Pub Date : 2024-08-09DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ad6d7f
Ian Hughes, Ariel Macaspac Rosa Hernandez, James Glynn, William Hynes, Brian Ó Gallachóir
This paper aims to contribute to the current efforts to improve methodologies to find more ambitious and integrated strategies to jointly pursue the Paris climate target and other SDGs (van Vuuren et al. 2015, Hughes et al. 2021). It suggests a means of further expanding the underlying societal perspectives in scenarios modelling through a model of Deep Institutional Innovation for Sustainability and Human Development (DIIS) (Hughes et al. 2019), which aims to reframe the narrative from sociotechnical transition to deep global cultural transformation. The paper posits the need for capturing irreversible transformation change (Barbrook-Johnson et al., 2024) through a fundamental reimagining of the key social institutions that together comprise contemporary societies. To illustrate the application of the DIIS framing to pathway scenarios an indicative scenario is offered to indicate the radical global cultural changes required to move to pathways capable of bringing about greater sustainability and human flourishing.
{"title":"Conceptualising global cultural transformation – Developing deep institutional scenarios for whole of society change","authors":"Ian Hughes, Ariel Macaspac Rosa Hernandez, James Glynn, William Hynes, Brian Ó Gallachóir","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad6d7f","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad6d7f","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper aims to contribute to the current efforts to improve methodologies to find more ambitious and integrated strategies to jointly pursue the Paris climate target and other SDGs (van Vuuren et al. 2015, Hughes et al. 2021). It suggests a means of further expanding the underlying societal perspectives in scenarios modelling through a model of Deep Institutional Innovation for Sustainability and Human Development (DIIS) (Hughes et al. 2019), which aims to reframe the narrative from sociotechnical transition to deep global cultural transformation. The paper posits the need for capturing irreversible transformation change (Barbrook-Johnson et al., 2024) through a fundamental reimagining of the key social institutions that together comprise contemporary societies. To illustrate the application of the DIIS framing to pathway scenarios an indicative scenario is offered to indicate the radical global cultural changes required to move to pathways capable of bringing about greater sustainability and human flourishing.","PeriodicalId":507917,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141923418","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-09DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ad6d81
Dahui Liu, Junkan Li, Ian Sue Wing, Brian Blanton, Jamie Kruse, Linda Nozick, Meghan Millea
The eastern North Carolina Coastal Area Management Act (CAMA) region is one of the most hurricane-prone areas of the United States. Hurricanes incur substantial damage and economic losses because structures located near the coast tend to be high value as well as particularly exposed. To bolster disaster mitigation and community resilience, it is crucial to understand how hurricane hazards drive social and economic impacts. We integrate detailed hazard simulations, property data, and labor compensation estimates to comprehensively analyze hurricanes’ economic impacts. This study investigates the spatial distribution of probabilistic hurricane hazards, and concomitant property losses and labor impacts, pinpointing particularly hard hit areas. Relationships between capital and labor losses, social vulnerability, and asset values reveal the latter as the primary determinant of overall economic consequences.
