Sara Hughes, University of Michigan and Michael Wilson, Pardee RAND Graduate School

Water scarcity is often viewed as an issue for the arid American West, but the U.S. Northeast’s experience in 2024 shows how severe droughts can occur in just about any part of the country.

Cities in the Northeast experienced record-breaking drought conditions in the second half of 2024 after a hot, dry summer in many areas. Wildfires broke out in several states that rarely see them.

By December, much of the region was experiencing moderate to severe drought. Residents in New York City and Boston were asked to reduce their water use, while Philadelphia faced risk to its water supply due to saltwater coming up the Delaware River.

Before the drought, many people in the region weren’t prepared for water shortages or even paying much attention to their water use.

As global temperatures rise, cities throughout the U.S. are more likely to experience hotter, drier conditions like this. Those conditions increase evaporation, drying out vegetation and soil and lowering groundwater tables.

The Northeast drought was easing in much of the region in early 2025, but communities across the U.S. should take note of what happened. They can learn from the experiences of cities that have had to confront major water supply crises – such as Cape Town, South Africa; São Paulo, Brazil; Melbourne, Australia; Las Vegas; and New Orleans – and start planning now to avoid the worst impacts of future droughts.

Lessons from cities that have seen the worst

Our new analysis of these five cities’ experiences provides lessons on how to avoid a water supply crisis or minimize the effects through proactive policies and planning.

Many cities have had to confront major water supply crises in recent years. Perhaps the most well-known example is Cape Town’s “Day Zero.”

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After three years of persistent drought in the region, Cape Town officials in fall 2017 began a countdown to Day Zero – the point at which water supplies would likely run so low that water would be turned off in neighborhoods and residents would need to fetch a daily allocation of water at public distribution points. Initially it was forecast to occur in April 2018.

Water rates were raised, and some households installed flow restrictors, which would automatically limit the amount of water that could be used. Public awareness and conservation efforts cut water consumption in half, allowing the city to push back its estimate for when Day Zero would arrive. And when the rains finally came in summer 2018, Day Zero was canceled.

A second example is São Paulo, which similarly experienced a severe drought between 2013 and 2015. The city’s reservoirs were reduced to just 5% of their capacity, and the water utility reduced the pressure in the water system to limit water use by residents.

Water pricing adjustments were used to penalize high water users and reward water conservation, and a citywide campaign sought to increase awareness and encourage conservation. As in Cape Town, the crisis ended with heavy rains in 2016. Significant investments have since been made in upgrading the city’s water distribution infrastructure, preventing leaks and bringing water to the city from other river basins.

Planning ahead can reduce the harm

The experiences of Cape Town and São Paulo – and the other cities in our study – show how water supply crises can affect communities.

When major changes are made to reduce water consumption, they can affect people’s daily lives and pocketbooks. Rapidly designed conservation efforts can have harmful effects on poor and vulnerable communities that may have fewer alternatives in the event of restrictions or shutoffs or lack the ability to pay higher prices for water, forcing tough choices for households between water and other necessities.

Planning ahead allows for more thoughtful policy design.

For example, Las Vegas has been grappling with drought conditions for the past two decades. During that time, the region implemented water-conservation policies that focus on incentivizing and even requiring reduced water consumption.

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Since 2023, the Las Vegas Valley Water District has implemented water rates that encourage conservation and can vary with the availability of water supplies during droughts. In its first year alone, the policy saved 3 billion gallons of water and generated US$31 million in fees that can be used by programs to detect and repair leaks, among other conservation efforts. A state law now requires businesses and homeowner associations in the Las Vegas Valley to remove their decorative grass by the end of 2026.

Since 2002, per capita water use in Las Vegas has dropped by an impressive 58%.

Solutions and strategies for the future

Most of the cities we studied incorporated a variety of approaches to building water security and drought-proofing their community – from publishing real-time dashboards showing water use and availability in Cape Town to investing in desalination in Melbourne.

But we found the most important changes came from community members committing to and supporting efforts to conserve water and invest in water security, such as reducing lawn watering.

