In wake of hurricane, microbial ecosystem remarkably resilient

Findings offer hope for coastal regions even as climate change intensifies storm risk

Peer-Reviewed Publication

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: PHOTOS TAKEN BEFORE AND AFTER THE HURRICANE DEMONSTRATE THE RESILIENCE OF THE MICROBIAL MATS. view more 

CREDIT: JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

After sustaining seemingly catastrophic hurricane damage, a primordial groundcover vital to sustaining a multitude of coastal lifeforms bounced back to life in a matter of months.

The finding, co-led by a Johns Hopkins University geochemist and published today in Science Advances, offers rare optimism for the fate of one of Earth’s most critical ecosystems as climate change alters the global pattern of intense storms.

“The good news is that in these types of environments, there are these mechanisms that can play an important role in stabilizing the ecosystem because they recover so quickly,” said Maya Gomes, a Johns Hopkins assistant professor of Earth & Planetary Sciences. “What we saw is that they just started growing again and that means that as we continue to have more hurricanes because of climate change these ecosystems will be relatively resilient.”

The team, co-led by California Institute of Technology and University of Colorado, Boulder, researchers, had been studying Little Ambergris Cay, an uninhabited island in Turks and Caicos, in particular the island’s microbial mats. Microbial mats are a squishy, spongey ecosystems that for eons have sustained a diverse array of life from the microscopic organisms that that make a home in the upper oxygenated layers to the mangroves it helps root and stabilize, which in turn provide habitats for even more species. Mats can be found all over the world in wildly different environments, but the variety this team studied are commonly found in tropical, saltwater-oriented places, exactly the coastal locations most vulnerable to severe storms.

In September 2017, the eyewall of Category 5 Hurricane Irma directly hit the island the team had been working on.

“Once we learned everyone was OK, we were uniquely well-poised to investigate how the mat communities responded to such a catastrophic disturbance,” Gomes said.

CAPTION

For eons microbial mats have hosted a diverse array of life from the microscopic organisms vital to the survival of the ecosystem.

CREDIT

Johns Hopkins University

The tropical cyclone’s impact was immediately devastating, choking the mats with a blanket of sandy sediment that decimated new growth. However, as the team checked on the site first in March 2018, then again in July 2018 and June 2019, they were excited to see the mats regrowing, with new mats visibly sprouting from the sand layer in as little as 10 months.

New mat growth proceeded rapidly and suggested that storm perturbation may facilitate these ecosystems adapting to changing sea levels.

“For islands and tropical locations with this type of geochemistry, Florida Keys would be one in the United States, this is sort of good news in that we think that the mangrove ecosystem as well as the microbial maps are pretty well stabilized and resilient,” said lead author Usha F. Lingappa, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California Berkeley.

The team also included: Co-senior author Woodward W. Fischer., Nathaniel T. Stein, Kyle S. Metcalfe, Theodore M. Present, Victoria J. Orphan and John P. Grotzinger, all of California Institute of Technology’s Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences; Andrew H. Knoll of Harvard University; and co-senior author Elizabeth J. Trower of the University of Colorado Boulder.

The work was supported by: the Agouron Institute, NASA Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Science grant 80NSSC18K0278, and the NSF GRFP.