{"title":"Unequal economic consequences of coastal hazards: Hurricane impacts on North Carolina","authors":"Dahui Liu, Junkan Li, Ian Sue Wing, Brian Blanton, Jamie Kruse, Linda Nozick, Meghan Millea","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad6d81","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad6d81","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The eastern North Carolina Coastal Area Management Act (CAMA) region is one of the most hurricane-prone areas of the United States. Hurricanes incur substantial damage and economic losses because structures located near the coast tend to be high value as well as particularly exposed. To bolster disaster mitigation and community resilience, it is crucial to understand how hurricane hazards drive social and economic impacts. We integrate detailed hazard simulations, property data, and labor compensation estimates to comprehensively analyze hurricanes’ economic impacts. This study investigates the spatial distribution of probabilistic hurricane hazards, and concomitant property losses and labor impacts, pinpointing particularly hard hit areas. Relationships between capital and labor losses, social vulnerability, and asset values reveal the latter as the primary determinant of overall economic consequences.","PeriodicalId":507917,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141925179","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-09DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ad6d80
Gustavo Facincani Dourado, J. Viers
Environmental water allocation in California is a complex legal process involving various government agencies and stakeholders. E-flow requirements can be based on annual runoff typologies called water year types (WYTs), which dictate water volume, timing, and duration. In this study, we examined hydropower licensing documents of the major water and power projects in the Central Sierra Nevada to catalog e-flow requirements by WYT. In this study case, we identify how e-flow mitigation and allocation strategies vary across and within different basins. Additionally, we assessed the impacts of climate change on hydrology, the frequency of WYTs identified, and the reliability and resilience of e-flows using future projections (2031-2060) of 10 Global Circulation Models (GCMs). We then propose a potential adaptation strategy using a 30-year moving percentiles approach to recalculate WYTs. We identified that in most cases WYTs are not adopted, as e-flows generally include little to no variation across years, and limited seasonal fluctuations. Eight WYT classifications systems were identified, and their WYT distributions statistically significantly changes across all GCMs, even though most GCMs indicate no statistically significant change in hydrology. Disparities in future impacts are observed among and within hydropower projects, with some river reaches showing negative impacts on reliability and resilience. The adaptation strategy can generally boost resilience and improve reliability, but simply updating existing WYT thresholds without flexible regulatory frameworks reconsidering WYTs and e-flows thresholds, may not yield substantial improvements. Challenges in managing e-flows in California within regulatory and hydroclimatic contexts are intricate due to the lack of standardized approaches, leading to inconsistencies and potential conflicts among stakeholders, that will likely be exacerbated by climate change. Thus, we emphasize that targeted, site-specific, and adaptive management strategies are crucial, besides the need for a harmonized and consistent approach to defining and applying WYT categories and methods and/or e-flow assessments.
{"title":"Reliability and resilience of environmental flows under uncertainty: reconsidering water year types and inconsistent flow requirements in California","authors":"Gustavo Facincani Dourado, J. Viers","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad6d80","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad6d80","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Environmental water allocation in California is a complex legal process involving various government agencies and stakeholders. E-flow requirements can be based on annual runoff typologies called water year types (WYTs), which dictate water volume, timing, and duration. In this study, we examined hydropower licensing documents of the major water and power projects in the Central Sierra Nevada to catalog e-flow requirements by WYT. In this study case, we identify how e-flow mitigation and allocation strategies vary across and within different basins. Additionally, we assessed the impacts of climate change on hydrology, the frequency of WYTs identified, and the reliability and resilience of e-flows using future projections (2031-2060) of 10 Global Circulation Models (GCMs). We then propose a potential adaptation strategy using a 30-year moving percentiles approach to recalculate WYTs. We identified that in most cases WYTs are not adopted, as e-flows generally include little to no variation across years, and limited seasonal fluctuations. Eight WYT classifications systems were identified, and their WYT distributions statistically significantly changes across all GCMs, even though most GCMs indicate no statistically significant change in hydrology. Disparities in future impacts are observed among and within hydropower projects, with some river reaches showing negative impacts on reliability and resilience. The adaptation strategy can generally boost resilience and improve reliability, but simply updating existing WYT thresholds without flexible regulatory frameworks reconsidering WYTs and e-flows thresholds, may not yield substantial improvements. Challenges in managing e-flows in California within regulatory and hydroclimatic contexts are intricate due to the lack of standardized approaches, leading to inconsistencies and potential conflicts among stakeholders, that will likely be exacerbated by climate change. Thus, we emphasize that targeted, site-specific, and adaptive management strategies are crucial, besides the need for a harmonized and consistent approach to defining and applying WYT categories and methods and/or e-flow assessments.","PeriodicalId":507917,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141924958","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-09DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ad6d82
V. Chandel, Udit Bhatia, A. Ganguly, Subimal Ghosh
Quantile Mapping (QM) based Bias Correction and Spatial Disaggregation (BCSD) have emerged as the de facto standard for rectifying bias and scale-mismatch in global climate models (GCMs) leading to novel climate science insights and new information for impacts and adaptation. Focusing on critical variables crucial for understanding climate dynamics in India and the United States, our evaluation challenges the premise of BCSD approach. We find that BCSD overcorrects GCM simulations to observed patterns while minimizing or even nullifying science-informed projections generated by GCMs. Furthermore, we show that BCSD incorrectly captures extremes and complex climate signals. Our evaluation in the context of the Walker Circulation suggests that this inability to adequately capture multivariate and spatial-temporal dependence patterns may at least partially explain the challenges with BCSD.