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There are also longer-term actions that can help drought-proof a community, such as fixing or replacing water- and energy-intensive fixtures and structures. This includes upgrading home appliances, such as showers, dishwashers and toilets, to be more water efficient and investing in native and drought-tolerant landscaping.

Prioritizing green infrastructure, such as retention ponds and bioswales, that help absorb rain when it does fall and investing in water recycling can also diversify water supplies.

Taking these steps now, ahead of the next drought, can prepare cities and lessen the pain.

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Sara Hughes, Adjunct Professor of Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan and Michael Wilson, Professor of Policy Analysis, Pardee RAND Graduate School

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Ashley Bosa, Boise State University

When a wildfire notification goes off on your mobile phone, it can trigger all kinds of emotions and confusion.

You might glance outside and see no smoke. Across the street, your neighbors have mixed reactions: One is leisurely walking their dog, another is calmly packing a small bag, while a third appears to be preparing for an extended vacation.

The notification advises you to grab your “go bag,” but then panic can set in as you realize you don’t have one ready. So, you scour the local emergency management website for guidance and discover how much you’ve overlooked: important documents such as birth certificates, an extra flashlight, your children’s medications, a phone charger.

Before you can gather your thoughts, a second notification arrives – this time telling you to evacuate.

Packing the car, wrangling children or a skittish cat, figuring out where to go – it can feel frenzied in the face of danger. As you pull out, you join a traffic jam on your street, with a black smoke plume rising nearby and neighbors still loading their cars.

This chaos highlights a worst-case scenario for wildfire evacuations – one that can cause delays, heighten risks for evacuees and complicate access for emergency responders. It’s why researchers like me who study natural hazards are developing ways to help communities recognize where residents may need the most help and avoid evacuation bottlenecks in the face of future disasters.

The importance of being prepared

Confusion is common in the face of disasters, and it underscores the need for communities and individuals to be prepared.

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Delays in evacuating, or the inability to evacuate safely, can have catastrophic consequences, not only for those trying to flee but also for the first responders and emergency managers working to manage the crisis. These delays often stem from a lack of preparedness or uncertainty about when and how to act.

A study of survivors of an Australian wildfire that killed 172 people in the state of Victoria in 2009 found that two-thirds of survivors reported that they had carried out an existing disaster plan, while researchers found the majority of those who died either didn’t follow a disaster plan or couldn’t. Forecasters had warned that high temperatures were coming with very low humidity, and public alerts had gone out about the high fire risk. https://www.youtube.com/embed/Wq4VCI2JwgM?wmode=transparent&start=0 Residents had little time to evacuate as the Eaton Fire spread into Altadena, Calif., on Jan. 7, 2025. Source: NBC.

How people perceive risks and the environmental and social cues around them – such as how much smoke they see, their neighbors’ choices or the wording of the notification – will directly affect the speed of their response.

Past experience with a disaster evacuation also has an impact. Rapid population growth in recent years in the wildland-urban interface – areas where human development meets wildfire-prone areas – has meant that more people with little or no experience with wildfires are living in fire-risk areas. Wildland areas also tend to have fewer evacuation routes, making mass evacuations more difficult and time-consuming.

Adding to the complexity is the fact that large wildfires are occurring in regions not historically prone to such events and during times of the year traditionally considered outside of wildfire season. This shift has left communities and emergency response teams grappling with unprecedented challenges, particularly when it comes to evacuations.

Computer models can help spot risks

To address these challenges, researchers are developing systems to help communities model how their residents are likely to respond in the event of a disaster.

The results can help emergency crews understand where bottlenecks are likely to occur along evacuation routes, depending on the timing of the notice and the movement of the fire. They can also help fire managers understand where neighborhoods may need to be notified faster or need more help evacuating.

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My team at the Hazard and Climate Resilience Institute at Boise State University is working on one of these projects. We have been surveying communities across Idaho and Oregon to assess how people living in the wildland-urban interface areas perceive wildfire risks and prepare for evacuations.

Using those surveys, we can capture household-level decision data, such as which evacuation routes these residents would take, how many cars they plan to drive and where they would evacuate to.

