CLIMBS researchers go global in finding hazard solutions through NSF’s CLaSH initiative

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Jan. 7, 2026) — Geologic hazards are complex, connected and continuous. Extreme precipitation can unleash catastrophic floods and trigger landslides that reshape landscapes and threaten communities. Landslide debris can block streams or surge into rivers, intensifying floods and damaging infrastructure, while wildfires strip vegetation, leaving slopes vulnerable to collapse during heavy rain.

This chain reaction is known as a hazard cascade. Understanding these cascading effects and their impact on people and infrastructure is a key focus of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s new Center for Land Surface Hazards (CLaSH), where Kentucky researchers are taking a leading role.

CLaSH is focused on changing how communities understand and prepare for land-surface natural disasters. By studying how landslides, floods and erosion interact to form “cascading geohazards,” CLaSH seeks to improve forecasting of these hazards to better predict and warn communities across the United States and the world. Rather than studying one event at a time, CLaSH looks at the chain reactions — how one hazard exacerbates the severity or potentially triggers another — and how to use modeling, data and community partnerships to better prepare for them.

CLaSH aims to transform how researchers and communities study and respond to cascading land hazards by:

• Advancing science that connects storms, soil and landscape processes to predict future threats.
• Building a national research community that drives innovation in geohazard studies.
• Strengthening community resilience through partnerships that share knowledge and improve preparedness.
• Training the next generation of geoscientists with hands-on fieldwork, disaster engagement and data-driven skills.

In Kentucky, the CLIMBS project casts a complementary vision focused on understanding the conditions under which flooding and landsliding occur, on a more localized scale, and several of its researchers will play a key role in CLaSH.

CLIMBS and Kentucky Geological Survey (KGS) researchers Jason Dortch, Ph.D, Matt Crawford, Ph.D.,  Ryan Thigpen, Ph.D., Meredith Swallom, Ph.D., and Hudson Koc, Ph.D. candidate, are at the intersection of CLIMBS and CLaSH, representing Kentucky’s research voice within the national geologic community.

“CLaSH cross-collaborative research laboratories (Alaska, California, Kentucky and Puerto Rico) will enable a better understanding of how different hazards feed back into each other across topographic and climatic regimes, which will enable the development of more robust modelling tools for future hazard prediction,” said Dortch, UK’s principal investigator on the CLaSH grant and KGS researcher. “CLIMBS will provide data, CLaSH personnel will develop modeling software and provide training, and CLIMBS personnel will deploy the new modeling workflows across Kentucky to provide better hazard assessment. Ultimately, with this partnership, our goal is to better protect the residents and infrastructure of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.”

Crawford, Thigpen, Swallom and Koch are key partners in the new center, bringing their expertise on southern Appalachian flooding, landslides and modeling to help solve hazard resilience issues.

“Geohazards are all interrelated. Our landslide experts, modelers and field geologists can develop more effective and novel solutions if we work together. ClaSH is giving us the opportunity to do just that,” said Swallom, who is leading the Appalachian flood modeling efforts alongside Dortch.

Both programs seek to connect science with people. In the southern Appalachians, where communities have recently faced devastating floods and landslides, the insights from CLIMBS are already shaping how researchers think about real-time hazard forecasting and recovery.

Ryan Thigpen, professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and KGS faculty associate, co-leads CLIMBS Project 2 with Dortch, which is focused primarily on flood hazards. Thigpen and Dortch are leveraging their considerable experience working in post-disaster settings to help CLIMBS and CLaSH team members learn to respond in disaster-affected areas.

“Critical data that can help us better understand how to prepare for and forecast these events begins to disappear immediately during the post-disaster response,” said Thigpen. “Collecting this perishable data is thus a priority for our team, but we never want these efforts to take priority over lifesaving operations that are occurring simultaneously. Our goal is to be both scientists and first responders in disaster zones, with the latter taking clear priority on the ground. To do this, we hope to have our on-the-ground teams trained in first aid and search-and-rescue techniques, so that we can work with local first responders to carry out lifesaving operations where necessary.”  

CLaSH’s emphasis on data convergence, workforce training and education partially fulfills CLIMBS’ focus on preparing a new generation of scientists who can combine local field expertise with computational analysis.

To learn more about CLaSH, please visit https://www.geoclash.org/#

To learn more about CLIMBS, please visit https://kynsfepscor.uky.edu/climbs/

This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Cooperative Agreement No. 2425607. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. National Science Foundation.