Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Event Scale Analysis Of Streamflow Response To Wildfire In Oregon, 2020, Will B. Long, Heejun Chang

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Wildfire increases the magnitude of runoff in catchments, leading to the degradation of ecosystems, risk to infrastructure, and loss of life. The Labor Day Fires of 2020 provided an opportunity to compare multiple large and severe wildfires with the objective of determining potential changes to hydrologic processes in Oregon Cascades watersheds. Geographic information systems (GIS) were implemented to determine the total percentage burned and percentage of high burn severity class of six watersheds on the west slope of the Oregon Cascade Range. In addition, two control watersheds were included to contrast the influence of climatic effects. Spatial arrangements of burned …

Understanding Perspectives On Climate Hazards, Water Management, And Adaptive Transformation In An Exurban Community, Alexander Ross, Heejun Chang, Alida Cantor

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Climate change and exurban development pose challenges for water resources. This paper examines the perceptions and adaptive responses to those stressors among stakeholders engaging in exurban water management. Drawing on 42 interviews with planners, water managers, and local experts, we analyze perspectives on water-related hazards in the Hood River watershed, Oregon, and identify contrasting approaches to adaptation. Interview subjects identified climate-related hazards as most significant, with relatively less – although not insignificant – concern about development. Interviewees understood the role of the Watershed Group in four different ways: resistance to change, sustaining the present system, adapting to improve resilience, or …

Are Managed Retreat Programs Successful And Just? A Global Mapping Of Success Typologies, Justice Dimensions, And Trade-Offs, Idowu Ajibade, Meghan Sullivan, Chris Lower, Lizzie Yarina, Allie Reilly

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

As managed retreat programs expand across the globe, there is an urgent need to assess whether these programs are reducing exposure to climatic hazards, enhancing adaptive capacity, and improving the living conditions of communities in a just and equitable manner or are they exacerbating existing risks and vulnerabilities? Strictly speaking, are retreat programs successful? Using an expansive intersectional justice approach to examine 138 post-resettlement case studies published between 2000 and 2021 across the Global North and South, we identified five typologies of success – techno-managerial, eco-restorative, compensatory, reformative, and transformative – and their trade-offs and synergies. Our meta-analysis incorporated a …

Emergent Landscapes Of Renewable Energy Storage: Considering Just Transitions In The Western United States, Bethani Turley, Alida Cantor, Kate Berry, Sarah Knuth, Dustin Mulvaney, Noel Vineyard

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Governments, utilities, and energy companies are increasingly looking towards energy storage technologies to extend the availability of variable renewable power sources such as solar and wind. In this Perspective, we examine these fast-shifting developments by mapping and analyzing landscapes of renewable energy storage emerging across the Western United States. We focus on the rollout of several interrelated leading technologies: utility-scale lithium-ion batteries, supported by increasing regional lithium mining, and proposals for new pumped storage hydropower. Drawing on critical resource geography, we examine energy storage as both a component of renewable transition and as its own driver of landscape transformation, resource …

Projected Changes In Atmospheric Ridges Over The Pacific-North American Region Using Cmip6 Models, Paul C. Loikith, Deepti Singh, Graham P. Taylor

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Projected changes in atmospheric ridges and associated temperature and precipitation anomalies are assessed for the end of the twenty-first century in a suite of 27 models contributing to phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) under a high-end emissions scenario over the Pacific–North American region. Ridges are defined as spatially coherent regions of positive zonal anomalies in 500-hPa geopotential height. The frequency of ridge days in the historical period varies by geography and season; however, ridge days are broadly more common over the region in winter and least common in summer. The CMIP6 models are credible in reproducing …

Corrigendum: Interactions Between Fire Refugia And Climate-Environment Conditions Determine Mesic Subalpine Forest Recovery After Large And Severe Wildfires, Sebastian Upton Busby, Andres Holz

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

In the published article, there was an error in the Funding statement.

One of the funding numbers provided was incorrect. The correct Funding statement appears below.

Funding for this research was provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF awards EAR-1738104 and GSS-1832483).

The authors apologize for this error and state that this does not change the scientific conclusions of the article in any way. The original article has been updated.

