Plastic is moving quickly from our shops to our bins

Coastal city residents would like to do more to reduce their single-use plastic waste and they are trying to recycle more, even trying to recycle items that simply can’t be recycled, often called “wish-cycling”.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH

Coastal city residents would like to do more to reduce their single-use plastic waste and they are trying to recycle more, even trying to recycle items that simply can’t be recycled, often called “wish-cycling”.

But they feel unable to do so due to the current infrastructure challenges and accessibility barriers they face, a new report has found.  

The study has also found that whilst young people are concerned about the use of plastic, their consumer behaviour often contradicts their beliefs. 

Researchers from the University of Portsmouth’s Revolution Plastics initiative surveyed 400 permanent residents in the city. They were questioned on their plastic consumption, purchase, use and disposal habits.  

Researchers examined what influenced people’s attitudes and behaviours towards plastic and what motivated or constrained their ability to reduce, reuse and recycle what they use. 

90 per cent of people agreed it was important to recycle and 83 per cent felt that littering was a serious problem that needed addressing in Portsmouth. Results indicate that if there were more recycling options available, 79 per cent would recycle more.   

However, there were obvious barriers to recycling, and people felt there was a lack of information and opportunity for recycling, with 65 per cent of people admitting they often did not know how or where to recycle plastic items. 

Portsmouth is a densely populated coastal city, with 5315 people per sq. km in 2020 (Office for National Statistics 2021). This makes it the second most densely populated city in the UK after London (5727 people per sq. km in 2020; Office for National Statistics 2021). 

Portsmouth is also the UK’s only island city, and the immediate proximity of the city to the ocean carries multiple pollution risks, including the erosion of historic landfill sites and beach litter. 

Portsmouth has a limited recycling kerbside collection system. Currently, only paper, card, plastic bottles, metal cans, tins and aerosols are recycled (Portsmouth City Council 2022). The current recycling rate of all waste for Portsmouth is 24.7 per cent, one of the lowest in the UK and considerably lower than the national average of 46.2 per cent (Letsrecycle 2021; DEFRA 2021).

Professor Steve Fletcher, Director of the Global Plastics Policy Centre and Revolution Plastics at the University of Portsmouth says: “As both a coastal city and the second most densely populated environment in the UK, Portsmouth can provide critical insights into the role of plastics in everyday life.  

“These include the challenges of managing plastic waste in a tightly packed urban setting. Understanding how people use plastic items within households is important to inform effective policy development, particularly with the emerging and developing global plastic treaty.”

Another important finding was the impact of age on the results. The 31–50 years age group were found to be more regularly shopping in Portsmouth zero-waste shops than their counterparts, while the oldest age group (over 50 years) reported being less aware and less willing to shop in these retailers. Younger respondents (less than 30 years) were more concerned about plastic waste entering the ocean than their older counterparts (over 50 years).  

Broadly speaking the younger residents were more concerned about the issue of single use plastic waste, however this was not backed up by their plastic purchase and use habits. Conversely, the older generation, who claimed not to be as concerned, often purchased fewer plastic items, particularly plastic bags. 85 per cent of respondents aged 51 years and above purchased zero plastic bags in an average week, compared to 39 per cent of the youngest age group (less than 30 years). 

Other social and economic demographic variables such as a resident’s location within Portsmouth, income and vehicle ownership were potential indicators of individuals' attitudes, accessibility and incentives towards reducing plastic purchases and recycling their plastic waste. 

Lead researcher, Stephanie Northen from Revolution Plastics at the University of Portsmouth, says: “Our findings show that although consumers have a role to play in plastic use and recycling, their behaviour is heavily influenced by factors which are largely out of their control, such as price and availability. 

“Ultimately it is not consumers who should be responsible for systemic change. This responsibility lies with those who are in charge of plastic policy.”

Full report available here. 

