-
Examining the impact of inter-provincial migration on environmental health in China Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2021-02-19 Yu-Ou Yang; Juan-Juan Hou; Xin-Yu Chen; Shi-Wei Yu; Jiu-Tian Zhang; Lan-Cui Liu
China has a large volume of inter-provincial migrants, accounting for more than 11% of the total population. The economic benefits of inter-provincial migration have been well studied, whereas the health impacts related to environmental factors are generally ignored. In this study, the exposure-response function was used to estimate the health effects and the corresponding economic value was calculated
-
Impacts of brine disposal from water desalination plants on the physical environment in the Persian/Arabian Gulf Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2021-02-14 Edmo J D Campos; Filipe Vieira; Georgenes Cavalcante; Bjrn Kjerfve; Mohamed Abouleish; Sakib Shariar; Reem Mohamed; Arnold L Gordon
Around the Persian (Arabian) Gulf, a considerable volume of freshwater is obtained by desalination of seawater with the residual brine dumped back into the Gulf. This discharge of saltier waters impacts the marine ecosystem and may also affect dynamic and thermodynamic processes. Here, a fully non-linear, high-resolution numerical model is used to investigate the physical impacts of brine discharge
-
Urbanization effects on Chinese mammal and amphibian richness: a multi-scale study using the urban-rural gradient approach Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2021-02-14 Ping Lin; Lu Yang; Shuqing Zhao
The scale and extent of global urbanization are unprecedented and increasing. As urbanization generally encroaches on natural habitats and the urban ecological footprint reaches far beyond the city limits, how urbanization affects biodiversity has received increasing attention from the scientific community. Nonetheless, the comprehensive syntheses of urbanization consequences for biodiversity, including
-
Do LED lightbulbs save natural gas? Interpreting simultaneous cross-energy program impacts using electricity and natural gas billing data Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2021-02-06 Oluwatobi G Adekanye; Alex Davis; Ins L Azevedo
Local and state governments have made significant advances in creating, implementing, and evaluating energy efficiency programs in the buildings sector. Evaluations commonly use ex-post statistical models to complement ex-ante engineering estimates when determining program impacts. A critical assumption of data-driven evaluations is that reductions would not occur in the absence of the program. This
-
Modulation of vegetation restoration on outdoor thermal comfort over the Loess Plateau, China from 1982 to 2015 Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2021-02-05 Xuezhen Zhang; Zefan Zhang; Shuaifeng Song
This study depicts changes in the warm season (May to September) Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) quantifying outdoor thermal comfort over the Loess Plateau from 1982 to 2015 and examines its relationship with large-scale climate changes and local vegetation restoration under the Grain for Green Program (GGP) after 1999. The results show that the UTCI experienced an increasing trend of 0.074/a
-
Winter N2O accumulation and emission in sub-boreal grassland soil depend on clover proportion and soil pH Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2021-01-20 Erin Byers; Marina A Bleken; Peter Drsch
Inclusion of legume species into grass leys reduces nitrogen (N) fertilizer need but increases the risk of freeze-thaw induced N2O emissions. We investigated how liming and presence of clover affect N2O accumulation under snowpack and its emission during freeze-thaw cycles in autumn and spring under sub-boreal conditions. A field experiment was performed in southern Norway in limed and control plots
-
Overview of cold chain development in China and methods of studying its environmental impacts Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2021-01-07 Yabin Dong; Ming Xu; Shelie A Miller
The cold chain (refrigerated supply chain) is an important application of refrigeration technologies. The capacity of the cold chain industry is growing rapidly in emerging economies such as China, leading to significant environmental impacts, especially greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. By conducting the literature review, this study begins with presenting a comprehensive overview of the cold chain
-
Relationships between coworking spaces and CO2 emissions in work-related commuting: first empirical insights for the case of Switzerland with regard to urban-rural differences Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-12-24 Timo Ohnmacht; Jana Z’Rotz; Lisa Dang
