Vulnerability to heatwaves varies greatly from one area to another within cities

The SAREN group at the University of the Basque Country (EHU) has rolled out a methodology to measure the vulnerability of buildings and open public spaces to heatwaves

University of the Basque Country

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image caption: From left to right: members of the SAREN research group, Ane Larrinaga, Ane Villaverde, Olatz Ocerin, Laura Quesada, Ziortza Egiluz, Leire Garmendia, Joseba Gordo, Irantzu Alvarez, Maider Rekondo, Estibaliz Briz, and Estefania Jaramillo.

 Photo: Fernando Gómez. EHU

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Credit: Photo: Fernando Gómez. EHU

Extreme weather events are getting increasingly more frequent and severe as a result of climate change. Heatwaves are a prime example, as they have direct effects on health, thermal comfort and the liveability of cities, which is why it is vital to conduct climate risk assessments to guide cities’ adaptation policies and prioritise action in the most vulnerable areas.

The SAREN (Sustainable And Resilient built ENvironment) research group at the University of the Basque Country (EHU), led by Leire Garmendia, is assessing the effectiveness of adaptation solutions that can be used to minimise the impact of heatwaves on buildings and outdoor spaces in cities. The research is being carried out as part of the OLADAPT project, funded by Spain’s Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, in collaboration with the Polytechnic University of Madrid, the University of Extremadura and the UNESCO Chair in Sustainable Development and Environmental Education at the EHU, in line with the guidelines of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

“We are looking at how to conduct a multi-dimensional and multi-scale assessment of the risk posed by heatwaves in urban areas. The risk posed by heatwaves is not measured solely by temperature; it has multiple dimensions,” explains the group’s researcher, Irantzu Álvarez. Implementing more appropriate policies involves taking into account, firstly, how the city is built (both buildings and public spaces); secondly, the areas of the city hardest hit by high temperatures; and finally, the number of people affected by this situation and the degree of vulnerability or lack of protection of the people living there. “In this study, we have measured the vulnerability of each of the city’s buildings and open spaces in Bilbao, Madrid and Cáceres (all three located in different climate zones),” adds researcher Laura Quesada.

The methodology developed by the EHU’s SAREN research group makes it possible to produce urban vulnerability maps that clearly show where priority action should be taken to tackle heatwaves: “Adaptation measures can be implemented much more effectively with this type of study,” they say. Furthermore, applying the methodology in these three cities has shown that “the methodology is fully replicable; it can be used anywhere. This makes the methodology more robust. It is a genuinely useful tool for municipalities and cities.”

Buildings in lower socioeconomic areas are more vulnerable

In all three cities, the study has highlighted “the importance of socioeconomic variables when measuring vulnerability. People on low incomes, older people, etc. are far re vulnerable,” the research group states. Vulnerability is not the same throughout a city. It is therefore not enough to say that one city is more vulnerable than another, because there are different hotspots within the city. There may also be different situations within the same neighbourhood, which is why this type of detailed research is necessary.”

The research used a large amount of data drawn from a variety of sources. Socioeconomic variables, building characteristics and environmental variables were all taken into account. For example, “a building may be sensitive to heat, but its residents may have the financial means to protect their home from it,” they explain. Álvarez and Quesada explain that the fact that the unit of analysis is the building is what allows adaptation measures to be better targeted: “This methodology shows which buildings or types of buildings should be renovated or adapted first.” Furthermore, the impact of the surrounding environment on the building has also been measured, which has made it possible to link the building’s vulnerability to that of open public spaces: “Buildings may be highly vulnerable but have plenty of green areas and shade around them. Taking all of this into account means that adaptation measures can be implemented in different ways.”

Additional information

Laura Quesada is an architect specialising in the restoration and conservation of historic heritage, and works at the Vitoria-Gasteiz School of Engineering. Irantzu Álvarez is a Technical Engineer in Surveying and holds a degree in Geography, and works at the Bilbao School of Engineering.  Both are lecturers on the Master’s Degree in Construction Engineering at the Bilbao School of Engineering.

