MUDSLIDES IN MONTEREY COUNTY, leaking levees in San Joaquin County, crumbling corners on San Francisco’s Great Highway — the wear and tear of atmospheric rivers hits cities and farmlands at the ground level.

Mud in motion is dangerous, and the constant battle to tame the threat is waged by public works crews. In good weather, they cap potholes and knock down loose rocks. In torrents, they brave rains to clear the roads. As the Bay Area prepares for more atmospheric rivers this winter, and for increasingly intense storms with climate change, civil engineers are studying ways to build stronger landscapes. But the price tag is high.

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Ruth Dusseault is an investigative reporter and multimedia journalist focused on environment and energy. Her position is supported by the California local news fellowship, a statewide initiative spearheaded by UC Berkeley aimed at supporting local news platforms. While a student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism (c’23), Ruth developed stories about the social and environmental circumstances of contaminated watersheds around the Great Lakes, Mississippi River and Florida’s Lake Okeechobee. Her thesis explored rights of nature laws in small rural communities. She is a former assistant professor and artist in residence at Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture, and uses photography, film and digital storytelling to report on the engineered systems that undergird modern life.