Aging dams, political instability, poor human decisions and climate change: Recipe for human disaster

Shirzaei, Manoochehr, Vahedifard, Farshid, Sadhasivam, Nitheshnirmal, Ohenhen, Leonard, Dasho, Oluwaseyi, Tiwari, Ashutosh, Werth, Susanna, Azhar, Mohammed, Zhao, Yunxia, Nicholls, Robert J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9715-1109 and Aghakouchak, Amir (2025) Aging dams, political instability, poor human decisions and climate change: Recipe for human disaster. npj Natural Hazards, 2 (1). ISSN 2948-2100

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Abstract

In Derna, Libya, a record-breaking storm and subsequent dam failures on September 10, 2023, caused over 11,000 deaths. Analyzing satellite data from 2016–2023, we found 1.8 mm/yr of differential settlement in dams contributed to their failure, and flooding damaged ~8570 buildings. We argue that the interplay of aging infrastructure, political instability, climate change, and human decisions drove this disaster, stressing the need for a holistic ‘healthcare’ management approach to prevent future catastrophes.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Data availability statement: No datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study. Acknowledgements: A grant from DoD supported this research. The building footprint is provided by Google Research (https://data.humdata.org/dataset/buildings-footprint-floods-derna-libya). European Space Agency, Sentinel-1 SAR images are obtained through Alaska Satellite Facilities at https://asf.alaska.edu/. The InSAR deformation datasets and distortion angles generated in this study are available at https://doi.org/10.7294/25374619.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	sdg 13 - climate action,sdg 16 - peace, justice and strong institutions ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/climate_action
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	28 Jan 2025 23:50
Last Modified:	18 Jun 2026 20:31
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/98325
DOI:	10.1038/s44304-024-00056-1

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