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California WaterBlog

Tag: Nicholas Pinter

  • Durable Solutions in California Disaster Resilience

    By Nicholas Pinter . . . Earlier this month, California released its Natural Catastrophe Resiliency Study. The study addresses thorny issues in managing California’s disaster risk, and particularly the crises in wildfire insurance and utility liability. We Californians and our leaders should applaud the study and efforts to address these sweeping challenges. The Resiliency Study…

  • Think Now about the Unthinkable in US Disaster Management

    By Nicholas Pinter and David Conrad In a turbulent year for US disaster management, changes that seemed unthinkable a few months ago are now coming to pass.  California leaders should be planning proactive responses now. The California Flood Future Panel is now assessing potential impacts of federal changes to US disaster management, particularly considering proposed…

  • Don’t Let a Shutdown Wash Away U.S. Flood Protection

    By Nicholas Pinter A US federal government shutdown is looming, potentially starting Oct. 1, with broad impacts across the government and across the country.  The scope of these unfolding events is beyond the wheelhouse of the California Water Blog.  But pulled into the slipstream of this potential budget impasse is an important water issue.  If Congress does not…

  • International Approaches to Freshwater Management

    By Nicholas Pinter and Sarah Yarnell In late June and July of this year, UC Davis convened an Advanced Studies Institute (ASI) on “International Approaches to Freshwater Management,” bringing 11 top graduate students from across the US to study rivers and management systems in California, Italy, and the Netherlands.   ASIs are funded by the National…

  • Not All Flood Maps are Created Equal

    By Indumati Roychowdhury, Kallee Bareket-Shavit, Ryan Miller, and Nicholas Pinter For assessing flood risk in California, not all flood maps are created equal. We compared FEMA’s flood maps to independent modeling, including climate-informed flood risk. This comparison illustrates very different pictures of flood risk, depending on the map used and how those maps were created,…

  • Dam-Failure Flood Risk in California: How to Manage Low-Probability Hazards

    by Kallee Bareket-Shavit, Ryan Miller, and Nicholas Pinter Every year, damaging floods strike somewhere around the world, including sometimes in California like during winter 2022-23. Even a house with just a 1% chance of flooding each year (by the so-called “100-year flood”) has a 26% chance of inundation over a 30-year mortgage. Other natural hazards…

  • Risk Rating 2.0: A first look at FEMA’s new flood insurance system

    By Ryan Miller, Peter Hansen, and Nicholas Pinter Risk Rating 2.0 has been called the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA)’s most significant reform in 50 years.  Roughly 77% of customers of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) nationwide will see increases in their premiums, while the other ~23% will see reductions or no change.  FEMA…

  • Preliminary Analysis of Hurricane Harvey Flooding in Harris County, Texas

    by Nicholas Pinter, Nicholas Santos, and Rui Hui Located in Harris County, Texas, Houston is the 4th most populous city in the US.  The flooding now unfolding in the Houston area is a human and economic disaster likely to rank with Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy among the worst in US history.  At the present moment,…

  • Trump Killed Obama’s Flood Protection Rule Two Weeks Ago

    by Nicholas Pinter This post was originally published as an op-ed in Fortune. Whether or not you like President Donald Trump, the current administration has not been gifted with great timing. Just 10 days before Hurricane Harvey made landfall, the White House rescinded one of the most progressive flood-risk management tools on the books, an…

  • California, Flood Risk, and the National Flood Insurance Program

    by Nicholas Pinter, Rui Hui, and Kathy Schaefer Across the US and worldwide, flooding is the deadliest and most costly natural disaster.  The US National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is an imperfect framework for reducing flood losses, but currently the best we’ve got.  NFIP is scheduled for Congressional reauthorization in 2017, and this debate promises…

  • Ecogeomorphology: A Transformative Expedition Education

    This week, the Center for Watershed Sciences is proud to feature our flagship education course, Ecogeomorphology. What began as a collaboration between then-Professors Jeffrey Mount and Peter Moyle to introduce students to cross-discipline thinking in expedition settings has developed into a transformative opportunity for the select graduate and undergraduate students to experience a range of settings…

  • New Baton Rouge flood map show limits of current risk and planning methods

    by Nicholas Pinter, Nicholas Santos, Rui Hui, Kathleen Schaefer The flooding in Baton Rouge and surrounding areas of Louisiana is a major disaster, claiming an estimated 13 lives and displacing more than 100,000 people from their homes. The National Weather Service reported that rainfall in Louisiana this past week reached up to a 1000-year event…

  • St. Helena, California: Dealing with a Field-of-Dreams Levee, Residual Risk, and a Flood of Controversy

    by Nicholas Pinter A new $37.2[1] million levee in the town of St. Helena, on the floodplain of the Napa River, has a colorful history and has been stirring local acrimony since its inception.  This project illustrates both the attraction of levee protection, in this case protecting a low-income neighborhood (“low income” by Napa standards)…

  • Rising to El Niño’s challenges – and opportunities

    By Nicholas Pinter The much-anticipated El Niño has now arrived, with increased potential for heavy rain and snowfall, including the possibility of localized flooding, mudslides and other hazards. While extreme storms, flooding and other natural disasters challenge society to protect life and property from damage, they also present opportunities. Floods in particular often catalyze positive…