Sarah Lindbergh

My interests lie in climate/weather-related disaster risk management. I am currently researching infrastructure network vulnerability to climate threats with an emphasis on organizational scales and climate adaptation governance. My goal is to address misalignments between landscape-scale hazard processes, network-scale exposure of stakeholders and infrastructure, and climate adaptation policies. California’s transportation energy sector and the U.S. national airspace system are the infrastructures systems I apply my research to. I am enthusiastic about mixed methods and the inherent interdisciplinarity of environmental problems. Risk management and governance, environmental modelling, stakeholder assessment, geospatial analysis, and network science are the main tools I focus on to tackle these problems.

Bachelor in Geography – University of Montpellier III, France
Master in Territories, Society, Planning & Development – (professional) Major in Environmental Disaster Risk Management – University of Montpellier III, France

I am a geographer specialized in disaster risk management and climate adaptation. I have experience with flooding, landslide, and more recently with wildfire and lighting-strike hazards. During my masters I researched the evolution and impact of flash floods in ephemeral rivers in Barcelona’s coastal suburbs (Spain) and landslide risk mapping strategies in São Paulo favelas (Brazil). I was hired as a government employee to found Brazil’s first early warning center for weather-related disasters, where I later worked for four years monitoring meteorological adverse events and releasing early warning landslides and flooding alerts to first responders. Before starting my PhD I worked as a consultant for the Interamerica Development Bank in a pilot project for Santa Catarina State Planning Dpt. for monitoring state expenditure on climate adaption. My underlying interest in studying disaster risk is that they represent cross-sections of society’s vulnerabilities and are often opportunities to deepen our understanding of the natural landscape as a habitat and alleviate collective-action problems.

Geographic Information Science – C188 – UC Berkeley (Fall 2020)

Environmental Sciences for Sustainable Development – LA12 – UC Berkeley (Fall 2016)

Guest lecturer at University of São Paulo-USP, Lorena, Brazil. Department of Environmental Engineering (Oct. 2015)

Guest lecturer at the College of Architecture and Urbanism- FAU, São Paulo, Brazil. Seminar Habitat Without Borders (Aug. 2011)

UC Institute of Transportation Studies Grant (Fall 2020 – Spring 2021)
Best student paper under Climate Change Topic – Integrated Communications Navigation Systems 2019 Conference (April, 2019)
Selected for the 2018 RDG Planning & Design Co. Residency Challenge on Climate Resilience, Des Moines -IA.
College of Environmental Design CIRCUS award for LAEP PhD student presentation (2017)
Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development Grant (2012-2016)

Upcoming : Lindbergh, S., and Radke, J. 2021. Insights from the contemporary transportation energy system for critical infrastructure resilience. Energy Research and Social Science

Upcoming: Lindbergh, S., and Radke, J. 2020. Rethinking infrastructure network criticality for climate resilience: inputs from complexity sciences and disaster risk reduction. Disaster Risk Reduction Springer Series

He, Y., Lindbergh, S., Graves, C.,Rakas, J. 2020. Airport Exposure to Lightning Strike Hazard in Contiguous U.S. Risk Analysis.

Y. Ju, S. Lindbergh, Y. He, J.D. Radke. 2019, Climate-related uncertainties in urban exposure to sea level rise and storm surge flooding: a multi-temporal and multi-scenario analysis in the San Francisco Bay Area between 2000 and 2100 and its implications for stakeholders. Cities Journal

He, Y.; Lindbergh, S.; Rakas, J.; Graves, C. Characterizing lightning-strike hazard to airport facilities: a case study of Baltimore Washington International Airport. Integrated Communications Navigation Systems 2019 Conference – April 9-11 (Washington-DC).

Nelson, A., Lindbergh, S., Stephenson, L., Halpern, J., Arroyo, F. A., Espinet, X., & González, M. C. (2019). Coupling Natural Hazard Estimates with Road Network Analysis to Assess Vulnerability and Risk: Case Study of Freetown. Building Disruption Simulations in Hydrometeorological Risk Areas in Data-Scarce Sierra Leone. Transportation Research Record.

Radke, J.D, G.S. Biging, K. Roberts, M. Schmidt-Poolman, H. Foster, E. Roe, Y. Ju, S. Lindbergh, T. Beach, L. Maier, Y. He, M. Ashenfarb, P. Norton, M. Wray, A. Alruheili, S. Yi, R. Rau, J. Collins, D. Radke, M. Coufal, S. Marx, A. Gohar, D. Moanga, V. Ulyashin, A. Dalal. (University of California, Berkeley) 2018. Assessing Extreme Weather-Related Vulnerability and Identifying Resilience Options for California’s Interdependent Transportation Fuel Sector. California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment, California Energy Commission. Publication Number: CCCA4-CEC-2018-012.

M.C. Llasat, Llasat-Botija, M., Rodriguez, A., Lindbergh, S. 2010. Flash floods in Catalonia: a recurrent situation. Advances in Geosciences Journal, v. 26, p. 105-111. 10.5194/adgeo-26-105-2010