Today in transport policy it is assumed that new forms of work are producing falls in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from work-related commuting. So far, research on the effects of teleworking generally report positive environmental outcomes. However, no study has so far compared and contrasted the greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation potential of the new phenomenon of coworking spaces with regard to urban-rural
-
A systematic review of floating and beach landing records of Sargassum beyond the Sargasso Sea Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-12-18 Y A Fidai; J Dash; E L Tompkins; T Tonon
Sargassum algal blooms on ocean surfaces and landings of huge Sargassum mats on beaches is an emerging global environmental challenge with wide socio-economic and environmental implications. Literature on Sargassum growth cycles, travel patterns, species and morphotypes, and quantified impacts have tended to focus on a geographic region, or a specific event. Few, if any, publications document long
-
Nitrogen balance and use efficiency on dairy farms in Japan: a comparison among farms at different scales Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-12-10 Misato Toda; Juri Motoki; Yoshitaka Uchida
In recent decades, the rate of milk production per unit land area and per cow has increased with the intensification of the dairy system. The possible environmental risks arising from nutrients surpluses, such as nitrogen (N), are often evaluated using the N balance approach. In Hokkaido, the biggest dairy farming area in Japan, many dairy farms have started introducing a new dairy farming system called
-
Woody plant encroachment enhances soil infiltrability of a semiarid karst savanna Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-12-04 Pedro A M Leite; Bradford P Wilcox; Kevin J McInnes
Semiarid karst landscapes are often the source areas for regionally important groundwater supplies. Like savannas across the globe, these landscapes are experiencing an increase in woody plant cover—often referred to as woody plant encroachment. Although this phenomenon is commonly viewed as leading to increased transpiration and reduced groundwater recharge, this may not be true of all ecosystems
-
Differential effects of land use on nutrient concentrations in streams of Pennsylvania Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-12-02 John W Clune; J Kent Crawford; William T Chappell; Elizabeth W Boyer
Nutrient pollution of surface waters is a widespread problem, calling for regional assessments of water quality conditions. In this study, we quantified long-term median nutrient concentrations of total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) in streams and rivers of Pennsylvania and explored relationships between stream nutrient concentrations and the land use of their watersheds. Our analysis is
-
Are freshwater systems in lower Mekong basin (southeast Asia) resilient? A synthesis of social-ecological system Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-12-02 Giri R Kattel
Social-ecological resilience of freshwater systems in lower Mekong basin in southeast Asia is largely unknown. Over the recent past, the freshwater ecosystems in the region have gone through severe environmental stress. Climate change, sea level rise, over-extraction of water and eutrophication together have increased vulnerability to regime shifts of ecosystems in the region. Regime shifts can have
-
Highlighting and overcoming data barriers: creating open data for retrospective analysis of US electric power systems by consolidating publicly available sources Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-11-26 Emmanuel Kasseris; Naga Srujana Goteti; Sapna Kumari; Bentley Clinton; Seiji Engelkemier; Sarah Torkamani; Tevita Akau; Emre Gener
Studies of power system operation commonly draw from two key databases produced by the US Environmental Protection Agency: the Acid Rain Program’s Continuous Emission Monitoring System (CEMS) data, and the Emissions and Generation Resource Integrated Database (eGRID). Separate reporting requirements and heterogeneity in data aggregation between these two databases creates a barrier to systematic spatial
-
The interacting effects of storm surge intensification and sea-level rise on coastal resiliency: a high-resolution turbulence resolving case study Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-11-26 Mohamad Ibrahim Cheikh; Mostafa Momen
Climate change and global warming will increase the risk of coastal floods and storm surges, which can highly jeopardize communities and infrastructures along shorelines. There are two main drivers for this increase: surge amplification, which is caused by the projected hurricane intensification, and global sea-level rise (SLR). Although both factors can simultaneously affect storm surges, current
-
