Quoting IU News: "As extreme weather increases in frequency and damages done, so does a phenomenon known as “cascading hazards.” These hazards, such as the North Carolina landslides triggered by Hurricane Helene’s catastrophic rainfall in 2024, make it tricky for insurers and communities to adequately calculate risk from future environmental disasters.
Indiana University Bloomington professor Brian Yanites studies cascading hazards and advocates for improved models so communities can prepare for future weather threats.
The U.S. National Science Foundation recently awarded a team of scientists $15 million to fund the Center for Land Surface Hazards, or CLaSH, for which Yanites is one of five principal investigators. This interdisciplinary group — including geomorphologists like Yanites as well as geologists, engineers and atmospheric specialists — will coordinate research efforts to better understand and expand awareness of cascading hazards.
“There’s an urgency to what we’re doing as earth scientists,” said Yanites, the Robert R. Schrock Professor of Surficial and Sedimentary Geology in the College of Arts and Sciences at IU Bloomington. “We’re recognizing that we really need to understand all the processes that work together to create natural hazards and disasters. These processes are changing, and rapidly. We need to do a better job of forecasting and predicting when and where these things will happen.” "