t stop the decay heat
■You need the diesels to keep the reactors cool
■26 plants in the East Coast are in the area where Sandy is likely to hit
■Fuel pools not cooled by diesels, no one wanted to buy them
■If recent refuel, hot fuel will throw off more and more moisture from pool
■Reactor buildings not meant to handle the high humidity
■Fuel pool liner not really designed to approach boiling water, may unzip if water gets too hot
■A lot of problems with allowing fuel pool to over
■Need water in around 2 days if hot fuel in pool
■The only fall-back if power is lost is to let fuel pools heat up

EneNews also reports that the hurricane is forecast to directly hit the Oyster Creek nuclear plant and that – while the plant is currently shut down for refueling – it still might very well have new, very hot fuel in the fuel pools:

Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station is located near New Jersey’s shoreline in an area forecast to take a direct hit from Hurricane Sandy: “The current ‘track center’ for the landfall path is central New Jersey pointing Sandy in a path that would hit Oyster Creek nuclear station.” -SimplyInfo

With Oyster Creek shut down for refueling starting last week, hot fuel may have been placed in the fuel pool quite recently.

The unit at Oyster Creek is the same as Fukushima Daiichi No. 1: “Oyster Creek is one of the oldest US nuclear plants and is the same design as Fukushima unit 1.” -SimplyInfo

Remember, Fukushima reactor number 4 was shut down for maintenance when the Japanese earthquake hit. And yet the fuel pools at reactor 4 are in such precarious condition that they pose a giant threat to humanity.

Hurricane Sandy is not very intense in terms of wind speed. But the storm is so large, that storm surges could be 11 feet high.

Obviously, the path of the hurricane could veer substantially, and may not hit Oyster Creek after all … weather forecasting is not an exact science. But Gundersen argues that nuclear plants in Pennsylvania and New Jersey are in the most danger given current projections.

As we noted Friday, the Salem and Hope Creek plants in New Jersey are also near the path of the hurricane, as are the following plants in Pennsylvania:
■Peach Bottom
■Limerick
■Three Mile Island
■Susquehanna

Another concern is the Millstone plant in Connecticut:
[Photo in original article.]

EneNews summarizes the situation in a post entitled “Officials in Connecticut warn of giant 16-foot storm surge, with 15-foot waves on top of that — State’s nuclear plant directly exposed on ocean“:

The Hour:

In a message sent to residents Sunday afternoon, [Norwalk, Connecticut] Mayor Richard A. Moccia warned of a 16-foot storm surge brought to land by Hurricane Sandy. [...] “I have declared a state of emergency in the City,” he said. “Coastal flooding from this event will peak at midnight on Monday night and will be worse than any flooding Norwalk has experienced in recent history. If you have ever experienced flooding before it is likely you will be flooded in this storm.” Moccia said that the storm will be equal to a Category 4 hurricane and will produce 16 foot storm surges.

Westport Now:
“The mood during the meeting was tense as federal officials estimated a 13-foot storm surge for Westport [Connecticut] -– 3 or 4 feet higher that the inundation from Storm Irene last year,” a news release said. “This is an unprecedented storm,” said [First Selectman Gordon Joseloff], following his team’s briefing with federal and state disaster preparedness officials. “This will be a storm of long duration, high winds and record-setting flooding. Take Storm Irene from last year and double it.” he said. [...] The town is bracing for at least three waves of flooding, beginning with the high tide at midnight Sunday, the announcement said. [... An] estimated 15-foot wind-driven waves [...] are expected on top of the storm surge.

According to the Weather Channel’s latest map, a 6 to 11 foot water level rise is forecast for the Connecticut coastline. This is the highest increase of any area in the US. The state’s only nuclear power plant is located directly on the ocean, see marker ‘A’ below:
[Photos in original article]
In July, AP reported:
Millstone Power Station, Connecticut’s sole nuclear plant, is focusing on how best to guard against flooding and earthquakes to comply with tougher federal standards following the nuclear plant meltdown in Japan last year, the new chief of the power station said in an interview.

Millstone is assessing its ability to withstand flooding and “seismic events,” Stephen E. Scace, who took over as site vice president at Millstone in January, told The Associated Press on Thursday. He expects upgrades and installation of new equipment in the next three to four years. More

 

Earthquake-Causing Fracking to Be Allowed within 500 Feet of Nuclear Plants

Nuclear Plants Vulnerable to Earthquakes

The American government has officially stated that fracking can cause earthquakes. Some fracking companies now admit this fact The scientific community agrees. See this, this, this, this and this.

Earthquakes can – of course – damage nuclear power plants. For example, even the operator of Fukushima and the Japanese government now admit that the nuclear cores might have started melting down before the tsuanmi ever hit. More here.

Indeed, the fuel pools and rods at Fukushima appear to have “boiled”, caught fire and/or exploded soon after the earthquake knocked out power systems. See this, this, this, this and this. And fuel pools in the United States store an average of ten times more radioactive fuel than stored at Fukushima, have virtually no safety features, and are vulnerable to accidents and terrorist attacks. And see this.

Indeed, American reactors may be even more vulnerable to earthquakes than Fukushima.

But American nuclear “regulators” have allowed numerous nuclear power plants to be built in earthquake zones:

And they have cover up the risks from earthquakes for years … just like theJapanese regulators did. For example:

• The NRC won’t even begin conducting its earthquake study for Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York until after relicensing is complete in 2013, because the NRC doesn’t consider a big earthquake “a serious risk”

• Congressman Markey has said there is a cover up. Specifically, Markey alleges that the head of the NRC told everyone not to write down risks they find from an earthquake greater than 6.0 (the plant was only built to survive a 6.0 earthquake)

• We have 4 reactors in California – 2 at San Onofre 2 at San Luis Obisbo – which are vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis

For example, Diablo Canyon is located on numerous earthquake faults, and a state legislator and seismic expert says it could turn into California’s Fukushima:

On July 26th 2011 the California Energy Commission held hearings concerning the state’s nuclear safety. During those hearings, the Chairman of the Commission asked governments experts whether or not they felt the facilities could withstand the maximum credible quake. The response was that they did not know.This is similar to what happened at Fukushima: seismologists dire warnings were ignored (and see this.)

Yet the Nuclear Regulatory Commission doesn’t even take earthquake risk into account when deciding whether or not to relicense plants like Diablo Canyon. More