A fiscal revolution inspired by the Capabilities Approach to reduce socio-economic impact of climate change and strengthen the resilience of tax systems Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-11-07 Salvatore Villani; Maria Viscolo
This paper shows that a fuller integration of the economic theory of well-being into strategies adopted to reduce the impact of climate change could help to avoid potential conflicts between the mitigation measures applied and the consumption of energy derived from fossil fuels. The paper moves along the path traced by Wood and Roelich (2019) with their Tensions Triangle Theory, but aims to develop
-
Complex imprint of solar variability on tree rings Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-10-30 Alexander Land, Bernd Kromer, Sabine Remmele, Nicolas Brehm and Lukas Wacker
Many studies have investigated the role of solar variability in Holocene climate. Beyond sunspot observations, solar activity can be reconstructed from 14 C in tree rings. Due to the lack of sub-decadal resolution of 14 C records, these studies focused on long-term processes. In this study, we use an annually-resolved 14 C record to examine solar variability (e.g. 11-year Schwabe solar cycle) and its
-
Impact of South Asian monsoon on summer dust weather occurrence over the Tarim basin in Northwest China Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-10-21 Lixia Meng, Yong Zhao, Anning Huang, Tianzhu Wang and Yang Wu
Based on the observed dust weather occurrence (DWO), precipitation and 10 m wind speed at 23 stations over the Tarim Basin in northwest China and the National Centers for Environment Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research reanalysis data during 1961–2015, we have indicated the relationship between the summer DWO over the Tarim basin and South Asian summer monsoon (SASM) and revealed the
-
Nitrogen use efficiency on dairy farms with different grazing systems in northwestern Germany Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-10-30 Philipp Lw; Yusuf Nadi Karatay; Bernhard Osterburg
Agricultural production is often accompanied by nitrogen (N) losses causing negative environmental effects. In order to assess dairy farms N management, appropriate indicators based on robust farm data need to be addressed. This study investigated N balance and N use efficiency (NUE) as a function of grazing intensity on specialized dairy farms in northwestern Germany. For that, 30 farms were grouped
-
Observations of planetary heating since the 1980s from multiple independent datasets Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-10-08 Lesley C Allison, Matthew D Palmer, Richard P Allan, Leon Hermanson, Chunlei Liu and Doug M Smith
Time series of global mean surface temperature are widely used to measure the rate of climate change that results from Earth’s energy imbalance. However, studies based on climate model simulations suggest that on annual-to-decadal timescales global ocean heat content is a more reliable indicator. Here we examine the observational evidence for this, drawing together multiple datasets that span the past
-
Recession and fossil fuel dependence undermine climate policy commitments Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-10-08 Tobias Ide
Knowledge on the determinants of more or less ambitious climate policies on the country level is still limited, especially with regards to the 2015 Paris Agreement to mitigate global climate change. This is a significant knowledge gap, especially given the review of many contributions to the Paris Agreement due in 2021. I analyse why some countries make insufficient pledges to reduce their greenhouse
-
Clean environments as a social norm: a field experiment on cigarette littering Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-10-01 Julian Sagebiel, Lukas Karok, Julian Grund and Jens Rommel
Cigarette littering in public spaces is an environmental and aesthetic problem. Broken windows theory posits that visible signs of anti-social behavior such as littering create the perception of a social norm in built environments. Cigarette butts on the ground then encourage people to drop theirs as well. We test this theory on benches of a university campus in a field experiment with two treatments:
-
Using longitudinal survey and sensor data to understand the social and ecological determinants of clean fuels use and discontinuance in rural Ghana Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-10-01 D Carrión, R Prah, C F Gould, F Agbokey, M Mujtaba, A Pillarisetti, M Tumasi, O Agyei, S Chillrud, T Tawiah, D Jack and K P Asante
Efforts to reduce the health and ecological burdens of household biomass combustion are underway in Ghana, principally by promoting clean cookstoves and fuels. Recent studies have focused on the sustained use of clean cookstoves, but sometimes household adopt a new cookstove and then end use of that stove. In this study, we introduce a novel framework for understanding and encouraging household transitions