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JOURNAL

Science Advances

Animals may evolve faster than previously thought

Wild animals may be able to evolve more rapidly than scientists thought

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND

A higher genetic contribution to differences in individual survival and reproduction means animal species can adapt more rapidly. This “fuel” of evolution may exist in wild animal populations at two to four times the rate previously thought, the study suggests, potentially aiding species’ odds of survival. The study, published in the journal Science, was led out of Australian National University by Dr Timothée Bonnet. Dr Anna Santure, of University of Auckland – Waipapa Taumata Rau, was among the co-authors. New statistical methods were applied to data relating to 19 populations of wild animals around the world, including superb fairy-wrens in Australia, spotted hyenas in Tanzania, song sparrows in Canada and red deer in Scotland. The data pointed to the contribution of genes versus environment in the ability of species to survive and reproduce. The research showed that the majority of the 19 wild animal populations were able to adapt rapidly. “Hihi are one of the unluckier species, with a lower capacity to adapt,” says Dr Santure. “However, this research suggests that many species can adapt quickly, provided they’re not totally outpaced by habitat loss and climate change.” “For hihi, the analysis matches previous work that we’ve done suggesting a low capacity to adapt, but they can be buffered from extinction by conservation management actions such as provisioning food and parasite and predator control.” The individual studies contributing to the research had been running for an average of nearly 30 years each, generating a remarkable resource of detailed records on wild animal populations. For hihi, two datasets, from populations on Tiritiri Matangi island and at Zealandia Sanctuary, represented a combined 31 years and 90,000 hours of fieldwork from dedicated conservation staff, volunteers and students. The populations have been intensively studied since they were re-established, with breeding and survival data available for every bird. Evolution can proceed extremely slowly, but changes can also occur within just a few years and are now more easily detected by scientists after advances in genetics and statistics. Species introduced to Aotearoa New Zealand have provided examples of rapid adaptation to conditions very different than their native habitats. For example, weasels are generally larger than the European populations they came from. In addition, ‘artificial’ (human-directed) selection causes considerable and rapid change in many domesticated and farmed species of animals. This link to the research will become live once the paper is published on Friday: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abk0853

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JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.abk0853 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Genetic variance in fitness indicates rapid contemporary adaptive evolution in wild animals

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

26-May-2022

 Seeing how odor is processed in the brain

New study shows odor unpleasantness processed more quickly than perceived quality

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO

 

IMAGE: DURING THE EEG MEASUREMENT, PARTICIPANTS WERE ASKED TO RATE THE PLEASANTNESS OF THE ODORS. THEY THEN EVALUATED THE ODORS USING DESCRIPTIONS RANGING FROM CITRUS AND TEA LEAVES, TO MOTHBALLS AND WET DOG. view more 

CREDIT: MUGIHIKO KATO

A specially created odor delivery device, along with machine learning-based analysis of scalp-recorded electroencephalogram, has enabled researchers at the University of Tokyo to see when and where odors are processed in the brain. The study found that odor information in the brain is unrelated to perception during the early stages of being processed, but when perception later occurred, unpleasant odors were processed more quickly than pleasant odors. Problems with odor perception can be an early symptom of neurodegenerative diseases, so uncovering more of the neural bases of odor perception could help towards better understanding of those diseases in future.

 

Does the smell of a warm cup of coffee help you start your day the right way? Or can you not stand the strong, heady stuff? According to new research, how quickly your brain processes the smell of your morning beverage might depend on whether you think that odor is pleasant or not.

 

A team at the University of Tokyo created a special device that can deliver 10 diverse odors in a way that is accurate and timely. The odors were administered to participants who rated their pleasantness while wearing noninvasive scalp-recorded electroencephalogram (EEG) caps, which record signals inside the brain. The team was then able to process the EEG data using machine learning-based computer analysis, to see when and where the range of odors was processed in the brain with high temporal resolution for the first time.

 

“We were surprised that we could detect signals from presented odors from very early EEG responses, as quickly as 100 milliseconds after odor onset, suggesting that representation of odor information in the brain occurs rapidly,” said doctoral student Mugihiko Kato from the Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the University of Tokyo.

 

Detection of odor by the brain occurred before the odor was consciously perceived by the participant, which didn’t happen until several hundred milliseconds later. “Our study showed that different aspects of perception, in particular odor pleasantness, unpleasantness and quality, emerged through different spatial and temporal cortical processing,” said Kato.

 

“The representation of unpleasantness in the brain emerged earlier than pleasantness and perceived quality,” said Project Associate Professor Masako Okamoto, also from the Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences. When unpleasant odors (such as rotten and rancid smells) were administered, participants’ brains could differentiate them from neutral or pleasant odors as early as 300 milliseconds after onset. However, representation of pleasant odors (such as floral and fruity smells) in the brain didn’t occur until 500 milliseconds onwards, around the same time as when the quality of the odor was also represented. From 600-850 milliseconds after odor onset, significant areas of the brain involved in emotional, semantic (language) and memory processing then became most involved.

