hazard reduction & recovery

A federal study aimed at enhancing plant safety throughout the U.S. chemical manufacturing system benefitted from the work of Michael Lindell, a professor of urban planning at Texas A&M University who contributed sections on risk and decision analyses and emergency management.

Texas A&M urban planning professor Michael Lindell is part of an interdisciplinary team advising policymakers in earthquake-prone New Zealand on issues related to natural hazard mitigation, readiness, response and recovery.

Engineers, educators and policymakers recently gathered to discuss challenges facing the Americas at a policy forum hosted by the Pan American Academy of Engineering organized by Jorge Vanegas, president of the academy’s policy forum.

A group of villages in Costa Rica hard hit by recent flooding received watershed management, drinking water and waste disposal guidance from an interdisciplinary United Nations-sponsored team that included a former Texas A&M environmental design student.

Relief efforts after a natural disaster should include local businesses as well as households, because “one can’t return without the other,” said researchers at the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center investigating Galveston’s recovery after 2008’s Hurricane Ike.

Prospective students can learn more about Texas A&M’s Urban and Regional Science doctoral program during an Oct. 21-23 open house, to be held in conjunction with the 14th annual College of Architecture Research Symposium: Natural, Built, Virtual.

Due to the destruction of natural resources and poor community planning efforts, Texas remains extraordinarily vulnerable to hurricane damage, said two Texas A&M urban planning professors in an Aug. 28 Bryan-College Station Eagle report as Hurricane Isaac barreled through the Gulf of Mexico.

Ranked as one of the fastest growing counties in the U.S., groundwater-dependent Montgomery County, Texas is confronted with a looming water crisis threatening future growth, according to a study by urban planners at Texas A&M University.

A new research institute dedicated to a better understanding of establishing sustainable and resilient coastal communities, places and landscapes will combine resources of Texas A&M’s College of Architecture and Texas A&M University at Galveston.

Researchers at Texas A&M's Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center are investigating why the proliferation of hazard mitigation planning by local governmental agencies in disaster prone regions along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts has not significantly reduced their vulnerability.

Historic preservation efforts undertaken after natural and manmade disasters were the focus of “Disaster,” the 13th Annual Historic Preservation Symposium at the Langford Architecture Center.

Sam Brody, professor of urban planning at Texas A&M, was interviewed on PBS Newshour about Galveston’s efforts to build a healthier city after Hurricane Ike. He is also the Mitchell Chair in Sustainable Coasts at TAMU-Galveston and director of the Center for Texas Beaches and Shores.

Valuable sociological and economic data collected by the federal government but not available to the general public will soon be available to select researchers from Texas and the surrounding region with the opening this fall of the Texas Census Research Data Center at Texas A&M University.

One former and one current student from Texas A&M’s College of Architecture were roommates for a week in Leogane, Haiti in November, part of a Habitat for Humanity effort to build homes in the city ravaged by a 2010 earthquake and hurricane.

Michael Lindell, professor of urban planning at Texas A&M, was quoted a New York Times’ Oct. 3, 2011 article examining scientists’ role in warning the public of possible hazards.