The coinage of a new word in climate science: "natech," as in "natech disasters."

[NNadir]

I just came across this paper in the literature: Climate Justice Implications of Natech Disasters: Excess Contaminant Releases during Hurricanes on the Texas Gulf Coast Alique G. Berberian, Rachel Morello-Frosch, Seigi Karasaki, and Lara J. Cushing Environmental Science & Technology 2024 58 (32), 14180-14192.

The paper is open access and I'm not going to spend much time with it, other than to note the new coinage, "natech" which confused me when I read the title. It's a word that one wishes didn't have to be invented, but unfortunately it is.

Relevant excerpts from the paper:

The severity and frequency of tropical cyclones are increasing in parts of the United States (US) due to climate change. (1−3) The frequency of jointly occurring precipitation and storm surge during storm events is also increasing in many US cities, exacerbating overall flood risk. (4−6) Low-income communities and people of color are disproportionately impacted by hurricanes and floods, leading to concerns that climate change will further exacerbate existing environmental health disparities. (7) National flood risk assessments have found that socially vulnerable and economically disadvantaged populations are more likely to live in flood zones. (8,9) After Hurricane Katrina (2005), many studies documented disproportionate flooding, displacement, and adverse health outcomes among low-income and Black residents of New Orleans. (10−13) Research following Hurricane Sandy (2010) identified socioeconomic disparities in flood exposure in New York City and Long Island. (14) Similarly, neighborhoods with higher proportions of Black, Hispanic, and socioeconomically deprived residents in the Greater Houston area experienced a significantly greater extent of flooding compared to White and high-socioeconomic status (SES) residents during Hurricane Harvey (2017). (15,16)

Extreme weather also poses risks to industrial sites like chemical plants, refineries, hazardous waste treatment facilities, and legacy cleanup sites that manufacture, use, or store hazardous materials. (17,18) Flooding, strong winds, tornadoes, and storm surges can damage infrastructure, cause power failures and equipment malfunctions, and prevent personnel access to industrial sites, which may lead to natural–technological (natech) disasters (19)─cascading events in which natural hazards trigger technological accidents that result in contaminant releases. Impacts from natech events have environmental and health equity implications. For example, oil spills from storage tanks can contaminate water sources, and releases of toxic air contaminants from chemical plants can cause acute changes to ambient air quality and increase the risk for adverse health effects. Because people of color and of low SES in the US are more likely to live near industrial sites, (20) natech disasters are likely to disproportionately impact marginalized communities.

It is interesting that no one pays much attention to this, the health implications of flooding and oil and gas related facilities and other industrial facilities. It's not as sexy as carrying on endlessly about the flooding of nuclear plants at Fukushima, even though any deaths associated with radiation in the latter event were vanishingly small and the deaths from flooding of buildings and structures in a coastal city were not.

Anyway, there's a new and necessary word.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

1. I have worried

About oil refineries nuclear plants and industrial sites and factory farms with deadly pink ponds swarming with waste and bacteria the impact of all this vile toxic mess during natural disasters.

Glad but sad there was a word invented for it.

[intheflow]

2. This was a huge problem in MS after Katrina.

I mean, it was a huge problem in NOLA, too, but my experience in MS included learning about all the horrible things that were flooded and released: JPL jet fuel, Agent Orange from the SeaBee facility, and of course every household cleaner and every damaged car went into the ocean and groundwater. I lived in Biloxi and went to a meeting about this Pascagoula, the next county over. I was interviewed there by some local press, and asked why I cared about what happened outside my county. I replied that water doesn’t recognize county lines. The lightbulb went on all over the reporter’s face; this literally had never occurred to him. Anyway… cool word, wish it didn’t have to exist.