Reimagine Fire Science For The Anthropocene, Jacquelyn K. Shuman, Jennifer K. Balch, Rebecca T. Barnes, Philip E. Higuera, Andres Holz, Multiple Additional Authors

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Fire is an integral component of ecosystems globally and a tool that humans have harnessed for millennia. Altered fire regimes are a fundamental cause and consequence of global change, impacting people and the biophysical systems on which they depend. As part of the newly emerging Anthropocene, marked by human-caused climate change and radical changes to ecosystems, fire danger is increasing, and fires are having increasingly devastating impacts on human health, infrastructure, and ecosystem services. Increasing fire danger is a vexing problem that requires deep transdisciplinary, trans-sector, and inclusive partnerships to address. Here, we outline barriers and opportunities in the next …

Regional And Elevational Patterns Of Extreme Heat Stress Change In The Us, Colin Raymond, Duane E. Waliser, Bin Guan, Huikyo Lee, Paul Loikith, Elias C. Massoud, Agniv Sengupta, Deepti Singh, Adrienne Wootten

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Increasing severity of extreme heat is a hallmark of climate change. Its impacts depend on temperature but also on moisture and solar radiation, each with distinct spatial patterns and vertical profiles. Here, we consider these variables' combined effect on extreme heat stress, as measured by the environmental stress index, using a suite of high-resolution climate simulations for historical (1980–2005) and future (2074–2099, Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5)) periods. We find that observed extreme heat stress drops off nearly linearly with elevation above a coastal zone, at a rate that is larger in more humid regions. Future projections indicate dramatic relative …

A Possible Role For River Restoration Enhancing Biodiversity Through Interaction With Wildfire, Brittany E. Pugh, Megan Colley, Stephen J. Dugdale, Patrick Edwards, Rebecca Flitcroft, Andres Holz, Mathew Johnson, Michela Mariani, Mickey Means-Brous, Multiple Additional Authors

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background

Historically, wildfire regimes produced important landscape-scale disturbances in many regions globally. The “pyrodiversity begets biodiversity” hypothesis suggests that wildfires that generate temporally and spatially heterogeneous mosaics of wildfire severity and post-burn recovery enhance biodiversity at landscape scales. However, river management has often led to channel incision that disconnects rivers from their floodplains, desiccating floodplain habitats and depleting groundwater. In conjunction with predicted increases in frequency, intensity and extent of wildfires under climate change, this increases the likelihood of deep, uniform burns that reduce biodiversity.

Predicted synergy of river restoration and biodiversity increase

Recent focus on floodplain re-wetting and restoration …

A Social-Ecological-Technological Systems Framework For Urban Ecosystem Services, Timon Mcphearson, Elizabeth M. Cook, Marta Berbés-Blázquez, Chingwen Cheng, Nancy B. Grimm, Erik Andersson, Olga Barbosa, David G. Chandler, Heejun Chang, Multiple Additional Authors

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

As rates of urbanization and climatic change soar, decision-makers are increasingly challenged to provide innovative solutions that simultaneously address climate change impacts and risks and inclusively ensure quality of life for urban residents. Cities have turned to nature-based solutions to help address these challenges. Nature-based solutions, through the provision of ecosystem services, can yield numerous benefits for people and address multiple challenges simultaneously. Yet, efforts to mainstream nature-based solutions are impaired by the complexity of the interacting social, ecological, and technological dimensions of urban systems. This complexity must be understood and managed to ensure ecosystem-service provisioning is effective, equitable, and …

Just Water Transitions At The End Of Sugar In Maui, Hawai'i, Chris Knudson, Alida Cantor, Kelly Kay

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

In December 2016, Hawai‘i saw its last sugar harvest on a 36,000-acre plantation in Maui. In the preceding decades, Native Hawaiians had struggled to regain their water rights from a failing sugar industry that had dewatered the island's streams for centuries. Now, with the end of sugar, Native Hawaiian and environmental groups are working to restore traditional practices and diversified agriculture—goals which hinge upon changing water management practices and rewatering Maui's streams. In this paper we combine frameworks from the water justice literature with a just transitions framework typically applied to energy landscapes in order to examine ‘just water transitions’ …

Delaware’S Climate Action Plan: Omission Of Source Attribution From Land Conversion Emissions, Elena A. Mikhailova, Lili Lin, Hamdi A. Zurqani, Zhenbang Hao, Christopher J. Post, Mark A. Schlautman, Gregory C. Post, George B. Shepard

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Delaware’s (DE) Climate Action Plan lays out a pathway to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 26% by 2025 but does not consider soil-based GHG emissions from land conversions. Consequently, DE’s climate action plan fails to account for the contribution of emissions from ongoing land development economic activity to climate change. Source attribution (SA) is a special field within the science of climate change attribution, which can generate “documentary evidence” (e.g., GHG emissions inventory, etc.). The combination of remote sensing and soil information data analysis can identify the source attribution of GHG emissions from land conversions for DE. …