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Journal

Cities

DOI

10.1016/j.cities.2026.107514

Article Title

Assessing urban heatwave vulnerability through a multiscale and multicriteria GIS-based approach: Evidence from three Spanish cities

 

Cost of Canadian wildfires could top $2 trillion over the 21st century: SFU study

Failure to curb global warming now could cost future generations of Canadians trillions of dollars in wildfire impacts alone, according to a new Simon Fraser University study.

Simon Fraser University

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Failure to curb global warming now could cost future generations of Canadians trillions of dollars in wildfire impacts alone, according to a new Simon Fraser University study.

A SFU researcher says the cost of climate change-driven wildfires in Canada could exceed $2 trillion cumulatively over the 21st century. The study is among the first to put a price tag on projected Canadian wildfire activity driven by climate change.

“Societal and economic costs of wildfire are highly dependent on the actions that we take to mitigate climate change right now,” says Sian Kou-Giesbrecht, assistant professor of resource and environmental management and the study’s lead author. 

“If we keep global warming to 2 C or less, wildfire impacts and costs will be similar to what we've experienced over recent decades. But if we continue to rely on fossil fuels and move farther away from that target, we're going to end up with much, much higher costs.”

Published in the journal Environmental Research, the modeling study calculated the direct cost of wildfire suppression, net timber yield loss, and nature-based recreation loss in Canada, as well as global societal costs of wildfire carbon emissions — changes in crop loss, damages caused by sea level rise, and declines in human health worldwide. 

Representing the influence of fire weather, vegetation growth dynamics, suppression, and lightning and human ignitions, the projection model calculated costs under three possible global warming scenarios: If global temperature rise stays at 2 C or less, increases to 3–4 C, or increases to 4–5 C. 

“In somewhat good climate news, we don’t think we’ll hit a rise of 4 or 5 C, largely because of green energy developments happening primarily outside of Canada. A global temperature rise between 3 and 4 C is a more realistic worst-case scenario,” says Kou-Giesbrecht. 

In that scenario, the study still tags the total annual cost of climate change-driven wildfire impacts at $43 billion at the end of the century and more than $2.1 trillion cumulatively over the 21st century. 

Kou-Giesbrecht says these numbers are likely conservative, since the projection model did not include costs of wildfire-related health impacts, evacuations, infrastructure loss, or economic disruptions within Canada alone.

It also did not account for singular extreme events like Canada's record-breaking wildfires in 2023, which forced more than 200 communities to evacuate and exposed millions of Canadians to hazardous air pollutants. 

Kou-Giesbrecht says immediate action to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and hold global temperature rise to 2 C is the only available path to mitigate economic and environmental consequences of wildfires in Canada.

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Journal

Environmental Research

DOI

10.1088/2752-5295/aea637

Article Title

Canadian wildfire impacts and global societal costs attributed to climate change over the 21st century

700,000-year-old elephant tooth reveals a lost ecosystem shared by early humans in the levant

Ancient tooth reveals a lost world inhabited by giant elephants and early toolmakers

Tel-Hai University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee

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The study was conducted by PhD candidate Hannah Farrell of the University of Haifa at a site excavated by Prof. Gonen Sharon of Tel-Hai University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee.

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Credit: Photos and illustrations courtesy of Tel-Hai University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee and Hannah Farrell, University of Haifa

A remarkably preserved elephant tooth previously recovered from Gesher Benot Ya'aqov (GBY-NBA) — a prehistoric site in northern Israel, where early humans made stone tools some 700,000 years ago — has now enabled researchers to reconstruct a lush landscape of woodlands, wetlands, and waterways from the Pleistocene. The findings provide a rare glimpse into the environment shared by giant elephants and some of the region's earliest human populations.

The elephant remains were discovered alongside basalt handaxes and cleavers, hallmark tools of the Acheulian tradition, one of the earliest and most widespread stone-tool technologies in human history. Researchers combined multiple analytical techniques to reconstruct a resource-rich environment of woodlands, grasslands, wetlands, and waterways that helped sustain both large mammals and early humans along the Levantine land bridge connecting Africa and Eurasia.