We can also gauge how prepared residents would be to evacuate, or whether they would likely stay and try to defend their home instead.

With that data, we can simulate how long it will take emergency response teams to evacuate an entire community safely. The models could also show where difficulties with evacuations might be likely to arise and help residents understand how they can adjust their evacuation plans for a safer escape for everyone.

Bridging the gap between awareness and action

One of the key goals of this research is to bridge the gap between awareness and action.

While many residents in wildfire-prone areas understand the risks, translating that knowledge into concrete preparations remains a challenge. The concept of a “go bag,” for example, is widely promoted but often poorly understood. Essential items such as medications, important documents and pet supplies are frequently overlooked until it’s too late.

Clear and timely communication during wildfire crises is also essential. Evacuation warning messages such as “Ready, Set, Go!” are designed to prompt specific actions, but their effectiveness depends on residents understanding and trusting the system. Delayed responses or mixed signals can create confusion.

As wildfire risk rises for many communities, preparedness is no longer optional – it’s a necessity. Emergency notifications vary by state and county, so check your local emergency management office to understand what to expect and sign up for alerts. Being prepared can help communities limit some of the most devastating impacts of wildfires.

Ashley Bosa, Postdoctoral Researcher, Hazards and Climate Resilience Institute, Boise State University

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This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Najmedin Meshkati, University of Southern California

The Los Angeles fires are a national disaster of epic proportions. City officials, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and President-elect Donald Trump have traded accusations about what caused this crisis. But as an engineering professor who lives in Los Angeles and has studied extreme events and natural and human-caused disasters for over 40 years, I believe an event with so many lives lost and damages estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars demands a more substantive response.

Many problems have been cited as alleged root causes of this massive wildfire outbreak. They include mismanaged water resources, misallocation of firefighting resources, fire department funding cuts, poor risk management, reignition of past fires, and climate-driven dry conditions. Rumors and conspiracy theories have also abounded. https://www.youtube.com/embed/E2_KvbLgHlY?wmode=transparent&start=0 Damage from the Los Angeles wildfires, estimates at $135 billion or more as of mid-January, could affect homeowners insurance rates across the U.S.

I have served as a member or adviser to national- and state-level investigations of events including gas leaks, oil spills, nuclear reactor accidents, refinery explosions and, most recently, aviation mishaps.

In my view, the Los Angeles fires call for a similar investigation that is technically sound, multidisciplinary, unbiased, apolitical and independent. U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff of California has called for convening such a review.

To quote a saying often attributed to Albert Einstein: “Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance.”

Natural events + human responses

Natural disasters such as wildfires, earthquakes and tsunamis often serve as triggers. Devastating on their own, these events can have far more catastrophic aftermaths that are shaped by human choices. Nature delivers the initial blow, but a complex interplay of human, organizational and technological factors can either mitigate or worsen the consequences.

I believe human operators and first responders constitute society’s first and the very last layer of defense against death and destruction in the crucial moments following natural disasters and technological systems failures – serving as our immediate shield, intermediate mitigator and ultimate savior.

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I saw this when I served on a National Academy of Sciences committee that studied the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan. The explosions and radioactive releases at the Fukushima Daiichi plant were triggered by an earthquake and tsunami, but a Japanese high-level review concluded that this event was a “manmade disaster” – one born of human and organizational failure at the utility and governmental levels.

The fate of the Onagawa Nuclear Power Station, just 39 miles from Fukushima, was also notable. Although Onagawa was closer to the earthquake’s epicenter and faced an even more powerful tsunami, the reactors there – which were identical in type and age to Fukushima’s and subject to the same regulations – emerged almost unscathed. This stark difference demolished any argument that Fukushima’s failure was inevitable, an act of God or purely nature’s fault.

High-level commissions have reviewed similar disasters in the United States. For example:

– The President’s Commission on the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979 produced the landmark Kemeny Report, which concluded that the accident was primarily caused by human factors, including inadequate operator training and confusing procedures, rather than equipment failures alone. The report strongly criticized the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which regulates the nuclear power industry, and recommended a complete restructuring of the agency. It also called for better safety measures, operator training and emergency preparedness in the nuclear industry.