{"title":"State-of-the-art bias correction of climate models misrepresent climate science and misinform adaptation","authors":"V. Chandel, Udit Bhatia, A. Ganguly, Subimal Ghosh","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad6d82","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad6d82","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Quantile Mapping (QM) based Bias Correction and Spatial Disaggregation (BCSD) have emerged as the de facto standard for rectifying bias and scale-mismatch in global climate models (GCMs) leading to novel climate science insights and new information for impacts and adaptation. Focusing on critical variables crucial for understanding climate dynamics in India and the United States, our evaluation challenges the premise of BCSD approach. We find that BCSD overcorrects GCM simulations to observed patterns while minimizing or even nullifying science-informed projections generated by GCMs. Furthermore, we show that BCSD incorrectly captures extremes and complex climate signals. Our evaluation in the context of the Walker Circulation suggests that this inability to adequately capture multivariate and spatial-temporal dependence patterns may at least partially explain the challenges with BCSD.","PeriodicalId":507917,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141922719","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-09DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ad6d83
Kati Koponen, Johanna Braun, Selene Cobo Gutierrez, Alice Evatt, lars Golmen, Gonzalo Guillén-Gosálbez, L. Hamelin, Stuart Jenkins, T. Koljonen, Chieh-Yu Lee, Fabian Levihn, Allanah J. Paul, G. Perlaviciute, Mark Preston Aragonès, David M. Reiner, Lassi Similä, L. Steg, Wijnand Stoefs, Nixon Sunny, C. Werner
{"title":"Responsible carbon dioxide removals and the EU’s 2040 climate target","authors":"Kati Koponen, Johanna Braun, Selene Cobo Gutierrez, Alice Evatt, lars Golmen, Gonzalo Guillén-Gosálbez, L. Hamelin, Stuart Jenkins, T. Koljonen, Chieh-Yu Lee, Fabian Levihn, Allanah J. Paul, G. Perlaviciute, Mark Preston Aragonès, David M. Reiner, Lassi Similä, L. Steg, Wijnand Stoefs, Nixon Sunny, C. Werner","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad6d83","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad6d83","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 <jats:p/>","PeriodicalId":507917,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141921559","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Winter extreme cold events (ECEs) pose significant economic and health risks, particularly when cold is combined with humidity. Although global warming has led to a decline in overall ECE occurrences, the changes in humid ECEs remain uncertain. This study uses dry and wet-bulb temperatures to categorize dry and humid ECEs across China and analyzes the proportion of humid ECEs, and the underlying factors influencing this phenomenon. In contrast to the decreasing trend of winter relative humidity (RH), our findings show an increase in RH during ECEs. This observation suggests a shift toward more humid conditions during these events. Further analysis shows an increasing percentage of humid ECEs, especially in Xinjiang, where the occurrence of dry ECEs is decreasing. Classifying ECEs into temperature- or humidity-dominated types reveals a significant increase in humidity-dominated humid ECEs, which is driven mainly by specific humidity changes, not temperature changes. These findings highlight the urgent need for adaptation strategies for more humid ECEs in a warming climate.