Published in Quaternary Science Reviews, the study led by Hannah Farrell (a PhD candidate at Haifa University) focuses on findings from the excavation site of GBY-NBA by Prof. Gonen Sharon of Tel-Hai University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee and his colleagues. The research focuses on a giant elephant molar and tusk fragments discovered alongside Acheulian stone tools at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov (Daughters of Jacob Bridge), located in the Jordan Rift Valley, south of today's Hula Valley in northern Israel. The remains belonged to Palaeoloxodon antiquus, the straight-tusked elephant, one of the largest land mammals of the Pleistocene. Rather than studying the elephant alone, researchers used the tooth as a biological archive to reconstruct the broader ecosystem shared by large mammals and early human toolmakers.

 

What an Ancient Ecosystem Reveals About Human Origins

According to Prof. Sharon, "understanding how humans and animals responded to environmental change hundreds of thousands of years ago helps us better understand the forces that shaped our species."

Using CT scanning, 3D reconstruction, microscopic wear analysis, isotope geochemistry, and pollen studies, the team found evidence for a long-lasting landscape of woodlands, grasslands, marshes, rivers, and shallow-water habitats. Carbon isotope values suggest the elephant lived in a consistently well-watered environment, while pollen recovered from sediments revealed abundant wetland vegetation, including reeds, sedges, willow, tamarisk, and aquatic plants.

The findings indicate that the Hula Valley region formed part of a stable ecological refuge within the Levantine Corridor, the land bridge connecting Africa and Eurasia. Such environments likely provided reliable water and biological resources for wildlife and human groups moving through the region during the Pleistocene.

"The availability of water, vegetation, and animal resources shaped where humans and wildlife could survive," Sharon says. "The wetlands, rivers, and woodlands of the Hula Valley helped sustain life along one of the world's earliest migration corridors, offering a rare opportunity to understand the ecological conditions that supported both animals and human populations nearly 700,000 years ago."

The study was conducted by PhD candidate Hannah Farrell of the University of Haifa at a site excavated by Prof. Gonen Sharon of Tel-Hai University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee, in collaboration with Cheryl A. Makarewicz (isotope studies) and Nimrod Marom (archaeozoology) from the University of Haifa, along with Minji Jin and Dafna Langgut (pollen studies) from Tel Aviv University.

 

About Tel-Hai University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee 

Tel-Hai University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee is a rapidly growing research university addressing challenges in food security, sustainable agriculture, engineering, artificial intelligence (AI), and more.

Through interdisciplinary applied research, academic excellence in a host of disciplines - including humanities, social sciences, and education - as well as close collaboration with industry and communities, Tel-Hai University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee is tackling some of the most pressing challenges of the 21st century, while positioning the Galilee as a global hub for innovation.

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Journal

Quaternary Science Reviews

DOI

10.1016/j.quascirev.2026.110277

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Elephant dental remains from the Acheulian site at North Bridge Acheulian–Gesher Benot Ya'aqov: hominin behavior and environmental implications

Article Publication Date

15-Nov-2026

The research focuses on a giant elephant molar and tusk fragments discovered alongside Acheulian stone tools at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov in northern Israel. The remains belonged to Palaeoloxodon antiquus, the straight-tusked elephant, one of the largest land mammals of the Pleistocene.

The elephant remains were discovered alongside basalt handaxes and cleavers, hallmark tools of the Acheulian tradition, one of the earliest and most widespread stone-tool technologies in human history.

A remarkably preserved elephant tooth previously recovered from Gesher Benot Ya'aqov (GBY-NBA) — a prehistoric site in northern Israel, where early humans made stone tools some 700,000 years ago — has now enabled researchers to reconstruct a lush landscape of woodlands, wetlands, and waterways from the Pleistocene. The findings provide a rare glimpse into the environment shared by giant elephants and some of the region's earliest human populations.

Rather than studying the elephant alone, researchers used the tooth as a biological archive to reconstruct the broader ecosystem shared by large mammals and early human toolmakers.

The remains belong to Palaeoloxodon antiquus, the straight-tusked elephant, one of the largest land mammals of the Pleistocene. 

The research focuses on a giant elephant molar and tusk fragments discovered alongside Acheulian stone tools at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov (Daughters of Jacob Bridge), located in the Jordan Rift Valley, south of today's Hula Valley in northern Israel.