Spatial And Temporal Variations Of Microplastic Concentrations In Portland's Freshwater Ecosystems, Rebecca Talbot, Elise F. Granek, Heejun Chang, Rosemary Wood, Susanne Brander

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

While microplastics are a pollutant of growing concern in various environmental compartments, less is known regarding the sources and delivery pathways of microplastics in urban rivers. We investigated the relationship between microplastic concentrations and various spatiotemporal factors (e.g., land use, arterial road length, water velocity, precipitation) in two watersheds along an urban-rural gradient in the Portland metropolitan area. Samples were collected in August, September, and February and were analyzed for total microplastic count and type. Nonparametric statistics were used to evaluate potential relationships with the explanatory variables, derived at both the subwatershed and near stream scales. In August, microplastic concentrations …

Tradeoffs And Synergies Across Global Climate Change Adaptations In The Food‐Energy‐Water Nexus, Sarah Torhan, Caitlin A. Grady, Idowu Ajibade, Eranga K. Galappaththi, Rebecca R. Hernandez, Justice I. Musah‐Surugu, A. M. Nunbogu, A. C. Segnon, Multiple Additional Authors

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Food-energy-water (FEW) systems are increasingly vulnerable to natural hazards and climate change risks, yet humans depend on these systems for their daily needs, wellbeing, and survival. We investigated how adaptations related to FEW vulnerabilities are occurring and what the global community can learn about the interactions across these adaptations. We conducted a global analysis of a data set derived from scientific literature to present the first large scale assessment (n = 1,204) of evidence-based FEW-related climate adaptations. We found that the most frequently reported adaptations to FEW vulnerabilities by continent occurred in Africa (n = 495) and Asia (n = …

Illustrating Ensemble Predictability Across Scales Associated With The 13–15 February 2019 Atmospheric River Event, Chad W. Hecht, Allison C. Michaelis, Andrew C. Martin, Jason M. Cordeira, Forest Cannon, F. Martin Ralph

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

The “Valentine’s Day” atmospheric river (AR) event that affected a majority of California during 13–15 February 2019 ranked as an AR3 (Ralph et al. 2019) along most of the California coast and reached AR4 intensity in Southern California. The strong onshore flow and dynamically favorable characteristics of the Valentine’s Day AR produced both an intense and long-duration precipitation event resulting in widespread hydrometeorological impacts across California. Palomar Observatory in northern San Diego County observed >10 in. (>254 mm) of precipitation in 24 h, the highest 24-h accumulation since record keeping began in 1943 (Hatchet et al. 2020

The Spatial Relationship Between Patterns Of Disappeared Streams And Residential Development In Portland, Oregon, Usa, Gregory C. Post, Heejun Chang, David Banis

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Disappeared streams are streams that have been buried, removed, or moved as part of the urbanization process. We identified disappeared streams in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area using historical topographic maps for four time periods, and related them to the history of urban development. The historical maps were used to identify streams visible in older maps but not shown in a more recent version. From 1852 to 1895, 15% of streams disappeared, but the majority of streams disappeared between 1896 and 1953 (65%). This trend continued mainly in suburban areas after 1954 with 12% of streams being removed from 1954 …

Disentangling The Last 1,000 Years Of Human–Environment Interactions Along The Eastern Side Of The Southern Andes (34–52°S Lat.), William Nanavati, Cathy Whitlock, Maria Eugenia De Porras, Adolfo Gil, Diego Navarro, Gustavo Neme

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Researchers have long debated the degree to which Native American land use altered landscapes in the Americas prior to European colonization. Human–environment interactions in southern South America are inferred from new pollen and charcoal data from Laguna El Sosneado and their comparison with high-resolution paleoenvironmental records and archaeological/ethnohistorical information at other sites along the eastern Andes of southern Argentina and Chile (34–52°S). The records indicate that humans, by altering ignition frequency and the availability of fuels, variously muted or amplified the effects of climate on fire regimes. For example, fire activity at the northern and southern sites was low at …

The Use Of Socio-Spatial Data For Sustainable Roads Planning: A National Forest Case Study, Lee Cerveny, Rebecca Mclain, David Banis, A. Todd

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

National forest roads allow access to public lands providing connections to natural and cultural heritage. Planning processes that address potential road closures or conversions can be highly contentious. Public participatory GIS (PPGIS) has been used as a tool to gather information for environmental planning and decision-making. Our PPGIS approach in a national forest in Washington (USA) incorporated workshops and online engagement with 1,810 participants to gather public input for sustainable roads planning. We identified the most important forest destinations and developed an analytical framework for assessing forest roads based on the density and diversity of use. In this paper, we …