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JOURNAL

Sustainability Science

DOI

10.1007/s11625-022-01261-5 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

From shops to bins: a case study of consumer attitudes and behaviours towards plastics in a UK coastal city

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

30-Jan-2023

UMass Lowell plastics recycling,

engineering workforce initiatives

awarded $1M

Projects aim to redirect recyclable materials

Grant and Award Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL

 

IMAGE: PLASTICS ENGINEERING MASTER’S STUDENT AND RESEARCH ASSISTANT SARAH PERRY, LEFT, WORKS WITH PROFESSOR MEG SOBKOWICZ-KLINE IN THE LAB AT BALL HALL ON UMASS LOWELL’S NORTH CAMPUS IN LOWELL, MASSACHUSETTS. view more 

CREDIT: EDWIN AGUIRRE FOR UMASS LOWELL

Jan. 31, 2023

For Immediate Release

At least 85%, a staggering figure, of plastic waste generated in the U.S. went to landfills in 2021 while just 5 to 6% was recycled. Two UMass Lowell researchers want to reverse these statistics.

 

Plastics Engineering Professor Meg Sobkowicz-Kline and Assistant Teaching Professor Akshay Kokil are embarking on campaigns to redirect these recyclable materials with the help of a combined $1 million in research grants. Sobkowicz-Kline and Kokil were each awarded $500,000 grants – National Science Foundation and National Institute of Standards and Technology, respectively – at the close of 2022.

 

Sobkowicz-Kline won a two-year, $500,000 NSF award for her project, “Melt Mastication for Upcycling of Polyolefins,” which will help advance the development of a new manufacturing process to ease the recycling of plastic film packaging – the ubiquitous thin, flexible material used in grocery bags, zip-top storage bags, dry-cleaning bags among other applications.

 

She explained current plastic films cannot be recycled because they consist of multiple layers of different plastics and thus are challenging to collect, separate, clean and reprocess.

 

“While chemical recycling methods are rapidly evolving, these approaches require high energy input, and the materials’ intrinsic value is lost,” she said. “New concepts are needed to increase the recycling rate and reduce the amount of waste plastic films ending up in landfills, incinerators and the environment,” she says.

 

A team of UMass Lowell researchers, headed by Sobkowicz-Kline, is studying a new process to produce plastic film made of a single polymer, but retains the properties that make plastic packaging so attractive, including its low cost, light weight, toughness and effective barrier protection against oxygen and moisture to help maintain food quality and flavor. 

 

She added: “Our research has the potential to increase the plastics recycling rate, especially for films, while also maintaining the important benefits of flexible plastic packaging, including food safety, convenience and low carbon footprint.” 

 

Fellow UMass Lowell plastics engineering Professor Dave Kazmer is a co-principal investigator in the project, along with professors E. Bryan Coughlin and Alan Lesser of UMass Amherst.

 

Awarded a three-year, $500,000 NIST grant, Kokil’s research will support his ongoing effort to develop a future workforce to grow a circular economy for plastics. The focus will be on moving away from single-use plastics in favor of a “closed loop” system in which the lifetime of plastic materials is prolonged as they are used repeatedly, repaired and recycled. In this perspective, the materials are discarded only as a last resort.

 

“Making plastics more sustainable and transitioning them to a functioning circular economy has become all the more important, considering the scope of their use in our modern society,” said Kokil. His project, Plastics Adaptable for Circular Economy (PACE), aims to create, test and disseminate cross-disciplinary, hands-on modules about plastics sustainability and circularity. 

 

“These modules, developed by all plastics engineering faculty members, will help expand the knowledge base and improve critical thinking skills of the nation’s undergraduate and graduate students,” said Kokil. “With a technically knowledgeable workforce, people will be empowered to make prudent choices and systemic changes in the plastics industry, such that even in a market-driven condition, this important class of material can become truly sustainable.”

