South L.A. among communities awarded state grants for climate projects
At a Glance
Sandy made landfall in L.A. on Aug. 25, the day after U.N. climate talks reached a historic milestone
New research shows that extreme flooding threatens to upend the global food supply
The study finds that the region is at a crucial tipping point as global supply chains are disrupted
By The Associated Press
January 12, 2019 at 3:05 p.m.Updated January 12, 2019 at 7:15 p.m.
LOS ANGELES — New research from UCLA Earth Institute researchers and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has ranked Los Angeles among the top cities in the world for reducing floods and rising sea levels.
The study, produced for the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization and presented Thursday at the annual meeting of the International Association of Hydrometeorology and Environmental Sciences (IAHES) in Beijing, found that Los Angeles is one of 10 of the most effective cities when it comes to reducing the risk of natural disasters.
The study ranks Los Angeles third among cities for its impact on reducing future sea level rise.
“Los Angeles has made substantial progress with the mitigation of floods and sea level rise,” said the study’s lead author, Susan K. Baker, assistant professor of the department of geosciences at UCLA and a research professor at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “We are one of the few cities where we can say we have had large climate change impacts.”
A U.N. report released on the same day found that extreme floods in the world’s oceans threaten to upend global food supplies and drive the world to an even more dangerous food shortage.
The World Meteorological Organization report found that 2018 was the seventh-warmest year on record, with global sea level rise likely to be the warmest since records began in 1880.
“Extreme floods are a significant threat to food security, with some studies projecting that more than 2 billion people could be affected by a severe flood during their lifetime,” according to the report.
The report’s authors described the growing frequency of record-shattering floods around the world
