Integrating mangrove growth and failure in coastal flood protection designs.

Mangrove forests reduce wave attack along tropical and sub-tropical coastlines, decreasing the wave loads acting on coastal protection structures. Mangrove belts seaward of embankments can therefore lower their required height and decrease their slope protection thickness. Wave reduction by mangroves depends on tree frontal surface area and stability against storms, but both aspects are often oversimplified or neglected in coastal protection designs.

Opposing roles for striatonigral and striatopallidal neurons in dorsolateral striatum in consolidating new instrumental actions.

Comparatively little is known about how new instrumental actions are encoded in the brain. Using whole-brain c-Fos mapping, we show that neural activity is increased in the anterior dorsolateral striatum (aDLS) of mice that successfully learn a new lever-press response to earn food rewards. Post-learning chemogenetic inhibition of aDLS disrupts consolidation of the new instrumental response.

Delayed rewards facilitate habit formation.

The transition from goal-directed to habitual forms of instrumental behavior is determined by variables such as the amount of training, schedules of reinforcement, the availability of choices, and exposure to drugs of abuse. Less is known about the control of goal-directed behavior when reinforcement is delayed rather than immediate. In these experiments, we investigated in rats the role of response-outcome contiguity on the control of goal-directed action, assessed through satiety-specific outcome devaluation tests.

Sub-seasonal Levee Deformation Observed Using Satellite Radar Interferometry to Enhance Flood Protection.

Levees are critical in providing protection against catastrophic flood events, and thus require continuous monitoring. Current levee inspection methods rely on limited information obtained by visual inspection, resulting in infrequent, localized, mostly qualitative and subjective assessments. This hampers the timely detection of problematic locations and the assessment of levee safety in general.

Trends in flood losses in Europe over the past 150 years.

Adverse consequences of floods change in time and are influenced by both natural and socio-economic trends and interactions. In Europe, previous studies of historical flood losses corrected for demographic and economic growth ('normalized') have been limited in temporal and spatial extent, leading to an incomplete representation of trends in losses over time. Here we utilize a gridded reconstruction of flood exposure in 37 European countries and a new database of damaging floods since 1870.