New study shows critical role of satellites in climate adaptation

University of Galway

FacebookXLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

Image shows the intense heatwave gripping southern Europe and North Africa on 29 June 2025, with temperatures far above seasonal norms.

view more 

Credit: Credit – European Space Agency.

Satellite-based Earth observation provides a unique and powerful tool in tracking climate adaptation, an international study involving University of Galway researchers has shown.

A team at the University’s Ryan Institute is helping to pioneer new methods of combining data recorded from space with artificial intelligence to measure actions that help communities, ecosystems and infrastructure adjust to current and future climate impacts in the global agrifood sector.

The science behind it allows assessments of even the most remote agricultural regions in the world, where ground measurements are sparse or too challenging.

The findings feature in a European Space Agency (ESA)–led study, published this week in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science to coincide with COP30.

The researchers mapped the potential for Earth observation in supporting different targets in the framework for the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), a key action under the Paris Agreement from 2015, which aims to enhance resilience and reduce vulnerability to climate impacts.

Their analysis found that many of the most critical changes to climate, known as Essential Climate Variables (ECVs), can be directly used to understand and support climate adaptation action. Focusing on four key sectors – agriculture, biodiversity, extreme events and health – the study reveals how space-based data offers something no other monitoring system can provide: truly global coverage with objective and repeatable measurements spanning up to 60 years.

Professor Aaron Golden, research team leader at the University’s Ryan Institute and co-author of the study, said: “The analysis highlights the vital and unique role satellites play in supporting the Paris Agreement’s Global Goal on Adaptation. The knowledge capability of consistent, long-term observations offers policymakers tools to measure progress and identify regions at risk.”

The research team highlighted concrete applications of earth observation science across four key themes:

• Agriculture: satellites monitor water productivity, irrigation efficiency, and crop migration patterns.
• Biodiversity conservation: platforms like Global Mangrove Watch and Global Forest Watch provide crucial geospatial information on ecosystem extent and changes.
• Extreme events: satellites characterise flood extent, drought anomalies and urban heat islands at scales impossible with ground-based stations alone.
• Health sector: Earth observation data on land surface temperature and air quality inform heat exposure assessments and disease outbreak forecasting.

Dr Sarah Connors, Climate Applications Scientist at ESA, the study's lead author said: "Earth observation data should be considered as an integral part of the Global Goal on Adaptation indicators. Our research demonstrates that satellite data can inform adaptation tracking across many sectors, but it must be integrated into the indicator framework from the outset – as experience with the Sustainable Development Goals shows, it’s much harder to introduce later."

            Professor Frances Fahy, Director of the University of Galway's Ryan Institute, said: "This research exemplifies the world-class, impact-driven research emerging from the Ryan Institute and our growing Geospatial Centre. By using satellite Earth observation data to better understand and track global climate adaptation, Professor Golden’s work reinforces the vital role that cutting-edge interdisciplinary research plays in addressing the climate crisis and shaping international climate policy."

Professor Golden added: "I am delighted the impact our research in quantifying climate adaptation in food production using AI and earth observation data has had in providing a direct means of linking facts on the ground, anywhere on the planet, to the Paris Agreement's Global Goal on Adaptation indicators."

The full study, published in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science, is available at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-025-01251-1.

Ends

---

Journal

npj Climate and Atmospheric Science

DOI

10.1038/s41612-025-01251-1 

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Earth observations for climate adaptation: tracking progress towards the Global Goal on Adaptation through satellite-derived indicators

Article Publication Date

11-Nov-2025

 

How social support impacts firearm carrying and secure storage

Risky behaviors such as frequent public carrying are reduced and safe storage increases when people have greater support from family and friends, Rutgers Health researchers find

Rutgers University

FacebookXLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

Support from family, friends and partners can influence a person’s behaviors around firearms, with more support corresponding to a reduction in unsafe behaviors, according to a Rutgers Health researchers.

 

Their study, published in Injury Prevention, examined how connections with others shape the ways that a person interacts with firearms.

 

The researchers utilized data from a 2024 nationally representative survey of more than 8,000 adults, with 2,451 of the respondents reporting they had access to a firearm. The researchers measured people’s perception of social support from their loved ones with the widely used Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, a set of 12 questions widely used by researchers to measure an individual’s perception of support. Using this data, they analyzed the connections between social support and firearm behaviors, such as frequent carrying and safe storage behaviors like locked storage and storing firearms separate from ammunition. 

 

“Social connections can act as a buffer against risky firearm behaviors, and strong relationships may make people feel safer without needing to rely on a gun,” said Daniel Semenza, director of research at the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center and associate professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health and Rutgers University-Camden. “People who feel more supported by their partners, families or friends are less likely to carry firearms frequently or report storing them unsafely.”

Social support is known to have an impact on physical and mental health, but there has been no research on the impact of social support for firearm behaviors, according to Semenza. The researchers observed that individuals with increased social support had 8% lower odds of frequently carrying a firearm and 11% lower odds of storing firearms unlocked and loaded. Additionally, better social support was associated with 14% higher odds of storing firearms locked and 8% higher odds of storing them separately from ammunition.

“Public health efforts to prevent firearm injuries could benefit from building and leveraging social support networks. When people feel more connected to one another, they feel safer,” said Semenza, the lead author of the study.

