Editorial Policy

Live Earth Watch publishes live hazard data, news about notable natural events and guides that explain the terms in that data. These rules apply to everything we publish.

Official sources first

Numbers, definitions and alert names come from the agency responsible for them: USGS for earthquakes and volcanoes, the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center for weather, fire agencies for wildfires, EPA and state air agencies for air quality. We name the source in the text and link to it. When a news outlet is the only source for a detail such as damage or evacuations, we attribute it to that outlet.

No predictions and no advice of our own

We do not forecast weather, predict earthquakes or eruptions, or say that an area is safe. Safety information on our pages is limited to what officials have said, with attribution. We do not present our pages as warnings.

Accuracy and updates

Data about natural events changes fast. Live pages update automatically; articles show when they were published and updated. When an agency revises a figure we reported, we update the article. Mistakes are fixed under our corrections policy.

How articles are written

Articles are researched from official documents and news reports and are published under the name Live Earth Watch Editors. We use software tools, including AI-assisted drafting, to help prepare some articles; editors check facts against the cited sources. We never invent quotes, witnesses or measurements, and we do not claim to have experienced events ourselves.

Independence

No agency, company or advertiser can pay to change what our pages show. See ownership and funding.