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At least 1,207 records · Page 67
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2015

Space for action: How practitioners influence environmental assessment

Highlights: • The concept of ‘space for action’ offers an important new lens on EA practice. • Focuses on the relation between practitioner's understanding and their actions • Environmental assessment practice is decisively shaped by practitioners. • Practitioners may underestimate their potential to make a difference. • Contributes to understanding change in the environmental assessment field. This article contributes to understanding of how change occurs in the field of environmental assessment (EA). It argues that the integration of new issues in EA, such as human health, is significantly influenced by how practitioners' understandings shape their actions, and by what happens when those, possibly different, interpretations of appropriate action are acted out. The concept of space for action is developed as a means of investigating this relation between understanding and action. Frame theory is also used, to develop a sharper focus on how ‘potential spaces for action’ are created, what these imply for (individuals') preferred choices and actions in certain situations, and what happens in practice when these are acted out and ‘actual spaces for action’ are created. This novel approach is then applied in a Swedish case study of transport planning. The analysis reveals the important work done by practitioners, revealing just how EA practice is decisively shaped by practitioners. Analysis of practice using the lens of spaces for action offers an important new perspective in understanding how the field adapts to new challenges.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2018

Workshop to Identify Opportunities in Biological and Environmental Research Uniquely Enabled by the APS Upgrade

The development of synchrotron-based x-ray science has enabled tremendous scientific advances, driven both by discoveries of new fundamental ways to derive insight from the interaction of x-rays with matter and by the evolution of x-ray light sources themselves. Over the last 20-plus years, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne has yielded a multitude of transformational insights into science questions across numerous areas relevant to the biological, geological, geochemical, biogeochemical, and environmental sciences. Recent developments in accelerator technology, particularly the multi-bend achromat lattice, have led to plans to dramatically upgrade the APS, allowing an upgraded APS to offer orders-of-magnitude improvements in key parameters such as coherence and brightness, while retaining high-energy capabilities. These enhanced parameters are directly relevant to almost all hard x-ray imaging, scattering, and spectroscopy experiments (Eriksson et al., 2014). The APS Upgrade Project exceeds the capabilities of today’s synchrotrons by 2 to 3 orders of magnitude in brightness and coherent flux in the hard x-ray range, enabling a transformational range of new probes for the structure, properties, and functionality of matter. With vastly improved coherent flux, nearly all techniques can become microscopies. For example, frontiers inaccessible today will be opened by x-ray instruments that provide three-dimensional (3-D) real-space resolution down to nanometers across, up to millimeters of field of view, providing the ability to follow in real time relevant processes and trace element sensitivity down to a few atoms. In addition to the unprecedented spatial resolution across a large field of view, and with appropriate time resolution, the ability for high-throughput, four-dimension/five-dimension data collection enables unprecedented statistical analysis of complex biological and environmental systems in changing environments.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1983

Resin characterization in cured graphite fiber reinforced composites using diffuse reflectance-FTIR

The feasibility of using diffuse reflectance in combination with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy to obtain information on cured graphite fiber reinforced polymeric matrix resin composites was investigated. Several graphite/epoxy, polysulfone, and polyimide composites exposed to thermal or radiation environments were examined. An experimental polyimide-sulfone adhesive tape was also studied during processing. In each case, significant changes in resin molecular structure was observed due to environmental exposure. These changes in molecular structure were correlated with previously observed changes in material properties providing new insights into material behavior.

Young, P. R.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Multiple Changes to Reusable Solid Rocket Motors, Identifying Hidden Risks

The Space Shuttle Reusable Solid Rocket Motor (RSRM) baseline is subject to various changes. Changes are necessary due to safety and quality improvements, environmental considerations, vendor changes, obsolescence issues, etc. The RSRM program has a goal to test changes on full-scale static test motors prior to flight due to the unique RSRM operating environment. Each static test motor incorporates several significant changes and numerous minor changes. Flight motors often implement multiple changes simultaneously. While each change is individually verified and assessed, the potential for changes to interact constitutes additional hidden risk. Mitigating this risk depends upon identification of potential interactions. Therefore, the ATK Thiokol Propulsion System Safety organization initiated the use of a risk interaction matrix to identify potential interactions that compound risk. Identifying risk interactions supports flight and test motor decisions. Uncovering hidden risks of a full-scale static test motor gives a broader perspective of the changes being tested. This broader perspective compels the program to focus on solutions for implementing RSRM changes with minimal/mitigated risk. This paper discusses use of a change risk interaction matrix to identify test challenges and uncover hidden risks to the RSRM program.