 

Kokil is among the scientists and engineers from five research institutions across the country who each received $500,000 in funding from NIST under its first Training for Improving Plastics Circularity Grant Program. In addition to UMass Lowell, the other awardees include Arizona State University, Pittsburg State University in Kansas, the University of Missouri-Kansas City and the University of Southern California.

 

The PACE project is co-led by members of the UMass Lowell plastics engineering department including Sobkowicz-Kline, Kazmer and Assistant Professor Davide Masato. Jill Lohmeier, UMass Lowell School of Education associate professor, will perform in-classroom learning outcome evaluations for PACE.

China’s stricter clean heating policies may have saved thousands of lives – study

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM

China’s stricter clean heating policies have improved air quality in northern China, particularly in Beijing and surrounding cities– potentially reducing  23,000 premature deaths due to air pollution in 2021 than in 2015, a new study reveals.

From 2015 to 2021, the impact of winter heating on China’s capital and 27 other cities saw concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from heating activities reduce by 41.3% - compared with a drop of 12.9% in other northern Chinese cities which use lower levels of clean fuels than the ‘2+26’ cities.

China’s centralised winter heating strategy is one of the world’s largest energy-consumption systems - providing free or heavily subsidised heating to urban residents. The system is  usually switched on from mid-November to March.

Whilst coal has been the main heating energy source in northern China - accounting for 83% of the total heating area in 2016 – new policies have encouraged the use of cleaner fuels such as gas and electricity, reducing the dependence of urban areas on coal and rural areas on biomass.

Researchers from the University of Birmingham and Nankai University, China, published their findings in Environmental Science & Technology today, noting clear air quality benefits from the stricter clean heating policies in the ‘2 + 26’ cities – Beijing and Tianjin, plus 26 cities across Hebei, Shanxi, Shandong and Henan provinces.  

Corresponding Professor Zongbo Shi, from the University of Birmingham, commented: “Using a novel approach combining machine learning with causal inference, we showed that heating in northern China was a major source of air pollution, increasing annual PM2.5 concentrations by 8.9 µg m-3 in 2015. However, clean heating policies have caused the annual PM2.5  in mainland China to reduce significantly between 2015 and 2021, with significant public health benefits.

“Our research demonstrates the effectiveness of China’s clean winter heating policies on reducing PM2.5  – with particular success for the stricter clean heating policies in ‘2 + 26’ cities, which also led to a reduced impact of heating emissions on sulphur dioxide (SO2). These results demonstrate clear air quality benefits from the stricter clean heating policies in ‘2 + 26’ cities.”

In addition to central heating, biomass burning was often used for heating in rural areas - coal and biomass burning were often associated with severe haze episodes during the heating periods in northern China.

In 2013, China introduced the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan, which accelerated the use of centralised and district heating - encouraging the switch to cleaner fuels.

In 2017, the Chinese central government issued its Clean Winter Heating Plan for Northern China, which aimed to increase the region’s share of clean heating to 50% by 2019 and 70% by 2021 compared to the base scenario in 2016.

Additionally, the share of clean heating in ‘2 + 26’ cities was to exceed 90% in urban areas, reaching 100% by 2021.  In 2018, a three-year action plan to fight air pollution was issued. All these plans led to substantial air pollutant emission from the residential sector.

Co-author Professor Robert Elliott noted “Clean heating policies in northern China not only reduced air pollution but also greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to China’s push for carbon neutrality. However, we found that heating remains an important source of air pollution in northern China, particularly in cities that are not part of the “2+26” cluster. Decarbonising heating should remain a key part of China’s carbon neutrality strategy that not only reduces air pollution but also provide significant public health benefits.”

ENDS

Notes for editors

• The University of Birmingham is ranked amongst the world’s top 100 institutions, its work brings people from across the world to Birmingham, including researchers and teachers and more than 8,000 international students from over 150 countries.
• ‘Attribution of Air Quality Benefits to Clean Winter Heating Polices in China: Combining Machine Learning with Causal Inference” - Congbo Song, Bowen Liu, Kai Cheng, Matthew A. Cole, Qili Dai, Robert J. R. Elliott, and Zongbo Shi is published in Environmental Science & Technology.