– Independent commissions investigated the explosions of the Challenger space shuttle in 1986 and the Columbia space shuttle in 2003. They identified similar systemic issues behind these incidents, even though they occurred 17 years apart, and provided overlapping recommendations to improve NASA’s safety culture and decision-making processes.

– Two national reviews – one by a blue-ribbon commission and the other by the National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council – investigated the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill. This disaster killed 11 workers, seriously injured 16 others and released an estimated 134 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Both reports concluded that BP’s poor safety culture and practices, along with technical failures, lax regulation and inadequate inspections, had contributed to the well blowout. Both commissions made recommendations for improving the safety of offshore drilling. https://www.youtube.com/embed/I9aSUQmwUgA?wmode=transparent&start=0 President Barack Obama announces the formation of an expert commission to analyze causes and lessons from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, May 21, 2011.

Analyzing the Los Angeles fires

Based on my research and experience, I believe only a high-level independent investigative commission can fully unravel this disaster’s interconnected causes. Government agencies, regulatory bodies and legislative committees inevitably fall short in such investigations. They are constrained by jurisdictional boundaries and bureaucratic interests. Their efforts remain too narrow and inward-focused. And, crucially, they lack true independence.

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Gov. Newsom has directed the Los Angeles water and public works departments to review why hydrants ran dry, which hampered firefighting efforts. But this inquiry focuses narrowly on water supply issues in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood. It does not address other blazes like the Eaton fire near Pasadena, which has caused even more damage.

The most straightforward way to set up a high-level review of the Los Angeles wildfires would be for the Trump administration and Congress to direct the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and the National Research Council to establish an independent commission. The National Academies are private, nonprofit organizations created by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 to provide the nation with independent, objective advice on complex problems. The National Research Council is the National Academies’ operating arm.

Typically, such studies are led by a prominent person of national distinction or a renowned scholar, and are carried out by a panel of national experts from academia, business, the public sector and nongovernmental organizations.

The National Academies have a reputation for producing independent, rigorous and nonpartisan studies. They screen members thoroughly for technical expertise and conflicts of interest. All of their studies go through formal peer review, which helps ensure that they are scientifically accurate and credible.

When the federal government requests a study from the academies, Congress provides funding through a relevant federal agency. For the Los Angeles fires, the federal sponsor might be the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development or the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Could a study proposed and sponsored by Congress and the Trump administration be balanced and nonpartisan? In my view, if the National Academies produced it, the answer is yes. The academies have a strong track record of reviewing complex issues, including disaster planning, response and recovery, risk assessment and wildfires. And their recommendations have improved public policy. https://www.youtube.com/embed/raMmRKGkGD4?wmode=transparent&start=0 In a televised 1986 hearing, physicist Richard Feynman, a member of a presidential commission that investigated the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, demonstrates the commission’s finding that critical seals on the shuttle became brittle at low temperatures. The report showed that NASA and its key contractor knew this flaw existed and could cause a catastrophic failure, but still approved the launch. The explosion killed all seven crew members.

Lessons for future disasters

I see the Los Angeles fires as a stark warning to communities nationwide. There is a widening gap between intensifying climate-induced extreme events that are becoming Earth’s new normal, and municipal planning, preparedness and response capabilities.

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Meeting these unprecedented challenges requires a paradigm shift in public policy. To protect public safety, officials and planners will have to proactively confront scenarios that may recently have seemed unthinkable.

For example, while Southern Californians are accustomed to wildfires, Los Angeles County agencies were unprepared to fight several major fires simultaneously. Flooding in North Carolina from Hurricane Helene in September 2024 is another example. Rainfall totals across the southern Appalachians reached levels that would only be expected once in 1,000 years based on past records.

To be prepared for such events, government agencies at all levels will need to reimagine their approaches to hazard assessment, risk management and emergency response. I believe a balanced and thorough investigation of the Los Angeles fires could help communities across the U.S. reframe their thinking about planning for emergencies.

Najmedin Meshkati, Professor of Engineering and International Relations, University of Southern California

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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