Credit

Photos and illustrations courtesy of Tel-Hai University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee and Hannah Farrell, University of Haifa

 

Ancient origins of mammalian suckling and swallowing uncovered

Ohio University

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An international team of researchers has uncovered new evidence illuminating the evolutionary origins of one of the defining features of mammals: the ability to suckle and consume milk during infancy. Their findings, published in Nature, suggest that key anatomical structures required for mammalian suckling, swallowing and breastfeeding behaviors evolved nearly 165 million years ago, long before the appearance of modern mammals.

The findings describe a newly discovered species called Megacauda sungei, a large mammaliaform that lived during the Middle Jurassic Period in what is now Inner Mongolia, China. The research was led by scientists from the University of Chicago, Shenyang Normal University, Shandong University of Science and Technology, the University of Bonn and Ohio University.

Using high-resolution microCT imaging, the team reconstructed the skull and skeletal anatomy of the fossil. They discovered an unexpected combination of traits. Megacauda had specialized blade-like cheek teeth resembling those of modern seals, a platypus-like pelvis, and an otter-like tail, indicating it was likely a semiaquatic predator that hunted small vertebrates and invertebrates in freshwater environments.

More significantly, the researchers identified a pair of small bony projections on the roof of the mouth that closely resemble features found in living therian mammals, a group that includes marsupials (such as kangaroos and opossums) and placental mammals, (such as elephants and humans). In modern mammals, these structures help support the soft palate and muscles involved in suckling, swallowing and protecting the airway.

Because soft tissues are rarely preserved in fossils, scientists have long struggled to determine when these important feeding structures first evolved.

“The anatomy of Megacauda suggests that structures involved in coordinating swallowing and sucking had already begun to evolve by the Middle Jurassic. This discovery helps us better understand the biological foundations of one of the defining characteristics of mammals: feeding young with milk,” said Zhe-Xi Luo, Ph.D., professor of organismal biology and anatomy at the University of Chicago and senior author of the study.

The researchers also found highly specialized hyoid bones in the throat region. In living mammals, these bones help anchor muscles for swallowing. Together, the evidence suggests that Megacauda likely possessed an early version of the coordinated muscular system used by modern mammals to move milk and food safely from the mouth to the esophagus.

The discovery challenges a longstanding assumption about how these structures evolved. Researchers found that the newly identified therian-like bony hooks existed alongside more primitive bony ridges known from earlier mammaliaforms and mammalian ancestors. Their coexistence in the same animal suggests the modern structures did not evolve directly from the primitive ridges as previously believed.

“This fossil captures an important stage in mammalian evolution,” said Luo. “For decades, scientists have wanted to know when the soft-tissue structures necessary for suckling and complex swallowing first appeared. Megacauda provides some of the clearest evidence yet that many of these innovations emerged well before the rise of modern mammals.”

The research also has important implications for understanding living mammals. While therian mammals use a sophisticated suckling mechanism supported by soft palate and constrictor muscles, monotremes such as platypuses and echidnas use a different method for obtaining milk and lack some of these anatomical features. The new evidence suggests that monotremes likely lost elements of the ancestral suckling apparatus during their evolutionary history and developed an alternative method of milk intake.

Beyond feeding biology, Megacauda highlights the remarkable ecological diversity of mammaliaforms living alongside dinosaurs. At approximately the size of a modern otter, it is among the largest known Jurassic mammaliaforms and represents one of the earliest examples of adaptation to a semiaquatic lifestyle.

“These discoveries continue to reveal that the Age of Dinosaurs was also a time of extraordinary evolutionary innovation among early mammals,” said Peishu Li, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine and a co-author of the study.

The study’s authors include April I. Neander and Zhe-Xi Luo, Ph.D., (University of Chicago); Yikun Li and Honggang Zhang, Ph.D., (Shenyang Normal University, China); Chang-Fu Zhou, Ph.D., (Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, China); Thomas Martin, Ph.D., (University of Bonn, Germany); and Peishu Li, Ph.D., (Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine).

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Journal

Nature

Method of Research

Imaging analysis

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

An early predecessor to mammals could swim, suckle and swallow

Article Publication Date

7-Oct-2026

 

Some of those ancient sea predators were built for surprise attacks

Rutgers researcher links tail shape to different hunting styles among the giant marine reptiles known as mosasaurs

Rutgers University

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A mosasaur leaps from the water to snatch prey in this artist’s depiction. A Rutgers-led study suggests differences in the tails of these ancient marine reptiles helped shape their hunting strategies.