{"title":"The transition to humid extreme cold events in winter during the past six decades over China","authors":"Yongli He, Yangrui Peng, Zhanbo Wang, Shanshan Wang, Xiaodan Guan","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad6cea","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad6cea","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Winter extreme cold events (ECEs) pose significant economic and health risks, particularly when cold is combined with humidity. Although global warming has led to a decline in overall ECE occurrences, the changes in humid ECEs remain uncertain. This study uses dry and wet-bulb temperatures to categorize dry and humid ECEs across China and analyzes the proportion of humid ECEs, and the underlying factors influencing this phenomenon. In contrast to the decreasing trend of winter relative humidity (RH), our findings show an increase in RH during ECEs. This observation suggests a shift toward more humid conditions during these events. Further analysis shows an increasing percentage of humid ECEs, especially in Xinjiang, where the occurrence of dry ECEs is decreasing. Classifying ECEs into temperature- or humidity-dominated types reveals a significant increase in humidity-dominated humid ECEs, which is driven mainly by specific humidity changes, not temperature changes. These findings highlight the urgent need for adaptation strategies for more humid ECEs in a warming climate.","PeriodicalId":507917,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141929110","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-08DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ad6ced
V. Mayta, Qiao‐Jun Lin, A. Adames-corraliza, Erika Chavez-Mayta
We examine the relationship between convectively coupled waves (CCWs), the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), and extreme precipitation over the western coast of South America during Coastal El Niño (COEN) events for the period spanning 1980 to 2023. Two types of COEN can be distinguished: (i) that occur in association with large-scale ENSO (e.g., 1982/83, 1997/98), and (ii) more ``local" COEN--when anomalous sea surface temperature (SST) take place over the far-eastern equatorial Pacific only (e.g., 2017, 2023). During both types of COEN events, increased rainfall along the western coast of South America is associated with intense Kelvin wave activity. In addition, westward inertio-gravity waves (WIGs), Rossby waves, and the MJO exhibit increased activity during local COEN events. During the recent extreme Coastal El Niño 2017 and 2023, heavy rainfall occurred alongside significant WIGs, Kelvin, Rossby, and MJO events with unprecedented amplitudes propagating along western South America. Our results suggest that the probability of extreme precipitation under Coastal ENSO in western South America is strongly modulated by wave activity.
{"title":"Impact of tropical waves on extreme rainfall events during coastal El Niño","authors":"V. Mayta, Qiao‐Jun Lin, A. Adames-corraliza, Erika Chavez-Mayta","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad6ced","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad6ced","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 We examine the relationship between convectively coupled waves (CCWs), the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), and extreme precipitation over the western coast of South America during Coastal El Niño (COEN) events for the period spanning 1980 to 2023. Two types of COEN can be distinguished: (i) that occur in association with large-scale ENSO (e.g., 1982/83, 1997/98), and (ii) more ``local\" COEN--when anomalous sea surface temperature (SST) take place over the far-eastern equatorial Pacific only (e.g., 2017, 2023). During both types of COEN events, increased rainfall along the western coast of South America is associated with intense Kelvin wave activity. In addition, westward inertio-gravity waves (WIGs), Rossby waves, and the MJO exhibit increased activity during local COEN events. During the recent extreme Coastal El Niño 2017 and 2023, heavy rainfall occurred alongside significant WIGs, Kelvin, Rossby, and MJO events with unprecedented amplitudes propagating along western South America. Our results suggest that the probability of extreme precipitation under Coastal ENSO in western South America is strongly modulated by wave activity.","PeriodicalId":507917,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141929354","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-08DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ad6ceb
Daniel Broman, Nathalie Voisin, S. Kao, Alisha Fernandez, Ganesh R Ghimire
Climate change impacts on watersheds can potentially exacerbate water scarcity issues where water serves multiple purposes, including hydropower. The long-term management of water and energy resources is still mostly approached in a siloed manner at different basins or watersheds, failing to consider the potential impacts that may concurrently affect many regions at once. There is a need for a large-scale hydropower modeling framework that can examine climate impacts across ajoining river basins and balancing authorities (BAs) and provide an assessment at regional to national scales. Expanding from our prior assessment only for the U.S. federal hydropower plants, we enhance and extent two regional hydropower models to cover over 85% of the total hydropower nameplate capacity and present the first contiguous U.S. (CONUS)-wide assessment of future hydropower production under CMIP6’s high-end SSP5-8.5 emission scenario using an uncertainty-aware multi-model ensemble approach. We present regional hydropower projections, using both BA regions and U,S. hydrologic Subregions (HUC4s) to consistently inform the energy and water communities for two future periods – the near-term (2020–2039) and the mid-term (2040–2059) relative to a historical baseline period (1980–2019). We find that the median projected changes in annual hydropower generation are typically positive – approximately 5% in the near-term, and 10% in the mid-term. However, since the risk of regional droughts is also projected to increase, the study suggests the potential for severe hydropower reductions that could be overlooked due to the increase in ensemble median hydropower generation. The assessment can inform regional utilities and power system operators in developing drought scenarios in support of designing long-term duration storage and evaluating the reliability of their energy infrastructure under inter-annual and seasonal variability in hydropower, with consistent projections at relevant scale for water managers to evaluate water-energy tradeoffs.
