Researchers awarded $15 million NSF grant to rework the science of pure hazards

September 5, 2025 by Berkeley Engineering

A multi-institutional crew of researchers has been awarded a $15 million grant from the National Science Foundation to launch the Center for Land Surface Hazards (CLaSH).

The new heart goals to advance analysis on the elemental science processes that trigger landslides, river erosion, particles flows and flooding. These cascading land floor hazards have been identified to observe hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes and different pure disasters, however now researchers wish to higher perceive the connection between these occasions.

UC Berkeley civil engineering professor Dimitrios Zekkos is co-principal investigator of the challenge. Zekkos, a geotechnical engineer, hopes to realize novel insights by utilizing state-of-the-art applied sciences to develop new scientific frameworks and forecasting instruments.

“Recent technological advances in remote sensing, robots and sensors provide an unprecedented opportunity to monitor the geologic processes in a way that was completely impossible only a few years ago,” he mentioned. “These advances, paired with new computational tools, such as artificial intelligence, and regional geologic process simulations, provide a truly unprecedented opportunity to advance our scientific understanding of how geologic processes are coupled and lead to geohazard cascades.”

In addition to analysis, CLaSH plans to deal with applications to assist develop a workforce of specialists in land floor hazards and foster neighborhood engagement.

Housed on the University of Michigan, the middle contains 17 funded companion organizations, together with universities, authorities organizations and tribal companions, in addition to dozens of different U.S. and worldwide collaborations with quite a lot of tutorial, authorities, non-profit and enterprise organizations.

For extra info, read the press release.