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JOURNAL

Environmental Science & Technology

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Attribution of Air Quality Benefits to Clean Winter Heating Polices in China: Combining Machine Learning with Causal Inference

The quail could be the unknown reservoir of Tuscany and Sicilian viruses

Viruses in migratory birds

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA

 

IMAGE: THE EXPERT JORDI SERRA-COBO, PROFESSOR AT THE FACULTY OF BIOLOGY AND THE BIODIVERSITY RESEARCH INSTITUTE (IRBIO) OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA. view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA

The quail could be the unknown reservoir of the Toscana virus (TOSV) and the Sandfly Fever Sicilian virus (SFSV), mosquito-borne pathogens that can infect domestic animals and also cause disease in humans. This conclusion is drawn from a study published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology, and which is led by Jordi Serra-Cobo, professor at the Faculty of Biology and the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio) of the University of Barcelona, and Remi Charrel, from the Aix-Marseille University (France).

 

This is the first time that researchers find neutralising antibodies to TOSV and SFSV in wild birds. "To date, the reservoir for these two viruses was unknown, although they have been sought for years. Dogs and bats had been proposed as reservoirs, but the results showed that neither of them were", says Jordi Serra-Cobo, an expert in epidemiological studies with bats as natural reservoirs of infectious agents such as coronaviruses.

The study, whose first author is Nazli Ayhan, from Aix-Marseille University, includes the participation of José Domingo Rodríguez Teijeiro, Marc López-Roig, Dolors Vinyoles and Abir Monastiri (UB Faculty of Biology and IRBio) and Josep Anton Ferreres (UB Faculty of Biology).

Emerging viruses in the Mediterranean basin

TOSV and SFSV belong to the Phlebovirus genus and are considered emerging pathogens. They are spherical, single-stranded RNA viruses with a high mutation rate and are transmitted by mosquito bites (Phlebotomus genus), insects found mainly in the warmer, drier areas of the Iberian Peninsula. These viruses are distributed in most Mediterranean countries in Western Europe, as well as Cyprus and Turkey. With no actual vaccine against infection, epidemiological surveillance, control, and prevention measures to avoid phlebotomine sandfly bites are crucial to avoid viral infections.

"Both TOSV and SFSV have been detected in a variety of domestic animals (dogs, cats, goats, horses, pigs, cows), but they can also infect humans and cause diseases", says the researcher, a member of the UB Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences.

In humans, feblovirus infections are usually symptomless and often result in a three-day fever —pappatasis feve— which is very similar to influenza. "SFSV can cause a period of short-length high fever, accompanied by headache, rash, photophobia, eye pain, myalgia and general weakness. TOSV can cause the same manifestations as SFSV, but it can also be responsible for various central or peripheral neurological signs, such as meningitis and encephalitis. In fact, part of the encephalitis that occurs in summer is caused by TOSV", Serra-Cobo notes.

Viruses in migratory birds

The results of the new study suggest that birds could be the reservoir or amplifying agents of these viruses. From infected birds, mosquitoes can become infected and then bite animals or humans. In particular, the study highlights the important role of quails (Coturnix coturnix) in the infection dynamics of phleboviruses.

"Migratory birds play an important role in disease transmission due to their high mobility from one area to another, which makes them potential vectors of diseases that can affect domestic animals and human health", Serra-Cobo stresses.

"The quail is a migratory and also a hunter species, which enhances the potential transmission of diseases by direct contact through the food chain. In this context, regular pathogen detection is of great importance to predict future disease risks for both wildlife and humans", concludes the researcher.