 

The earlier perception of unpleasant odors may be an early warning system against potential dangers. “The way each sensory system recruits the central nervous system differs across the sensory modalities (smell, light, sound, taste, pressure and temperature). Elucidating when and where in the brain olfactory (smell) perception emerges helps us to understand how the olfactory system works,” said Okamoto. “We also feel that our study has broader methodological implications. For example, it was not known that scalp-recorded EEG would allow us to assess representation of odors from time periods as early as 100 milliseconds.”

 

This high temporal resolution imaging of how our brains process odors may be a stepping stone towards better understanding the mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases in future, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, in which a dysfunction in the sense of smell is an early warning sign. The team is interested in exploring several further research avenues. “In our daily life, odors are perceived along with other sensory information like vision, and each sense influences the perception of the other,” said Kato. “Although we presented olfactory stimuli alone in the current study, we think that analyzing brain activity under more natural conditions, such as presenting odors with a movie, is important.” Perhaps Smell-O-Vision might yet make a comeback?

CAPTION

EEG readings enabled the research team to record which parts of the brain processed the odors.

CREDIT

Mugihiko Kato

Journal article

Mugihiko Kato, Toshiki Okumura, Yasuhiro Tsubo, Junya Honda, Masashi Sugiyama, Kazushige Touhara, Masako Okamoto “Spatiotemporal dynamics of odor representations in the human brain revealed by EEG decoding”. PNAS. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.211496611

Funding

This work was supported by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas from Japan Society for the Promotion of Science to M.O. (18H04998 and 21H05808) and JST-Mirai program to K.T. (JPMJMI17DC and JPMJMI19D1).

 

Useful Links

Link to Lab: https://www.a.u-tokyo.ac.jp/english/  

About the University of Tokyo
The University of Tokyo is Japan's leading university and one of the world's top research universities. The vast research output of some 6,000 researchers is published in the world's top journals across the arts and sciences. Our vibrant student body of around 15,000 undergraduate and 15,000 graduate students includes over 4,000 international students. Find out more at www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/ or follow us on Twitter at @UTokyo_News_en.

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.211496611 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Spatiotemporal dynamics of odor representations in the human brain revealed by EEG decoding

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

18-May-2022

Joint research revealed the importance of anthropogenic vapors on haze pollution over Hong Kong and Mainland China's megacities

Peer-Reviewed Publication

HONG KONG UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

 

IMAGE: PROF. WANG ZHE (THIRD RIGHT) AND THE CO-RESEARCHERS AT THE SUPERSITE AIR QUALITY MONITORING STATION OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION DEPARTMENT, WHERE THEY CONDUCTED THE STUDY. TAKEN BEFORE THE PANDEMIC. view more 

CREDIT: HKUST

Prof. WANG Zhe, Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)’s Division of Environment and Sustainability, has collaborated with international scientists and revealed the significant roles of anthropogenic low-volatility organic vapors on the secondary organic aerosols (SOA) formation in four megacities in China, providing new insights for effectively mitigating the urban air pollution issues.

Air pollution kills around 7 million people worldwide each year, and is the largest environmental health risk.  Air pollutants could be directely emitted from various emission sources, or formed via complex atmospheric reactions of precusors both from natural (e.g. plants) and anthropogenic sources (e.g. traffic, coal combustion, etc).  The pollution measures are effective in controlling primary pollutants, but it has been very challenging to mitigate the secondary pollutants, because of the large knowledge gaps in the underlying formation mechanisms.

SOA contributes a significant fraction to the particulate haze pollution in many urbanized regions, with profound impacts on climate and human health. The knowledge gaps in the sources and relevant chemical processes of SOA formation are the bottleneck for implementing effective measures to mitigate haze pollution.  This joint research confirmed the dominant roles of anthropogenic low-volatility organic vapors as critical intermediates connecting the oxidation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to SOA and haze pollution in urban environments.  