-
Break-even year: a concept for understanding intergenerational trade-offs in climate change mitigation policy Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-09-15 Patrick T Brown, Juan Moreno-Cruz and Ken Caldeira
Global climate change mitigation is often framed in public discussions as a tradeoff between environmental protection and harm to the economy. However, climate-economy models have consistently calculated that the immediate implementation of greenhouse gas emissions restriction (via e.g. a global carbon price) would be in humanity’s best interest on purely economic grounds. Despite this, the implementation
-
Differences in snow-induced radiative forcing estimated from satellite and reanalysis surface albedo datasets over the Northern Hemisphere landmass for the overlapping period of 1982–2012 Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-09-15 Chen Xiaona, Liang Shunlin and Yang Yaping
The snow-induced radiative forcing (S n RF) measures the instantaneous perturbation to Earth’s shortwave radiation at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) caused by the presence of snow cover. Land surface albedo ( a s ) is a key parameter in estimation of S n RF. Previous studies have focused on using satellite or reanalysis a s data in S n RF quantifications. However, their spatial and temporal differences
-
Large air quality and human health impacts due to Amazon forest and vegetation fires Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-09-15 Edward W Butt, Luke Conibear, Carly L Reddington, Eoghan Darbyshire, William T Morgan, Hugh Coe, Paulo Artaxo, Joel Brito, Christoph Knote and Dominick V Spracklen
Vegetation fires across the tropics emit fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) to the atmosphere, degrading regional air quality and impacting human health. Extensive vegetation fires occur regularly across the Amazon basin, but there have been no detailed assessments of the impacts on air quality or human health. We used updated exposure-response relationships and a regional climate-chemistry model, evaluated
-
Wetness controls on global chemical weathering Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-09-01 Salvatore Calabrese and Amilcare Porporato
The formation of soils, the evolution of the biosphere, and the CO 2 content in the atmosphere are strongly impacted by chemical weathering. Due to its manifold importance for the long-term stability of the Critical Zone, it is crucial to link weathering rates to the environmental conditions affecting it and develop accurate rate laws for landscape evolution and carbon cycle modeling. Here we use the
-
Limited effects of exposure to fake news about climate change Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-08-24 Caitlin Drummond, Michael Siegrist and Joseph Árvai
The spread of ‘fake news,’ information that mimics credible reporting in format but not in content or intent, poses potential threats to public health and democracy by misinforming citizens. Understanding whether and how fake news influences individuals’ policy-relevant beliefs and decisions is needed to inform policies and practices to address it. In a preregistered experiment, we ask how exposure
-
Jointly modeling the adoption and use of clean cooking fuels in rural India Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-08-24 Carlos F Gould, Xiaoxue Hou, Jennifer Richmond, Anjali Sharma and Johannes Urpelainen
Solid fuel combustion is a major cause of household air pollution, a leading environmental health risk factor globally. In India, over 750 million people continue to rely on firewood and other solid fuels for daily cooking. We explore the drivers of adoption and use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), India’s dominant clean cooking fuel. We document strides in LPG ownership using a panel dataset of over
-
Land, energy and water resource management and its impact on GHG emissions, electricity supply and food production- Insights from a Ugandan case study Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-08-20 Vignesh Sridharan, Abhishek Shivakumar, Taco Niet, Eunice Pereira Ramos and Mark Howells
Despite the excitement around the nexus between land, energy and water resource systems, policies enacted to govern and use these resources are still formulated in isolation, without considering the interdependencies. Using a Ugandan case study, we highlight the impact that one policy change in the energy system will have on other resource systems. We focus on deforestation, long term electricity supply
-
Performance of various gridded temperature and precipitation datasets over Northwest Himalayan Region Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-08-12 Neha Kanda, H S Negi, Madhuri S Rishi and Anant Kumar