 

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JOURNAL

Frontiers in Microbiology

DOI

10.3389/fmicb.2022.1091908 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

«High rates of antibodies against Toscana and Sicilian phleboviruses in common quail Coturnix coturnix birds

To know where the birds are going, researchers turn to citizen science and machine learning

Scientists at UMass Amherst and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology unveil BirdFlow, a new predictive model that anticipates migratory patterns

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST

 

IMAGE: THE AMERICAN WOODCOCK, ONE OF THE SPECIES MODELED BY THE BIRDFLOW TEAM. view more 

CREDIT: GUIZMO_68, CC BY 2.0

AMHERST, Mass. – Computer scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, in collaboration with biologists at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, recently announced in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution a new, predictive model that is capable of accurately forecasting where a migratory bird will go next—one of the most difficult tasks in biology. The model is called BirdFlow, and while it is still being perfected, it should be available to scientists within the year and will eventually make its way to the general public.

“Humans have been trying to figure out bird migration for a really long time,” says Dan Sheldon, professor of information and computer sciences at UMass Amherst, the paper’s senior author and a passionate amateur birder. “But,” adds Miguel Fuentes, the paper’s lead author and graduate student in computer science at UMass Amherst, “it’s incredibly difficult to get precise, real-time information on which birds are where, let alone where, exactly, they are going.”

There have been many efforts, both previous and ongoing, to tag and track individual birds, which have yielded invaluable insights. But it’s difficult to physically tag birds in large enough numbers—not to mention the expense of such an undertaking—to form a complete enough picture to predict bird movements. “It’s really hard to understand how an entire species moves across the continent with tracking approaches,” says Sheldon, “because they tell you the routes that some birds caught in specific locations followed, but not how birds in completely different locations might move.”

In recent years, there’s been an explosion in the number of citizen scientists who monitor and report sightings of migratory birds. Birders around the world contribute more than 200 million annual bird sightings through eBird, a project managed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and international partners. It’s one of the largest biodiversity-related science projects in existence and has hundreds of thousands of users, facilitating state-of-the-art species distribution modeling through the Lab’s eBird Status & Trends project. “eBird data is amazing because it shows where birds of a given species are every week across their entire range,” says Sheldon, “but it doesn’t track individuals, so we need to infer what routes individual birds follow to best explain the species-level patterns.”

BirdFlow draws on eBird’s Status & Trends database and its estimates of relative bird abundance and then runs that information through a probabilistic machine-learning model. This model is tuned with real-time GPS and satellite tracking data so that it can “learn” to predict where individual birds will move next as they migrate.

The researchers tested BirdFlow on 11 species of North American birds—including the American Woodcock, Wood Thrush and Swainson’s Hawk—and found that not only did BirdFlow outperform other models for tracking bird migration, it can accurately predict migration flows without the real-time GPS and satellite tracking data, which makes BirdFlow a valuable tool for tracking species that may literally fly under the radar.

“Birds today are experiencing rapid environmental change, and many species are declining,” says Benjamin Van Doren, a postdoctoral fellow at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and a co-author of the study. “Using BirdFlow, we can unite different data sources and paint a more complete picture of bird movements,” Van Doren adds, “with exciting applications for guiding conservation action.”

With an $827,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, Sheldon and his colleagues are improving BirdFlow and plan to release a software package for ecologists to use later this year, with future development aimed at visualization products geared towards the general public.

(a) Simulated spring migration trajectories. (b) Timing of spring migration departure and (c) arrival derived from simulated trajectories. (d) Migratory connectivity: square cells show breeding origins of individuals in the northwest (orange) and northeast (blue) parts of the breeding range. Filled density contours show the predicted wintering distributions of individuals breeding in those respective regions.

Observed movements of GPS-tracked woodcocks (single thick path) and simulated trajectories (thin paths) for 2500 simulated birds originating at the same starting location as observed birds

Each heatmap shows the predicted movement distribution of a GPS-tracked individual originating within the circle at the base of the arrow. Darker colors indicate a higher predicted likelihood of movement to that area. The point of the arrow shows the observed ending location. Shown are examples of 3-week (h), 6-week (i), and 12-week (j) conditional forecasts.

