In an article published this week by NBC, Dr. Brett Sanders, UC Irvine Blum Center leading researcher on flooding, was interviewed regarding the devastating flooding and rainfall in California. Although we are beginning to see some effects now, Sanders said it may take time to truly see how bad the flooding in California is.
The author highlights Sanders’ work on the effect of flooding on marginalized communities throughout California, which was published in Nature Sustainability. The framework reported in the research is a high resolution flood modeling platform that helps pinpoint high or low risk areas across the Los Angeles basin, mapping every 10 feet to provide a highly localized and detailed visualization of risk.
Further, Sanders mentions that prior to these events, so much of the attention has been on coastal flooding as that is where a majority of wealthier citizens live. As California endures one of the worst rainfall and flooding events in our recent history, we can now understand that marginalized communities are at a higher risk of flooding, displacement, higher rent, or losing their homes entirely even when they live farther from the coast.
If you want to read the full article, you can click here.