This study evaluated the performance of 07 gridded datasets viz. Asian Precipitation Highly-resolved Observational Data Integration towards Evaluation of Water Resources (APHRODITE), Climate Research Unit Time-Series (CRU-TS), University of Delaware (UDEL), Tropical rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM)/ TMPA (TRMM Multi-Satellite Precipitation Analysis), Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC)
-
Environmental disasters and public-opinion formation: A natural experiment Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-08-11 Tobias Böhmelt
This study leverages the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident as natural experiment to determine the causal impact environmental disasters may have on the formation of environmental public opinion. Using Eurobarometer data on more than 60,000 individuals’ attitudes toward environmental salience before and after the incident, I find that Fukushima had indeed a causal effect on whether people see the environment
-
Highly concentrated atmospheric inorganic nitrogen deposition in an urban, coastal region in the US Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-08-06 Emily E Joyce, Wendell W Walters, Emmie Le Roy, Sydney C Clark, Hayley Schiebel and Meredith G Hastings
Much of our understanding of atmospheric nitrogen deposition (AD) is based on important monitoring networks, such as the National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP) in the United States (US). However, it is likely that rural-based monitoring data are unrepresentative of reactive nitrogen concentrations found in urban areas. In this study, event-based precipitation was collected over one-year in
-
An update on engineering issues concerning stratospheric aerosol injection for geoengineering Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-08-06 Andrew Lockley, Doug MacMartin and Hugh Hunt
Solar Radiation Management (SRM) geoengineering is a proposed response to anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) is one proposed method, reliant on lofting material into the stratosphere. Engineering reviews related to this technology approach have been sparse, with most major primary analyses now at least five years old. We attempt to bridge this gap—with a short
-
The usual policy levers are not engaging consumers in the transition to electric vehicles: a case of Sacramento, California Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-08-05 Scott Hardman, Kenneth S Kurani and Debapriya Chakraborty
We investigate whether the population of all vehicle owning households has already considered purchasing a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) or battery electric vehicle (BEV). First, we explore purchase engagement and find that even in the city where Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) policy originates (Sacramento, California) few consumers are engaged with PEVs, few have considered purchasing one, many cannot name a
-
Spectral response of chlorophyll content during leaf senescence in European beech trees Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-07-28 Peter J Morley, Alistair S Jump, Martin D West and Daniel N M Donoghue
Leaf chlorophyll content declines in response to environmental stressors and during natural senescence periods. Assessments of forest health and vulnerability to stressors require repeated measurements of forest health to quantify declines in chlorophyll content and identify shifts in the timing of key phenological events. Although remote sensing is ideal for making reliable and repeated forest health
-
Half-century urban drying in Shijiazhuang City Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-07-28 Tao Bian, Guoyu Ren, Xuan Zhao, Panfeng Zhang, Xiliang Li and Wenqian Jia
Climatic and environmental change in urban areas attracts more and more attention with rapid urbanization worldwide. Change in key surface climatic variables in urban areas is a core component of urban climatic change. Here we report an analysis of relative humidity (RH) change in Shijiazhuang City, China, over the period 1963–2012, based on the RH data of a typical urban s tation and the surrounding
-
A guide to household manual and machine dishwashing through a life cycle perspective Environ. Res. Commun. Pub Date : 2020-02-12 Gabriela Y Porras; Gregory A Keoleian; Geoffrey M Lewis; Nagapooja Seeba
This study evaluates and provides guidance on improving the life cycle environmental performance of dishwashing in the typical U.S. household. Typical user behaviors and recommended best practices for manual dishwashing as well as machine dishwasher use are evaluated. A sensitivity analysis shows the influence of varying grid carbon intensity, water heater type, regional water scarcity, and behaviors
Contents have been reproduced by permission of the publishers.