{"title":"Multi-scale impacts of climate change on hydropower for long-term water-energy planning in the contiguous United States","authors":"Daniel Broman, Nathalie Voisin, S. Kao, Alisha Fernandez, Ganesh R Ghimire","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad6ceb","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad6ceb","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Climate change impacts on watersheds can potentially exacerbate water scarcity issues where water serves multiple purposes, including hydropower. The long-term management of water and energy resources is still mostly approached in a siloed manner at different basins or watersheds, failing to consider the potential impacts that may concurrently affect many regions at once. There is a need for a large-scale hydropower modeling framework that can examine climate impacts across ajoining river basins and balancing authorities (BAs) and provide an assessment at regional to national scales. Expanding from our prior assessment only for the U.S. federal hydropower plants, we enhance and extent two regional hydropower models to cover over 85% of the total hydropower nameplate capacity and present the first contiguous U.S. (CONUS)-wide assessment of future hydropower production under CMIP6’s high-end SSP5-8.5 emission scenario using an uncertainty-aware multi-model ensemble approach. We present regional hydropower projections, using both BA regions and U,S. hydrologic Subregions (HUC4s) to consistently inform the energy and water communities for two future periods – the near-term (2020–2039) and the mid-term (2040–2059) relative to a historical baseline period (1980–2019). We find that the median projected changes in annual hydropower generation are typically positive – approximately 5% in the near-term, and 10% in the mid-term. However, since the risk of regional droughts is also projected to increase, the study suggests the potential for severe hydropower reductions that could be overlooked due to the increase in ensemble median hydropower generation. The assessment can inform regional utilities and power system operators in developing drought scenarios in support of designing long-term duration storage and evaluating the reliability of their energy infrastructure under inter-annual and seasonal variability in hydropower, with consistent projections at relevant scale for water managers to evaluate water-energy tradeoffs.","PeriodicalId":507917,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141927913","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-08DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ad6cec
Caitlyn Reilley, Christopher J. Dunn, Mindy S. Crandall, Jeffrey D. Kline
Quantitative wildfire risk assessments increasingly are used to prioritize areas for investments in wildfire risk mitigation actions. However, current assessments of wildfire risk derived from fire models built primarily on biophysical data do not account for socioeconomic contexts that influence community vulnerability to wildfire. Research indicates that despite accounting for only a small proportion of high wildfire hazard areas, communities with fewer socioeconomic resources to devote to wildfire prevention and response may experience outsized exposure and impacts. We examined the distribution of simulated wildfire risk versus observed wildfire experience relative to social vulnerability across communities in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States (U.S.). Using three decades of wildfire occurrence data, we investigated whether socially vulnerable communities were more likely to experience ignitions, fires that escaped initial attack (hereafter “escaped fires”) (>121 hectares), and large fires (>404 hectares), reasoning that each may reveal key insights into the effectiveness of current wildfire risk mitigation and response efforts. We found that communities located in areas with higher wildfire risk or hazard tended to have lower social vulnerability, but that across landscapes east of the Cascade Range, communities with higher social vulnerability were more likely to be exposed to ignitions, escaped fires, and large fires. Our results draw into question whether the current reliance on biophysical data in wildfire risk assessments, absent consideration of community socioeconomic conditions, may perpetuate social inequities by leading to over-investment in well-resourced communities and under-investment in socially vulnerable communities subject to disproportionate wildfire exposure.