Greenhalgh, Phillip O.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Regional and Model-Specific Response Types in A Global Gridded Crop Model Ensemble

Crop models are often employed to project crop yields under changing conditions such as global warming and associated management change for adaptation. Multi-model ensembles are promoted to enhance the robustness of projections, but questions remain on what causes often large differences between projections of individual models. Global Gridded Crop Models (GGCMs) are especially exposed to this question when applied for assessing climate change impacts, adaptation, environmental impacts of agricultural production, because their results are used in downstream analyses, such as in integrated assessment or economic modeling for projecting future land-use change. Even though global gridded crop models are often based on detailed field-scale models or have implemented similar modeling principles in other ecosystem models, global-scale models are subject to substantial uncertainties from both model structure and parametrization as well as from calibration and input data quality. AgMIP’s Global Gridded Crop Model Intercomparison (GGCMI) has thus set out to intercompare GGCMs in order to evaluate model performance, describe model uncertainties, identify inconsistencies within the ensemble and underlying reasons, and to ultimately improve models and modeling capacities. In phase 2 of the GGCMI activities, 12 modeling groups followed a modeling protocol that asked for up to 1404 31-year global simulations at 0.5 arc-degree spatial resolution to assess models’ sensitivities to changes in carbon dioxide (C; 4 different levels) temperature (T; 7 different offset levels), water supply (W; 9 levels), and nitrogen (N; 3 levels), the so-called CTWN experiment (Franke et al. 2020; http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-2315-2020). We here present analyses of model response types using impact response surfaces along the C, T, W, and N dimensions, respectively and collectively. Doing so, we can understand differences in simulated responses per driver rather than aggregated changes in yields. We find that models’ sensitivities to the individual driver dimensions are substantially different and often more different across models than across regions. A cluster analysis finds regional and model-specific patterns. There is some agreement across models with respect to the spatial patterns of response types but strong differences in the distribution of response type clusters across models suggests that models need to undergo further scrutiny. We suggest establishing standards in model process evaluation not only against historical dynamics but also against dedicated experiments across the CTWN dimensions.

crop models↗
DOE OSTI2022

Politics of problem definition: Comparing public support of climate change mitigation policies using machine learning

Public support is a key contributor to successful policy adoption and implementation. Given the urgency of climate change mitigation, scholars have explored various determinants that affect public support for climate change mitigation policy. However, the relative decisiveness of these factors in shaping public support is insufficiently examined. Therefore, we deploy interpretable machine learning to understand which factors, among many previously investigated, are most decisive for structuring public support for various climate change mitigation policies. In this paper, we particularly look at the decisiveness of problem definition for shaping public support among various factors. Using U.S national survey data, we find that how individuals define the issue of climate change is more decisive for structuring public support for promoting renewable energy and regulating pollutants to mitigate the risks associated with climate change. However, the results also indicate that the most decisive factors associated with public support vary depending on the types of mitigation policy. Here, we conclude that different strategies should be utilized to increase public support for various climate change mitigation policy options. Our findings contribute to a scholarly understanding of the specific politics of problem definition in the context of environmental and climate change policy.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS2008

NASA's Agency-Wide Strategy for Environmental Regulatory Risk Analysis and Communication

NASA's mission is to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery, and aeronautics research. To help enable existing and future programs to pursue this mission, NASA has established the Principal Center for Regulatory Risk Analysis and Communication (RRAC PC) to proactively identify, analyze, and communicate environmental regulatory risks to the NASA community. The RRAC PC is chartered to evaluate the risks posed to NASA Programs and facilities by environmentally related drivers. The RRAC PC focuses on emerging environmental regulations, as well as risks related to operational changes that can trigger existing environmental requirements. Changing regulations have the potential to directly affect program activities. For example, regulatory changes can restrict certain activities or operations by mandating changes in how operations may be done or limiting where or how certain operations can take place. Regulatory changes also can directly affect the ability to use certain materials by mandating a production phase-out or restricting usage applications of certain materials. Such changes can result in NASA undertaking material replacement efforts. Even if a regulation does not directly affect NASA operations, U.S. and international regulations can pose program risks indirectly through requirements levied on manufacturers and vendors of components and materials. For example, manufacturers can change their formulations to comply with new regulatory requirements. Such changes can require time-consuming and costly requalification certification for use in human spaceflight programs. The RRAC PC has implemented several strategies for proactively managing regulatory change to minimize potential adverse impacts to NASA Programs and facilities. This presentation highlights the lessons learned through establishing the RRAC PC, the process by which the RRAC PC monitors and distributes information about emerging regulatory requirements, and the cross-Agency cooperation that is vital to supporting NASA's mission.