The HKUST researchers conducted a comprehensive field study in Hong Kong, and duirng the same period, coordinated studies were concurrently carried out in three other Chinese megacities by mainland and international researchers in Beijing, Nanjing, and Shanghai.  For the first time, the joint research characterized plenty of highly reactive oxygenated organic molecules (OOMs) in different urban environments, and developed a novel classification framework to trace the measured OOMs and formed SOA to different precursors.

The results showed that oxidation of anthropogenic VOCs dominates OOMs formation in the urban atmosphere, with approximately 40% contribution from aromatics and another 40% contribution from aliphatic hydrocarbons, a previously under-accounted class of VOCs.  The study unveiled that multi-step oxidation and auto-oxidation processes play key roles in OOMs formation, and nitrogen oxides (NOx) significantly affect the VOCs oxidation process, producing a considerable fraction of nitrogen-containing organic compounds.  The irreversible condensation of these anthropogenic OOMs is a dominant source of SOA, even under severe haze conditions.

The study showed a strong homogeneity in the distribution and formation pathways of OOMs across China's three most urbanized regions, where more than 800 million people live and suffer from air pollution. It implies a possibility of solving air pollution issues with a uniform and effective mitigation strategy across these highly populated city clusters.

The study findings were recently published in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience.  Prof. WANG Zhe from ENVR of HKUST is one of the co-first authors of the work. The other co-first authors include Prof. NIE Wei and Prof. YAN Chao from Nanjing University and Prof. HUANG Dandan from Shanghai Academy of Environmental Sciences (a former Ph.D. graduate from HKUST).  Other contributing authors included scientists from the US, Finland, Switzerland, Macau, Hong Kong, and mainland China. The study received funding support from the Hong Kong Research Grants Council and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

CAPTION

The team used state-of-the-art mass spectrometers to conduct comprehensive atmospheric field study.

CREDIT

HKUST

CAPTION

The figure shows a strong homogeneity in the distribution and formation pathways of OOMs across China's megacities including Hong Kong, Beijing, Nanjing, and Shanghai.

CREDIT

HKUST

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JOURNAL

Nature Geoscience

DOI

10.1038/s41561-022-00922-5 

ARTICLE TITLE

Secondary organic aerosol formed by condensing anthropogenic vapours over China’s megacities

CRITICAL RACE THEORY

Washington state minorities die at younger ages from opioids than whites

Peer-Reviewed Publication

WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY

SPOKANE, Wash. – While opioid-use cuts across socio-economic boundaries, racial and ethnic minorities in Washington state are more likely to suffer fatal overdoses earlier in their lives than non-Hispanic white residents, according to a recent study.

Using data from the state’s Department of Health, Washington State University researchers analyzed more than 5,200 records of opioid-associated deaths from 2011 to 2018. They found that racial and ethnic minorities died from opioid overdose on average from ages 33 to 44. For non-Hispanic whites, the average age of death was 45.

“We found that racial and ethnic minorities in our state, including American Indians, Alaska Natives, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, all died at a younger age as a result of an opioid overdose compared to whites,” said Solmaz Amiri, a researcher with WSU’s Institute for Research and Education to Advance Community Health, or IREACH, and lead author on the study published in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment.

For some minorities, such as Hispanics, the gap in years of potential life lost compared to whites was 6 years while for others, such as Blacks, and American Indian and Alaska Natives, it was 1-3 years. Even a few years represents a big difference since these are averages and racial misclassification is prevalent on death certificates, said Amiri, who is also an assistant professor with WSU’s Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine.

The research team found that educational and marital status did have a moderating factor. More educated people and those who were married led longer lives on average than those who did not. However, their lives were still shorter on average than their white peers.

Proximity to treatment also mattered with those living within five miles of an opioid treatment program living longer on average. Currently in the U.S., opioid users in recovery have to go to a treatment site daily, in-person for the first several months of treatment to receive methadone, a drug that helps reduce withdrawal symptoms. This daily requirement can be a major obstacle for those who live long distances from a program. Other countries such as Canada and Australia allow pharmacies to distribute methadone, which could give underserved groups better access to treatment, Amiri said.