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Credit: Illustration by Henry Sharpe/Formoso Lab/Rutgers University

Some of the giant marine reptiles that ruled the seas during the age of dinosaurs were better built for surprise attacks, while their relatives were better suited to chasing prey through open water, according to a Rutgers-led study.

These animals, known as mosasaurs, were a group of lizards adapted to life in the ocean. Researchers reconstructed the bodies of four kinds of mosasaurs from their fossil skeletons, then applied principles of physics to estimate how quickly each could surge forward with a single powerful sweep of its tail.

The calculations suggest that a particularly large Tylosaurus, one kind of mosasaur, could have reached about 15 miles per hour with a single tail stroke. That estimate describes a brief burst, rather than the speed the animal could maintain. Although the exact speeds remain uncertain, the differences among the animals offer clues to how they hunted.

The research, published in Current Biology, was led by Kiersten Formoso, an assistant professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources in the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences.

“At the same time dinosaurs likeT. rex were ruling the land, mosasaurs were ruling the seas,” Formoso said.

Understanding how these predators caught their meals, she said, helps scientists reconstruct how ancient ocean ecosystems worked.

Modern audiences may recognize mosasaurs from the Jurassic World films and the Apple TV series Prehistoric Planet. Formoso consulted on two seasons of the documentary series and early versions of this research helped inform its depictions of mosasaur movement.

Her scientific question began with a difference in the fossils. Two major branches of the mosasaur family tree had differently proportioned tails. Could those differences have affected how quickly the animals launched an attack?

Previous research had largely focused on cruising, a steady type of swimming in which an animal repeatedly beats its tail to move through the water. Formoso wanted to examine the sudden burst that could help a predator seize prey or a smaller animal escape being eaten.

The team modeled a movement it calls a “slam-start.” An animal curls its tail to one side, then forcefully sweeps it back, pushing against the water and driving its body forward.

Formoso compared that initial surge to a swimmer pushing off the wall of a pool.

“It’s the tail itself pushing off the water,” she said.

The nearly complete fossils provided detailed information about body size and tail shape. To reconstruct the missing tail muscles, the researchers drew on the anatomy of living lizards, including Komodo dragons.

The team tested a range of assumptions about muscle power, tail flexibility and resistance from the water to see whether the findings held up under different conditions.

Across the tested conditions, two species, Platecarpus and Tylosaurus, achieved faster lunges for their body size than Mosasaurus and Plotosaurus. Platecarpus was the fastest of the four.

The advantage came largely from a longer, flexible section of the tail that allowed Platecarpus and Tylosaurus to curl it farther before sweeping it back. How far the tail could curl had a much larger effect on the modeled speeds than  all other conditions

Such an advantage would favor ambush hunting in shallowseas, the researchers said. Mosasaurus and especially Plotosaurus appear to have been better suited to pursuing prey in the open ocean.

“That doesn’t mean Plotosaurus was slow,” Formoso said. “Its tail was built for sustained, tuna-like swimming rather than sudden bursts.”

The findings agree with other clues to mosasaur lifestyles, including studies of bite force, tooth wear, and the chemical makeup of fossils.

The study also has a New Jersey connection: Alongside the four main reconstructions, the team modeled exceptionally large animals, including a Mosasaurus based on a fossil from New Jersey held by the New Jersey State Museum in Trenton.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to put numbers on burst swimming performance in any marine reptile from the age of dinosaurs. They are making their tools freely and publicly available so other researchers can apply the approach to additional extinct swimmers, including animals with no close living equivalent.

Formoso’s broader research examines how animals with land-dwelling ancestors evolved to live in water. Her approach rests on a simple fact: The physical rules that govern swimming today also applied millions of years ago

"Physics is physics,” she said.

Explore more of the ways Rutgers research is shaping the future.

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Journal

Current Biology

DOI

10.1016/j.cub.2026.09.036

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Mosasaur tail morphology reveals burst swimming performance and ecological diversity

Article Publication Date

7-Oct-2026