In the fall of 2024, Hurricane Helene made landfall in the southeastern U.S., later downgrading to a tropical storm causing strong winds, flooding and major destruction throughout Appalachia. Now, researchers and public health officials in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology Letters provide a debrief about how their mapping of key locations, including private wells, septic systems and service facilities, helped distribute disaster relief in North Carolina — a part of Appalachia hit particularly hard by the hurricane.

Scientists from the Marine Biological Association and the University of Plymouth have revisited turn-of-the-century forecasts about the many and varied threats they thought were likely to face the world’s shorelines in 2025. Their new study highlights that many of their forecasts were correct, either in whole or in part, while others haven’t had the impacts that were envisaged at the time. They have also charted some of the other threats to have emerged and/or grown in significance since their original work, with notable examples including global plastic pollution, ocean acidification, extreme storms and weather, and light and noise pollution.