The authors said the findings show an urgent need for action. The first step is to get a better understanding of how many people are dying from opioid overdose, which can be challenging to capture even from mortality databases as the link to opioids is not always clear. There can also be racial misclassification in the data.

The research team is currently analyzing state-level data from the years of the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when opioid-related deaths rose across the nation. The pandemic also appeared to exacerbate disparities: American Indians and Alaska Natives continued to have the highest rates of overdose deaths, but during the pandemic, for the first time in decades, Blacks surpassed whites in rates of opioid-overdose related deaths.

Solutions to the opioid crisis and its associated racial and ethnic disparities will require culturally tailored efforts from a wide range of organizations, the researchers said.

“As suggested by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there has to be a collaboration among the federal government, states, tribal communities and local health departments to address this opioid overdose epidemic,” said Amiri “If they don't support each other and come up with a plan, nothing is going to happen.”

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JOURNAL

Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment

DOI

10.1016/j.jsat.2022.108789 

ARTICLE TITLE

Deaths associated with opioids, race and ethnicity, and years of potential life lost in Washington State

CRITICAL RACE THEORY

Marginalized communities of color face high COVID-19 risk

UC Riverside study focused on farm-working communities in California’s Eastern Coachella Valley

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - RIVERSIDE

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Although everyone has been affected by COVID-19 and the pandemic it spawned, not all populations have been affected equally. In the United States, for example, COVID-19 cases and death rates have been disproportionately high in Latino and Indigenous populations.

To understand how determinants of health affect perceptions of the coronavirus, its spread, and decision making around COVID-19 testing and vaccination in vulnerable populations, a team of researchers at the University of California, Riverside, conducted a study in the Eastern Coachella Valley region of inland Southern California, home to Latino and Indigenous Mexican farm-working communities.

Led by Ann Cheney, an associate professor of social medicine, population, and public health in the School of Medicine, the team reports in BMC Public Health that these immigrant populations are vulnerable to inequalities that increase their risk of COVID-19 exposure, morbidity, and mortality.

“Common themes that emerged across seven focus groups we conducted include misinformation, lack of trust in institutions, and insecurity around employment and residency,” Cheney said. “Our study shows clearly that the pandemic amplified historically rooted structural inequities and social factors that shape health disparities among marginalized communities of color. Minority groups disproportionately have chronic medical conditions and have poor access to healthcare.”

Cheney and her colleagues carried out the study from August 2020 to January 2021 and used community-based participatory research. The team conducted six focus groups in Spanish and one focus group in Purépecha, a language spoken among indigenous Latin Americans in the Mexican state of Michoacán. Fifty-five people participated, all of whom self-identified as either Hispanic/Latino and/or Purépecha. More than a third of the participants identified as farm workers. 

“Most participants felt affected by the coronavirus due to reduced work hours and income, inability to work or no work, childcare responsibilities, and COVID-19 infection,” said Daniel Gehlbach, the first author of the research paper and a fourth-year medical student. “Themes of misinformation as well as insecurity and fear linked to concerns about employment and deportation came up in discussions across our focus groups. It was clear that exclusion, discrimination, and violence shape attitudes in Eastern Coachella Valley about the coronavirus and its spread, influencing behaviors regarding COVID-19 testing and vaccination and, ultimately, increasing risk for COVID-19 exposure.”

The Coachella Valley, an area of racial-ethnic disparity identified as a hotspot when the pandemic began, encompasses nine cities and rural agricultural communities. Many Latino and Indigenous Mexican immigrants in the region live below the poverty line and work in the nearby agricultural fields. 

“Interventions are urgently needed here to address distrust in both government and public health among this population, which would help decrease structural vulnerabilities,” Cheney said. “Eastern Coachella Valley residents suffer health disparities due to low income and education, limited English proficiency, and undocumented status. It should come as no surprise the pandemic severely impacted this population.”