{"title":"Socially vulnerable U.S. Pacific Northwest communities are more likely to experience wildfires","authors":"Caitlyn Reilley, Christopher J. Dunn, Mindy S. Crandall, Jeffrey D. Kline","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad6cec","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad6cec","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Quantitative wildfire risk assessments increasingly are used to prioritize areas for investments in wildfire risk mitigation actions. However, current assessments of wildfire risk derived from fire models built primarily on biophysical data do not account for socioeconomic contexts that influence community vulnerability to wildfire. Research indicates that despite accounting for only a small proportion of high wildfire hazard areas, communities with fewer socioeconomic resources to devote to wildfire prevention and response may experience outsized exposure and impacts. We examined the distribution of simulated wildfire risk versus observed wildfire experience relative to social vulnerability across communities in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States (U.S.). Using three decades of wildfire occurrence data, we investigated whether socially vulnerable communities were more likely to experience ignitions, fires that escaped initial attack (hereafter “escaped fires”) (>121 hectares), and large fires (>404 hectares), reasoning that each may reveal key insights into the effectiveness of current wildfire risk mitigation and response efforts. We found that communities located in areas with higher wildfire risk or hazard tended to have lower social vulnerability, but that across landscapes east of the Cascade Range, communities with higher social vulnerability were more likely to be exposed to ignitions, escaped fires, and large fires. Our results draw into question whether the current reliance on biophysical data in wildfire risk assessments, absent consideration of community socioeconomic conditions, may perpetuate social inequities by leading to over-investment in well-resourced communities and under-investment in socially vulnerable communities subject to disproportionate wildfire exposure.","PeriodicalId":507917,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141928657","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-07-26DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ad67f3
Pedro Jesse Jesse Martin, Yingxi Wen, Alexis Woods, Tresor Fayida, Shakira R. Hobbs
The pressing issue of pesticide exposure disproportionately affecting marginalized communities underscores the immediate necessity to tackle pesticide drift from nearby agricultural areas, especially aggravated by the impacts of climate change. Effective measures including stricter regulations, enhanced monitoring, alternative agricultural practices, and community engagement are essential to mitigate environmental injustices and safeguard community health. This article delves into the intricate relationship between pesticide transport, groundwater vulnerability, and environmental justice within the context of climate change. Employing a geospatial analytical hierarchy overlay model, we comprehensively assess the impact of pesticide transport on groundwater vulnerability while scrutinizing climate change and associated environmental justice concerns. Groundwater vulnerability across the basin varies, with 18% classified as very low, 23% as low, 27% as prone, and 20% and 12% as high and very high, respectively, concentrated mainly in the mid-eastern and southern regions due to population density and biodiversity. The research integrates a robust analytical detection technique, with a focus on glyphosate and its metabolites concentrations, to validate and refine spatial models. By engaging with communities, this study enhances understanding of environmental complexities, offering insights for sustainable environmental management.
{"title":"Exploring pesticide transport, groundwater, and environmental justice in a changing climate: A community engaged research approach","authors":"Pedro Jesse Jesse Martin, Yingxi Wen, Alexis Woods, Tresor Fayida, Shakira R. Hobbs","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad67f3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad67f3","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The pressing issue of pesticide exposure disproportionately affecting marginalized communities underscores the immediate necessity to tackle pesticide drift from nearby agricultural areas, especially aggravated by the impacts of climate change. Effective measures including stricter regulations, enhanced monitoring, alternative agricultural practices, and community engagement are essential to mitigate environmental injustices and safeguard community health. This article delves into the intricate relationship between pesticide transport, groundwater vulnerability, and environmental justice within the context of climate change. Employing a geospatial analytical hierarchy overlay model, we comprehensively assess the impact of pesticide transport on groundwater vulnerability while scrutinizing climate change and associated environmental justice concerns. Groundwater vulnerability across the basin varies, with 18% classified as very low, 23% as low, 27% as prone, and 20% and 12% as high and very high, respectively, concentrated mainly in the mid-eastern and southern regions due to population density and biodiversity. The research integrates a robust analytical detection technique, with a focus on glyphosate and its metabolites concentrations, to validate and refine spatial models. By engaging with communities, this study enhances understanding of environmental complexities, offering insights for sustainable environmental management.","PeriodicalId":507917,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141802178","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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