Study co-authors include researchers and faculty from the Department of Urban-Global Public Health at Rutgers University, the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice at Rutgers, Department of Criminal Justice at The University of Alabama at Birmingham and the Foundation for Louisiana. 

ABOUT RUTGERS HEALTH 

As New Jersey’s academic health center, Rutgers Health takes the integrated approach of educating students, providing specialized and compassionate clinical care for its communities, and conducting innovative research, with the goal of life-changing health  for all. Rutgers Health is a “bench-to-bedside” institution, bringing discoveries in the lab  directly to patients across the state and around the world. It includes eight schools, a behavioral health network, and 11 centers and institutes in Newark and New  Brunswick.   

---

Journal

Injury Prevention

DOI

10.1136/ip-2025-045819 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Salience of social support for firearm carrying and storage in the USA

Article Publication Date

4-Nov-2025

Experts chart roadmap to reduce firearm harms, La Vigne part of group offering solutions

Rutgers University Newark School of Criminal Justice

FacebookXLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

More than 40 experts from across sectors in medicine, public health, law, industry, and community violence intervention have produced a blueprint for substantially reducing firearms harms.

Nancy La Vigne, Dean of the Rutgers School of Criminal Justice and an expert on criminal justice reform, policy data, and research, was part of the JAMA Summit convened by JAMA and JAMA Network. Their report presents suggestions to dramatically reduce firearm violence by 2040 through practical solutions grounded in evidence and accountability, recognizing constitutional protections while ensuring public safety.

The report synthesizes evidence on policies and interventions that demonstrably reduce firearm violence and deaths. It identifies actions to drive progress in the coming years, including investing in community-based initiatives; advancing technologies while strengthening oversight for firearms as consumer products; and shifting the public’s and policymakers’ understanding of the preventability of firearm harms, reframing gun violence as a public health, social, and environmental issue. The experts also recommend supporting coordinated action at the federal, state, and local levels informed by scientific insight and advocacy, and expanding research on the effectiveness, scaling, and equity of interventions.

“Over 800,000 individuals in the United States have died from injuries related to firearms and more than two million others have been injured,” said La Vigne. “These are the result of homicides, suicides, and unintentional shootings, which reverberate through communities nationwide and result in psychological, economic, and social consequences that far exceed physical injury.”

---

Journal

JAMA

DOI

10.1001/jama.2025.18076 

Article Title

Toward a Safer World by 2040The JAMA Summit Report on Reducing Firearm Violence and Harms

Article Publication Date

13-Nov-2025

 

For platforms using gig workers, bonuses can be a double-edged sword

Cornell University

FacebookXLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

ITHACA, N.Y. –  In the growing gig economy, where a company’s success depends on contractors whose schedules they can’t control, businesses often turn to bonuses to lure and retain these workers. But according to new Cornell-led research, bonuses can be a losing strategy for the stakeholders involved in platform operations.

“Bonus Competition in the Gig Economy,” published in the journal Production and Operations Management, shows that not all bonuses are created equal, and the availability of labor dictates which type of bonus is more effective for firms.

Fixed bonuses, also known as subsidies – given as part of the contract – are better for firms when gig workers are plentiful, since there’s no need for platforms to compete for workers. But in a tight labor market, contingent bonuses – awarded after a worker provides consistent service over a period of time as a way to obtain and retain workers – are the better choice.

“A few years ago, we started to see ride-sharing platforms like Uber, Lyft and others very intensively offer bonuses to their service providers,” said Yao Cui, associate professor of operations, technology and information management. “And at the same time, we also saw Uber reporting huge profit losses, so it looked like they were actually burning through too much money to overcompensate these drivers. So we were trying to understand the economic driving factors behind these bonuses.”

The downside for firms such as TaskRabbit, freelancer.com, and Uber and Lyft is the uncertainty regarding workers’ availability. For instance, a worker can register with both Uber and Lyft, and accept work from whichever offers a more desirable route on a given day. For that reason, bonuses are a way to entice and retain contractors. Whether fixed or contingent, bonuses have often overlooked downsides for the gig economy, they found.

The researchers developed a game-theory model to study platform competition with the two bonus strategies. When workers are plentiful, they found, fixed bonuses improve platform profit by eliminating a “prisoner’s dilemma” – the need for firms to overpay to outbid a rival for contractors’ services. Each platform has a relatively fixed set of workers from which to choose.

However, workers are worse off, as they ultimately receive lower pay.

“With fixed bonuses, the platform has an alternative way of paying the workers,” Cui said, “and the platforms essentially have more flexibility now, because they can decide when to pay using commission and when to pay using bonuses. Overall, it’s good for the platforms, because they can always choose the better way – meaning the cheaper way – to pay the workers.”

On the other hand, when labor is scarce, a contingent bonus works better because it lures workers and then retains them, as the bonus can only be attained over time. Contingent bonuses also cause operational inefficiency, they found: The attractiveness of a contingent bonus can lead workers to take jobs they might otherwise not take – say, a ride-sharing job with a 10-minute pickup time, as opposed to another with just a five-minute drive – thus reducing the demand-matching efficiency.

For additional information, see this Cornell Chronicle story.

 

 

---

Journal

Production and Operations Management

DOI

10.1177/10591478251389408 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Bonus Competition in the Gig Economy