Key findings of the study are that many Eastern Coachella Valley residents:

• Have limited access to the internet and may not have access to reliable public health sources for information regarding COVID-19. Many rely on word of mouth or social media platforms.
• Lack reliable and trustworthy information sources in Spanish and Purépecha leading some to believe they would get infected by going to testing sites.
• Experience employment insecurity, shaping decision making around COVID-19 testing and fears of job loss if testing positive.
• Are insecure about using COVID-19 testing services because of their immigration and citizenship status. Participants noted fear of being identified as undocumented at testing and vaccination sites are significant concerns among Latino and Indigenous Mexican farm-working communities. 
• Have limited confidence in government entities. Participants talked about community perceptions of the government and public health working together to harm minority groups. This lack of trust in institutions extends to hospitals and the healthcare system.

“One way to build trust in government institutions and the healthcare system is to engage those most vulnerable to COVID-19 in decision-making around public health outreach and service delivery,” Cheney said. “Positive COVID-19 messages from providers and trusted members of the community, such as community health workers or promotores de salud, increases vaccine acceptance. When medical leaders and trusted community members promote COVID-19 testing and vaccination it can positively shape COVID-19 decisions.”

Cheney calls for more attention to be paid to delivering public health information and news in ways that are accessible to culturally and linguistically diverse communities, particularly underserved and marginalized communities who may not be proficient in English and have limited access to broadband internet connection.

“We encourage sharing COVID-19 material with vulnerable Latinx communities through community and ethnic media sources such as print, radio, and television,” she said. “A printable community report we prepared is available in English and Spanish.”

Cheney and Gehlbach were joined in the study by community investigator María Pozar, co-investigator Evelyn Vázquez, graduate and medical students Gabriela Ortiz, Erica Li, Cintya Beltran Sánchez, and community health worker Sonia Rodríguez.
 
The study was supported by grants from the Desert Healthcare District & Foundation and the National Institute of Health Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL) initiative.

The title of the paper is “Perceptions of the Coronavirus and COVID-19 testing and vaccination in Latinx and Indigenous Mexican immigrant communities in the Eastern Coachella Valley.”

The University of California, Riverside is a doctoral research university, a living laboratory for groundbreaking exploration of issues critical to Inland Southern California, the state and communities around the world. Reflecting California's diverse culture, UCR's enrollment is more than 26,000 students. The campus opened a medical school in 2013 and has reached the heart of the Coachella Valley by way of the UCR Palm Desert Center. The campus has an annual impact of more than $2.7 billion on the U.S. economy. To learn more, visit www.ucr.edu.

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JOURNAL

BMC Public Health

DOI

10.1186/s12889-022-13375-7 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Perceptions of the Coronavirus and COVID-19 testing and vaccination in Latinx and Indigenous Mexican immigrant communities in the Eastern Coachella Valley.

People must be 'heart' of climate action

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF EXETER

Tackling the climate crisis can only be achieved by "placing people at the heart of climate action", researchers say.

The research team, led by the University of Exeter, warn against relying solely on breakthroughs in climate science and technology.

Instead, they say social science can help engage people and societies, and ensure a green transition that is both effective and promotes other goals such as wellbeing, equity and fairness.

The paper is the first to be published by the new Advancing Capacity for Climate and Environment Social Science (ACCESS) programme.

"To meet our climate goals, we need both profound societal change and continued technical improvements," said ACCESS team leader Professor Patrick Devine-Wright, from the University of Exeter.

"This dual approach can improve people’s quality of life, reduce emissions and ensure thriving economies and ecosystems.

"If people are at the heart of climate action, then understanding and tackling climate change cannot be done by engineers or natural scientists alone.

"All disciplines need to work together – not least a range of social sciences including political science, sociology, geography and psychology – to find solutions in ways that achieve wider societal goals."

Professor Devine-Wright, of Exeter's Department of Geography and the Global Systems Institute, was a Lead Author on the recent report from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group III.

This was part of the IPCC's sixth assessment cycle and – for the first time – the latest report included a dedicated chapter on demand and social aspects of mitigation, and a cross-chapter analysis on equity and sustainable development.

Professor Devine-Wright said this progress should now continue, with the aim of developing more visible, responsive and interdisciplinary social science that engages with people and is valued in its diversity by decision-makers from government, industry, civil society and law.