CREDIT

Fuentes et al., 10.1111/2041-210X.14052

JOURNAL

Methods in Ecology and Evolution

DOI

10.1111/2041-210X.14052 

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

1-Feb-2023

Method extracts antioxidant nutrients from corn processing waste

Peer-Reviewed Publication

KTH, ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

 

IMAGE: OF THE MORE THAN 120 MILLION METRIC TONS OF CORN STARCH PRODUCED EACH YEAR, NEARLY 15 PERCENT IS DISCARDED OR FED TO CHICKENS AND OTHER ANIMALS. FRANCISCO VILAPLANA HAS DEVELOPED A METHOD TO GENERATE NUTRITIONAL VALUE FROM WHAT HE DESCRIBES AS "A HUGE SIDESTREAM." view more 

CREDIT: DAVID CALLAHAN

A process for extracting nutritious antioxidant dietary fibers from corn starch production waste could turn tons of nearly-worthless bran into a valuable, circular resource.

Corn bran is rich in the potent antioxidant, ferulic acid. Unfortunately this anti-inflammatory is trapped in an insoluble material matrix that humans can’t digest. That is until now.

Researchers at KTH Royal Institute of Technology have reported a way to unlock soluble ferulic acid-rich dietary fibers from this insoluble matrix, and they developed a hydrogel that delivers it to the intestines where it can prevent cell oxidation and improve gut health.

Due to its insolubility, corn bran is a low-value sidestream from cornstarch production, which is otherwise discarded or sold off for animal feed. But instead of letting it go to waste, the researchers used a method called subcritical water extraction to isolate the soluble fiber part of the bran that contains ferulic acid.

Francisco Vilaplana, Associate Professor in the Division of Glycoscience at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, says the next step is to create a hydrogel by crosslinking this soluble ferulic acid-rich dietary fiber part using natural enzymes (laccase and peroxidase). The hydrogel can be digested as a prebiotic for gut health, or even used as a treatment for wounds, since it counteracts oxidative stress and contributes to healing.

The method was published in the scientific journal, Green Chemistry.

The global market for cornstarch is estimated at more than 120 million metric tons, and is expected to increase to 160 million metric tons by 2026. In cornstarch processing, as much as 15 percent of the kernel is discarded as fiber, or corn bran, Vilaplana says. “That’s a huge industrial sidestream.”

He says the new technique addresses the worldwide concern about food waste, in terms of sustainability and greenhouse gas emissions.

“We showed that we can upgrade a food side stream into a valuable material for both food and biomedical applications that could mitigate inflammatory processes.”

---

JOURNAL

Green Chemistry

DOI

10.1039/D2GC03331C 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Hydrogels with protective effects against cellular oxidative stress via enzymatic crosslinking of feruloylated arabinoxylan from corn fibre

Climate change may cut US forest inventory by a fifth this century

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY

A study led by a North Carolina State University researcher found that under more severe climate warming scenarios, the inventory of trees used for timber in the continental United States could decline by as much as 23% by 2100. The largest inventory losses would occur in two of the leading timber regions in the U.S., which are both in the South.

Researchers say their findings show modest impacts on forest product prices through the end of the century, but suggest bigger impacts in terms of storing carbon in U.S. forests. Two-thirds of U.S. forests are classified as timberlands.

“We already see some inventory decline at baseline in our analysis, but relative to that, you could lose, additionally, as much as 23% of the U.S. forest inventory,” said the study’s lead author Justin Baker, associate professor of forestry and environmental resources at North Carolina State University. “That’s a pretty dramatic change in standing forests.”

In the study, which is published in Forest Policy and Economics, researchers used computer modeling to project how 94 individual tree species in the continental United States will grow under six climate warming scenarios through 2100. They also considered the impact of two different economic scenarios on demand growth for forestry products. The researchers compared their outcomes for forest inventory, harvest, prices and carbon sequestration to scenarios with no climate change. Researchers said their methods could provide a more nuanced picture of the future forest sector under high-impact climate change scenarios compared to other models.

