Hazards institute

A new multicampus collaboration at the University of California focuses on studying natural hazards and making researchers and their results accessible to policymakers.

Earthquakes, fires, droughts, landslides, pandemics, and the like are the focus of the California Hazards Research Institute. “The idea is evolving that we should take a holistic look at hazards and disasters. They have common features, and therefore there may be some underlying way to understand these complex systems from different approaches,” says UC Davis’s John Rundle, who was key in setting up the institute.

The institute aims to address four stages of hazards: anticipation, mitigation, response, and recovery. One of its first goals is to compile a database of institute researchers and their work. Inclusion of manmade disasters in the institute’s purview is still under discussion, Rundle says.

So far, five UC campuses and the Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories are members. They, together with the UC Office of the President, are providing seed money for the institute totaling $140 000 a year for three years.