Helen Jackson @hjcksn@qoto.org

Vietnam planning nationwide blackouts as grid struggles with heat and depleted hydro reservoirs

Timetable for raising flood defences in London brought forward
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/thames-estuary-2100-time-to-plan-and-time-to-act

ClimateNode is using #LargeLanguageModels to build systems to routinely scan scientific papers, world newspapers and government reports for granular, location and sector-specific information about climate-related hazards and risks. Collaborations welcome, get in touch: #NLP http://climatenode.org

Concerns over affordability of insurance for some as FEMA flood risk ratings are updated in the US
https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-climate-change-floods/feature-as-climate-risks-rise-flood-insurance-costs-stun-us-homeowners-idUSL8N36T5YY

The UK's Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management published a review of surface water flood mgt yesterday which found that most local authorities don't have the staff to manage the problem, and pointed to the need for the Government to provide greater leadership.
https://www.ciwem.org/policy-reports/surface-water-management-a-review-of-the-opportunities-and-challenges

ClimateNode's Urban Flash Flooding in England project (https://climatenode.org/maps/about_UFF_maps.html…) found numerous examples of schools which had been affected by flash flooding. People don't hear about them because these events are often only reported locally.
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/staff-devastated-after-school-ruined-21537037

£100,000s worth 'catastrophic' damage to school in Bellingham, Northumberland, after sewers overwhelmed by rain. However, surface water flooding is simply not on the political radar in the UK.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4nkpz4ene8o

Jakarta Post / Star of Malaysia: urgent need to climate-proof the health system in Southeast Asia after "the worst April heat wave in history"
https://www.thestar.com.my/aseanplus/aseanplus-news/2023/05/02/an-urgent-call-for-a-climate-proof-health-system-in-south-east-asia

Barcelona could be facing drought emergency by September, with implications for water resources for firefighting
https://apnews.com/article/spain-catalonia-water-drought-climate-barcelona-39cff05f6742bf0b2b72b63d5de3b145

"UK citizens are being left exposed to increased risks of flood damage, food and water shortages, excess deaths from heatwaves, energy outages and infrastructure breakdown" due to adaptation policy failures, writes former Climate Change Committee member, Prof Sam Fankhauser
https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-accelerating-and-the-uk-government-is-strikingly-unprepared-202863

The UK Climate Change Committee's report to Parliament on UK adaptation progress was launched today, with one committee member describing the UK's adaptation efforts as "chronically underfunded and overlooked"
https://www.theccc.org.uk/2023/03/29/climate-change-has-arrived-yet-the-country-is-still-strikingly-unprepared/

ClimateNode's recent Urban Flash Flooding in England project, using #NLP/geocoding to convert info in news reports into maps, is described in the most recent edition of the British Hydrological Society's 'Circulation' newsletter. You can read about it here:
https://www.hydrology.org.uk/assets/Circ%20156.pdf

I just learned how to interrogate a scientific paper using the #OpenAI API and I'm pretty pleased about it. Here's the link (access to GPT4 not required, and yes I know it is much better for this kind of thing) #NLP:
https://github.com/openai/openai-cookbook/blob/main/examples/Question_answering_using_embeddings.ipynb

Bentiu, South Sudan, has "basically become an island" after 4 straight years of flooding which has displaced people, killed animals, caused hunger & competition over land, and turned previously dry places into "permanent wetlands", says The East African
https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/bentiu-south-sudan-city-besieged-by-water-4168544

2022 Pakistan floods wiped out 88% of cotton production, 80% of rice, and 61% of sugarcane in Sindh Province, says damage assessment using satellite data
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-30347-y

ICYMI - UK to establish national Centre of Excellence for Resilient Infrastructure Analysis
https://www.ukauthority.com/articles/ukri-funds-centre-of-excellence-for-resilient-infrastructure-analysis/

Please have an explore if of interest and feel free to drop me any questions. I would be really interested to hear from anyone who is likely to use this data to learn more about how they will use it.

Users can explore individual events, e.g. this is the map for the severe flash flood event which happened in London on 25th July 2021
https://www.climatenode.org/maps/UFFE_map_20210725.html

The outputs are:
• A set of 56 downloadable interactive maps of flooding impacts on each of the key dates identified
• geoJSON files containing the data for all maps, and each map individually
• A csv file providing details of all of the urban flash flood events detected, including those which weren't mapped due to a lack of geographical detail
Data is free and publicly available