The paper concludes: "Given that all climate solutions will involve people in one way or another, the social sciences have a vital role to play."

Published in the journal PLOS CLIMATE the paper is entitled: "Placing people at the heart of climate action."

ACCESS is a new five-year project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council that aims to provide leadership on the social science contribution to tackling and solving a range of environmental problems. It will build leadership capacity in a new cohort of early career researchers and collaborate with stakeholders to ensure social science evidence informs decision-making. 

For more information, visit https://greenfutures.exeter.ac.uk/access/

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JOURNAL

PLOS Climate

DOI

10.1371/journal.pclm.0000035 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Commentary/editorial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Placing people at the heart of climate action

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

25-May-2022

SCHADENFREUDE

Wealthiest homeowners most at risk of wildfire hazard

Peer-Reviewed Publication

IOP PUBLISHING

 

IMAGE: WILDFIRE DEVASTATION view more 

CREDIT: IOP PUBLISHING

The top ten per cent most valuable homes in the western United States are 70% more likely to be in high wildfire hazard areas than median-value properties, measured by county, according to a new study published today in Environmental Research Letters. 

Researchers at Resources for the Future, an independent research institution in Washington, DC, used granular spatial data to study residential properties in the western United States and their relative risk for wildfire exposure. The team studied properties’ location, value, community characteristics, and proximity to previous wildfires.  

The study shows that hazard and impact from recent wildfires are disproportionately borne by high-income, white, and elderly communities, and by owners of high-value properties. However, the research also reveals disproportionate exposure to wildfire hazard among the lowest-value homes in the western United States, and among Native American communities.  

Exposure to wildfire hazard often goes hand-in-hand with access to benefits like beautiful views, recreational opportunities, and proximity to nature. As a result, exposure to wildfires differs from other anthropogenic hazards such as pollution or waste facilities, which overwhelmingly affect vulnerable communities. 

In recent years, the western United States has seen a dramatic increase in wildfires because of climate change and past forest and fire management practices. Policymakers are weighing options for how to distribute the costs of wildfire suppression and mitigation across households in both low- and high-hazard areas. 

“In spite of increased attention to the distribution of environmental and climate-related risks across socioeconomic groups, and its relevance to current wildfire-related policy debates, the distribution of wildfire hazard was previously not well understood,” comments Matthew Wibbenmeyer, lead author of the paper.  

“Wildfire mitigation policies that deliver financial assistance to high-hazard areas could be subsidizing wealthy households. However, high wildfire hazard areas are quite heterogeneous, so addressing concerns associated with costs of increasing wildfire hazard may call for a geographically targeted approach focused on reducing the burden for the most vulnerable communities,” adds co-author Molly Robertson. 

ENDS 

 

 

 

About Environmental Research Letters 

Environmental Research Letters is an open access journal published by society publisher, IOP Publishing. The journal covers high-quality research in all areas of environmental science. All submissions are expected to meet a high standard of scientific rigour and contribute to advancing knowledge in the field.  

 

About IOP Publishing  
IOP Publishing is a society-owned scientific publisher, delivering impact, recognition, and value to the scientific community. Its mission is to expand the world of physics, offering a portfolio of journals, eBooks, conference proceedings and science news resources globally. As a wholly owned subsidiary of the Institute of Physics, a not-for-profit society, IOP Publishing supports the Institute’s work to inspire people to develop their knowledge, understanding and enjoyment of physics. Go to http://ioppublishing.org or follow us @IOPPublishing.    

IOP Publishing contact: juliet.hannay@ioppublishing.org 

 

About Resources for the Future 

Resources for the Future (RFF) is an independent, nonprofit research institution in Washington, DC. Its mission is to improve environmental, energy, and natural resource decisions through impartial economic research and policy engagement. RFF is committed to being the most widely trusted source of research insights and policy solutions leading to a healthy environment and a thriving economy. 

 

 

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JOURNAL

Environmental Research Letters

DOI

10.1088/1748-9326/ac60d7 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

The distributional incidence of wildfire hazard in the western United States

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

26-May-2022