Changes To California Alfalfa Production And Perceptions During The 2011-2017 Drought, Alida A. Cantor, Bethani Turley, Charles Cody Ross, Mathern Glass

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

California experienced a severe multiyear drought stretching from 2011 through 2017, significantly reducing surface water supply for ecosystems, agriculture, and humans and prompting coordinated conservation efforts. Given that agriculture is the largest consumptive use of water in the state, one anticipated response to a severe drought would be to decrease production of low-value, high-water-use crops such as alfalfa. In this article we use a multimethod approach to examine both spatial distribution and public perceptions of alfalfa production in California over the course of the 2011 through 2017 drought. We find that although California alfalfa production did decline at the state …

Microplastics In Freshwater: A Global Review Of Factors Affecting Spatial And Temporal Variations, Rebecca Talbot, Heejun Chang

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Microplastics are a pollutant of growing concern, capable of harming aquatic organisms and entering the food web. While freshwater microplastic research has expanded in recent years, much remains unknown regarding the sources and delivery pathways of microplastics in these environments. This review aims to address the scientific literature regarding the spatial and temporal factors affecting global freshwater microplastic distributions and abundances. A total of 75 papers, published through June 2021 and containing an earliest publication date of October 2014, was identified by a Web of Science database search. Microplastic spatial distributions are heavily influenced by anthropogenic factors, with higher concentrations …

Introduction: Climate Change And Planned Retreat, Idowu Jola Ajibade, A. R. Siders

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Chapter 1.

This edited volume advances our understanding of climate relocation (or planned retreat), an emerging topic in the fields of climate adaptation and hazard risk, and provides a platform for alternative voices and views on the subject. As the effects of climate change become more severe and widespread, there is a growing conversation about when, where and how people will move. Climate relocation is a controversial adaptation strategy, yet the process can also offer opportunity and hope. This collection grapples with the environmental and social justice dimensions from multiple perspectives, with cases drawn from Africa, Asia, Australia, Oceania, South …

Spatial Proximity Matters: A Study On Collaboration, Arianna Salazar Miranda, Matthew Claudel

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

As scientific research becomes increasingly cross-disciplinary, many universities seek to support collaborative activity through new buildings and institutions. This study examines the impacts of spatial proximity on collaboration at MIT from 2005 to 2015. By exploiting a shift in the location of researchers due to building renovations, we evaluate how discrete changes in physical proximity affect the likelihood that researchers co-author. The findings suggest that moving researchers into the same building increases their propensity to collaborate, with the effect plateauing five years after the move. The effects are large when compared to the average rate of collaboration among pairs of …

Making A Water Data System Responsive To Information Needs Of Decision Makers, Alida Cantor, Michael Kiparsky, Susan S. Hubbard, Ronan Kennedy, Lidia Cano Pecharroman, Kamyar Guivetchi, Gary Darling, Christina Mccready, Roger Bales

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Evidence-based environmental management requires data that are sufficient, accessible, useful and used. A mismatch between data, data systems, and data needs for decision making can result in inefficient and inequitable capital investments, resource allocations, environmental protection, hazard mitigation, and quality of life. In this paper, we examine the relationship between data and decision making in environmental management, with a focus on water management. We focus on the concept of decision-driven data systems—data systems that incorporate an assessment of decision-makers' data needs into their design. The aim of the research was to examine the process of translating data into effective …

Using Gis-Based Spatial Analysis To Determine Urban Greenspace Accessibility For Different Racial Groups In The Backdrop Of Covid-19: A Case Study Of Four Us Cities, Arun K. Pallathadka, Laxemi Pallathadka, Sneha Rao, Heejun Chang, Dorn Van Dommelen

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

As the United States leads COVID-19 cases on global charts, its spatial distribution pattern offers a unique opportunity for studying the social and ecological factors that contribute to the pandemic’s scale and size. We use a GIS-data-based approach to evaluate four American cities—Anchorage (Alaska), Atlanta (Georgia), Phoenix (Arizona), and Portland (Oregon) characterized by the significant composition of different racial and ethnic group populations. Building upon previous studies that investigated urban spatial inequalities using the environmental justice framework, we examine: (1) the relative racial vulnerability of Census Block Groups (CBG) and ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTA) to COVID-19 (2) green space …

A Global Assessment Of Policy Tools To Support Climate Adaptation, Nicola Ulibarri, Idowu Ajibade, Eranga K. Galappaththi, Elphin T. Joe, Alexandra Lesnikowski, Katharine J. Mach, Issah J. Musah-Surugu, G. Nagle Alverio, Alcade C. Segnon, Multiple Additional Authors

