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The US COVID-19 pandemic in the flood season
Researcher in the Eversource Energy Center recently quantified the compound risk of flooding and COVID-19 at the US county-level. See figure from Shen et al. 2020 (Science of the Total Environment, https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1bugWB8ccoNAZ) showing the compound risk accross the US.
Hotspots of high risk for both types of hazards are concentrated along southern and eastern coastal states and the Mississippi River and its main branches. Researchers argued that although the northeastern coast is also at high risk for flooding, the compound risk is not at a high level because the COVID-19 risk is currently low. The latter might be attributed to the effective and stringent mitigation policies adopted by these states (e.g., New York state and New York City). In computing the pre-flood season expectation, researcehrs used the past records of property flood insurance claims and COVID-19 contraction. Therefore, by the end of 2020 flood season, they plan to revisit this matter by quantifying the interactions between flooding and COVID-19 contraction using real flood hazards and COVID-19 data during the concurrent period.
Published: October 14, 2020
Categories: Recent News, Storm Preparedness
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