Out past the urban centers of Seattle, Tacoma and Spokane and toward the rural areas of central and Eastern Washington is an area of land not quite uninhabited and not quite bustling — the wildland urban interface. It’s the area where undeveloped land meets developed land, where buildings meet forests and fields.

As more workers find opportunities to do their jobs from home and rural areas receive access to high-speed internet, more people are moving out of city centers and into these areas, sometimes bringing with them a number of unintended consequences.

Wildfire risks, run-ins with wildlife and dwindling resources are some of the effects that could come from more people moving into undeveloped areas.

Most of the people moving into these areas have never lived in rural areas before, said Mark Billings, professor at Washington State University’s School of the Environment. Many of them don’t know how to live on that landscape and keep themselves safe.

“There’s probably a percentage of people moving into the (wildland urban interface) that shouldn’t be,” Billings said.

Wildfire danger is increasing due to climate change and more than 100 years of fire suppression, Billings said. At the same time, the number of people living in harm’s way is rising.

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The Columbian
Yahoo! News
Fox Weather

Pakistan this spring began experiencing record-breaking, drought-intensifying heat, which scientists concluded had been 30 times as likely to occur because of human-caused global warming. Now, much of the country is underwater.

More than 1,100 people have died so far, and more than one million homes have been damaged or destroyed. After nearly three months of incessant rain, much of Pakistan’s farmland is now underwater, raising the spectre of food shortages in what is likely to be the most destructive monsoon season in the country’s recent history.

While scientists can’t yet say how much the current rainfall and flooding may have been worsened by climate change, researchers agree that in South Asia and elsewhere, global warming is increasing the likelihood of severe rain.

When it falls in an area also grappling with drought, it can be particularly damaging by causing sharp swings between far too little water and far too much, too quickly.

“If that rainfall was distributed over the season, maybe it wouldn’t be that bad,” said Deepti Singh, a climate scientist at Washington State University Vancouver.

Instead, strong cloudbursts are ruining crops and washing away infrastructure, with huge consequences for vulnerable societies, she said.

“Our systems are just not designed to manage that.”

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The Telegraph
New York Times