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Governments, businesses, and civil society organizations have diverse policy tools to incentivize adaptation. Policy tools can shape the type and extent of adaptation, and therefore, function either as barriers or enablers for reducing risk and vulnerability. Using data from a systematic review of academic literature on global adaptation responses to climate change (n = 1549 peer-reviewed articles), we categorize the types of policy tools used to shape climate adaptation. We apply qualitative and quantitative analyses to assess the contexts where particular tools are used, along with equity implications for groups targeted by the tools, and the tools’ relationships with transformational …

Seamless Wayfinding By A Deafblind Adult On An Urban College Campus: A Case Study On Wayfinding Performance, Information Preferences, And Technology Requirements, Martin Swobodzinski, Amy T. Parker, Julie D. Wright, Kyrsten Hansen, Becky Morton

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article reports on an empirical evaluation of the experience, performance, and perception of a deafblind adult participant in an experimental case study on pedestrian travel in an urban environment. The case study assessed the degree of seamlessness of the wayfinding experience pertaining to routes that traverse both indoor and outdoor spaces under different modalities of technology-aided pedestrian travel. Specifically, an adult deafblind pedestrian traveler completed three indoor/outdoor routes on an urban college campus using three supplemental wayfinding support tools: a mobile application, written directions, and a tactile map. A convergent parallel mixed-methods approach was used to synthesize insights from …

Global Evidence Of Constraints And Limits To Human Adaptation, Adelle Thomas, Emily Theokritoff, Alexandra Lesnikowski, Diana Reckien, Kripa Jagannathan, Roger Cremades, Donovan Campbell, Elphin Tom Joe, Asha Sitati, Idowu Ajibade, Multiple Additional Authors

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Constraints and limits to adaptation are critical to understanding the extent to which human and natural systems can successfully adapt to climate change. We conduct a systematic review of 1,682 academic studies on human adaptation responses to identify patterns in constraints and limits to adaptation for different regions, sectors, hazards, adaptation response types, and actors. Using definitions of constraints and limits provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we find that most literature identifies constraints to adaptation but that there is limited literature focused on limits to adaptation. Central and South America and Small Islands generally report greater …

Climate Change Adaptation In Conflict‑Affected Countries: A Systematic Assessment Of Evidence, Asha Sitati, E. Joe, C. Grayson, C. Jaime, E. Gilmore, Eranga K. Galappaththi, A. Hudson, G. Nagle Alverio, Idowu Ajibade, Multiple Additional Authors

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

People affected by conflict are particularly vulnerable to climate shocks and climate change, yet little is known about climate change adaptation in fragile contexts. While climate events are one of the many contributing drivers of conflict, feedback from conflict increases vulnerability, thereby creating conditions for a vicious cycle of conflict. In this study, we carry out a systematic review of peer-reviewed literature, taking from the Global Adaptation Mapping Initiative (GAMI) dataset to documenting climate change adaptation occurring in 15 conflict-affected countries and compare the findings with records of climate adaptation finance flows and climate-related disasters in each country. Academic literature …

Active Rock Glaciers Of The Contiguous United States: Geographic Information System Inventory And Spatial Distribution Patterns, Gunnar Johnson, Heejun Chang, Andrew G. Fountain

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this study we present the Portland State University Active Rock Glacier Inventory (n=10 332) for the contiguous United States, derived from the manual classification of remote sensing imagery (Johnson, 2020; https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.918585). Individually, these active rock glaciers are found across widely disparate montane environments, but their overall distribution unambiguously favors relatively high, arid mountain ranges with sparse vegetation. While at least one active rock glacier is identified in each of the 11 westernmost states, nearly 88 % are found in just five states: Colorado (n=3889), Montana (n=1813), Idaho (n=1689), Wyoming ( …

Relative Impacts Of Climate Change And Land Cover Change On Streamflow Using Swat In The Clackamas River Watershed, Usa, Junjie Chen, Heejun Chang

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

To understand the spatial–temporal pattern of climate and land cover (CLC) change effects on hydrology, we used three land cover change (LCC) coupled scenarios to estimate the changes in streamflow metrics in the Clackamas River Watershed in Oregon for the 2050s (2040–2069) and the 2080s (2070–2099). Coupled scenarios, which were split into individual and combined simulations such as climate change (CC), LCC, CLC change, and daily streamflow were simulated in the Soil and Water Assessment Tool. The interannual variability of streamflow was higher in the lower urbanized area than the upper forested region. The watershed runoff was projected to be …