“Many past studies show a pretty optimistic picture for forests under climate change because they see a big boost in forest growth from additional carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,” Baker said. “The effect that carbon dioxide has on photosynthesis in some of those models tends to outweigh the losses you see from precipitation and temperature induced changes in forest productivity and tree mortality. We have a model that is specific to individual tree species, and that allows us to better understand how climate factors influence growth rates and mortality.” 

Researchers found that in certain regions trees would grow more slowly in higher temperatures, and die faster. Combined with increasing harvest levels and greater development pressures, that led to declines in the total tree inventory. They projected the largest losses would be in the Southeast and South-Central regions, which are two of the three most productive timber supply regions in the U.S. Those regions could see tree inventories shrink by as much as 40% by 2095 compared to one of their baseline scenarios. Due to declines in pine products, the researchers projected softwood lumber prices could increase as much as 32% by 2050.

“We found pretty high levels of sensitivity to warming and precipitation changes for productive pine species in the South, especially when climate change is combined with high forest product demand growth,” Baker said.

However, the researchers projected gains in tree supplies in the Rocky Mountain and Pacific Southwest regions, driven by higher rates of death of certain trees that lead to larger harvests initially, followed by the growth of more heat-tolerant species.

“These are regions losing a lot of inventory right now due to pests and fire disturbance,” Baker said. “What you’re seeing is a higher level of replacement with climate adaptive species like juniper, which are more tolerant to future growing conditions.”

Combining the effects from all the regions, researchers projected total losses of U.S. tree inventory of 3 to 23% compared to baseline. They projected losses in carbon sequestration in most scenarios, and estimated the value of lost carbon stored in U.S. forests up to $5.5 billion per year.

They found the economic impact of climate change on the overall U.S. forest products industry value could range from a loss of as much as $2.6 billion per year – representing 2.5% of the value of the industry – or a gain in value of more than $200 million per year.

“We saw that the markets could be more resilient than the forests themselves,” Baker said.  “Your market effects may seem modest in terms of the effect it has on the consumers and producers, but those impacts are small compared to the carbon sequestration value that forests provide on an annual basis.”

Researchers say more studies are needed to bring the future of U.S. forestry into sharper focus.

“We don’t know a lot about how disturbance-related mortality or loss in tree productivity is going to bear out across the landscape as temperatures get warmer,” Baker said. “We did our best to address a couple pieces of the puzzle with temperature and precipitation changes, and interactions between climate and market demand, but a lot more work needs to be done to get a good handle on climate change and forestry.”

The study, “Projecting U.S. Forest Management, Market, and Carbon Sequestration Responses to a High-Impact Climate Scenario,” was published online in Forest Policy and Economics. Co-authors included George Van Houtven, Jennifer Phelan, Gregory Latta, Christopher M. Clark, Kemen Austin, Olakunle Sodiya, Sara B. Ohrel, John Buckley, Lauren E. Gentile and Jeremy Martinich. The study was funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under contract No. 68HERH19D0030. The views and opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily state or reflect those of the EPA, and no official endorsement should be inferred.

-oleniacz-

Note to Editors: The study abstract follows.

 

Projecting U.S. Forest Management, Market, and Carbon Sequestration Responses to a High-Impact Climate Scenario

 

Authors: Justin S. Baker, George Van Houtven, Jennifer Phelan, Gregory Latta, Christopher M. Clark, Kemen Austin, Olakunle Sodiya, Sara B. Ohrel, John Buckley, Lauren E. Gentile and Jeremy Martinich.

