hazard reduction & recovery

Ann Moss Joyner, an author who uses geographic information systems to illuminate racial discrimination issues that inform her books, will be the keynote speaker for Texas A&M University’s GIS Day — a campuswide celebration showcasing real-world applications for GIS technology.

Private property rights are prevailing over efforts to avoid building in hazardous areas, said Sam Brody, professor of urban planning, in the Sept. 2011 issue of Architect, the magazine of the American Institute of Architects. He was quoted as part of the magazine’s coverage of a rise in natural disasters.

Two Texas A&M urban planning professors have garnered a two-year, $313,000 National Science Foundation grant to research the effectiveness of using 100-year floodplains in predicting property damages from floods, and to develop improved criteria for assessing the risk of inundation in low-lying coastal areas.

Two faculty members from the College of Architecture were among researchers presenting their National Science Foundation-funded projects to U.S. senators Sept. 6, 2011 at an NSF expo in Washington DC.

Momentum is mounting for the creation of a National Science Foundation-funded network of researchers dedicated to investigating disaster resilience, vulnerability and risk reduction, said Walter Gillis Peacock, director of the Hazard Reduction & Recovery Center and champion of the interdisciplinary network proposal.

Francisco Farias and Paula Lorente, Ph.D. students at Texas A&M’s College of Architecture, are completing the final phases of their scholarly research-oriented work as inaugural Office of Graduate Studies dissertation fellows.

A Galveston Daily News columnist said an interactive, online atlas, created by a research team at the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center, has greatly increased the odds of reducing the risks of living in the island city.