 

Published: Dec. 28, 2022, Forest Policy and Economics

 

DOI: 10.1016/j.forpol.2022.102898

Abstract: The impact of climate change on forest ecosystems remains uncertain, with wide variation in potential climate impacts across different radiative forcing scenarios and global circulation models, as well as potential variation in forest productivity impacts across species and regions. This study uses an empirical forest composition model to estimate the impact of climate factors (temperature and precipitation) and other environmental parameters on forest productivity for 94 forest species across the conterminous United States. The composition model is linked to a dynamic optimization model of the U.S. forestry sector to quantify economic impacts of a high warming scenario (Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5) under six alternative climate projections and two socioeconomic scenarios. Results suggest that forest market impacts and consumer impacts could range from relatively large losses (−$2.6 billion) to moderate gain ($0.2 billion) per year across climate scenarios. Temperature-induced higher mortality and lower productivity for some forest types and scenarios, coupled with increasing economic demands for forest products, result in forest inventory losses by end of century relative to the current climate baseline (3%–23%). Lower inventories and reduced carbon sequestration capacity result in additional economic losses of up to approximately $4.1 billion per year. However, our results also highlight important adaptation mechanisms, such forest type changes and shifts in regional mill capacity that could reduce the impact of high impact climate scenarios.

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JOURNAL

Forest Policy and Economics

DOI

10.1016/j.forpol.2022.102898 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

ARTICLE TITLE

Projecting U.S. forest management, market, and carbon sequestration responses to a high-impact climate scenario

Communities that suffered rapid manufacturing job losses fare worse on sustainability

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY

A new study finds communities that have experienced significant job losses in manufacturing over the past 50 years are also less likely to engage in sustainability planning, less likely to develop sustainability-related capabilities, and have made less progress towards meeting sustainability-related goals – such as energy and water conservation.

“Sustainability is important for addressing large-scale social problems, such as global climate change,” says Christopher Galik, co-author of the study and a professor of public administration at North Carolina State University.

“But it’s also important to remember that sustainability can help make communities more competitive in the long term. It can drive down energy and water costs for residents and local government; it can help communities attract state and federal funding for infrastructure projects. Essentially, sustainability makes communities more resilient, both economically and environmentally.”

“Given the importance of sustainability, we wanted to see if historical factors played a role in local communities’ sustainability commitments and decisions,” says Yuhao Ba, first author of the paper and a former graduate student at NC State who is now an assistant professor of public policy at the National University of Singapore.

The researchers found that a key variable was sudden shifts in industrial employment. Communities that had smaller swings in employment, even if they lost jobs in the long run, were associated with greater sustainability planning, capabilities and performance. Communities that experienced significant job losses in a short period of time, however, had a more difficult time transitioning.

“Because of deep-rooted connections between industry and community identity, we thought we might observe some differences between community capabilities and performance depending on their unique industrial histories,” Galik says. “The data bear that out.”

For the study, researchers looked at publicly available sustainability data on 320 counties from across the U.S. as of 2015. This allowed them to measure how well each municipality was doing in three areas: sustainability planning, sustainability capability and sustainability performance. The researchers also collected employment data from all 320 counties, dating from 1969 to 2016. Drawing on this data, the researchers used a statistical tool called path analysis to identify complex structural relationships.

“Basically, that means we can get a better sense of the relationships between a number of variables and observed outcomes, both direct and indirect,” Galik says. “In this case, the outcome we were interested in is sustainability performance.”

Their findings were straightforward: communities that suffered sudden and significant job losses in manufacturing were substantially less likely to have robust sustainability plans and capability, and less likely to be making significant process on sustainability goals.

“Particularly given the attention – and funding – at the federal level for infrastructure, clean energy technology manufacturing, and climate adaptation, our study emphasizes the need to consider community history, context, and conditions as programs are designed and rolled out,” Galik says.

The paper, “Historical industrial transitions influence local sustainability planning, capability, and performance,” is published in the journal Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions.

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JOURNAL

Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions

DOI

10.1016/j.eist.2022.100690 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Historical industrial transitions influence local sustainability planning, capability, and performance