Duda, Kristen↗
NASA NTRS2008

NASA's Agency-wide Strategy for Environmental Regulatory Risk Analysis and Communication

NASA's mission is to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery, and aeronautics research. To help enable existing and future programs to pursue this mission, NASA has established the Principal Center for Regulatory Risk Analysis and Communication (RRAC PC) to proactively identify, analyze, and communicate environmental regulatory risks to the NASA community. The RRAC PC is chartered to evaluate the risks posed to NASA Programs and facilities by environmentally related drivers. The RRAC PC focuses on emerging environmental regulations, as well as risks related to operational changes that can trigger existing environmental requirements. Changing regulations have the potential to directly affect program activities. For example, regulatory changes can restrict certain activities or operations by mandating changes in how operations may be done or limiting where or how certain operations can take place. Regulatory changes also can directly affect the ability to use certain materials by mandating a production phase-out or restricting usage aPi'iications of certain materials. Such changes can result in NASA undertaking material replacement efforts. Even if a regulation does not directly affect NASA operations, U.S. and international regulations can pose program risks indirectly through requirements levied on manufacturers and vendors of components and materials. For example, manufacturers can change their formulations to comply with new regulatory requirements. Such changes can require time-consuming and costly requalification certification for use in human spaceflight programs. The RRAC PC has implemented several strategies for proactively managing regulatory change to minimize potential adverse impacts to NASA Programs and facilities. This presentation highlights the lessons learned through establishing the RRAC PC, the process by which the RRAC PC monitors and distributes information about emerging regulatory requirements, and the cross-Agency cooperation that is vital to supporting NASA's mission.

Duda, Kristen↗
DOE OSTI2026

Developing Scenario‐Based Strategies for Health, Climate, and Environmental Preparedness: The One Health, One Earth Approach

Climate change amplifies many threats to human health. Despite advances in understanding climate change dynamics and impacts, there remains a critical gap in translating scientific knowledge into equitable, and community-driven health interventions. The inaugural One Earth, One Health workshop sought to explore this gap through human-centered design exercises involving interdisciplinary researchers from climate and Earth sciences, engineering, epidemiology, microbiology, and environmental health. Although participants did not co-develop solutions with affected communities, they used stakeholder role-playing to guide ideation and lay groundwork for actionable plans. Through these methods, participants identified community needs and proposed prototype solutions to alleviate health threats exacerbated by global environmental change. Prototypes were organized around infectious diseases, extreme weather, and air quality, as illustrative themes rather than an exhaustive set of risks. Key solutions included strategies for anticipatory systems and early warning (e.g., integrating environmental signals with health data), inclusive communication and infrastructure needs for responding to extreme weather events, and integrated platforms visualizing air quality trends to support tailored, context-aware guidance beyond one-size-fits-all alerts. The workshop highlighted opportunities such as leveraging machine learning, Earth observation, and real-time surveillance to protect communities, but also noted barriers including data quality, technological redundancy, privacy, and governance challenges. Additionally, participants emphasized the need for interdisciplinary teams capable of collaborating across sectors, breaking down silos and addressing gaps in training and education. Overall, the workshop illustrates how process-driven, human-centered approaches can help surface user needs and generate testable prototype concepts, while underscoring the importance of direct community partnership for implementation.

Abadi, Azar M. [University of Alabama, Birmingham,↗
DOE OSTI2025

Root and Leaf Traits of Alfalfa Exhibit Distinct Responses to Soil Microbial Communities and Environmental Stresses

Ongoing climate change is negatively impacting crop productivity globally. Past research has highlighted that a diverse soil microbial community and variation in plant traits for resource acquisition can mitigate the negative impacts of climate change factors on crop productivity. This study investigates the effects of two major environmental stressors—drought and salinity stress, on plant productivity, biomass allocation, and root and leaf trait responses under distinct soil microbial diversities. Our results showed that salinity stress had stronger negative impacts on plant productivity than drought stress. Shoot biomass decreased by 30% and 32.5% under drought and salinity stress, respectively, whereas the root biomass decreased by 32% only under salinity stress. Soil microbial diversity did not affect plant productivity. Next, root traits were mainly impacted by drought and salinity stress, whereas leaf traits were impacted by both environmental stresses and soil microbial diversity. Specific root length and specific root area decreased under drought, and root tissue density was minimal under salinity stress. Root traits were not affected by soil microbial communities. In contrast, the leaf nitrogen content increased, whereas pheophytin content (a breakdown product of chlorophyll) decreased when plants were grown in diverse microbial communities under environmental stresses, especially drought. These results highlight the importance of soil microbial diversity in impacting plant traits in response to environmental stresses. We showed that the soil microbial diversity influences both aboveground and belowground plant traits, indicating the need for better management practices to conserve and promote soil microbial diversity.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS2002

Effects of Gravity on Cell Movement and Development

The main purpose of this project was to understand how the migration and growth of cultured cells respond to mechanical forces. We have made significant progress on all the proposed aims. The most important discoveries are that changes in the environmental mechanical input, such as during space flight, can induce profound changes in cell migration, growth, and programmed cell death. In addition, using genetically engineered cells, we have gained important insight into the molecular mechanism underlying such mechanosensing processes. The results are summarized.

Wang, Yu-Li↗
DOE OSTI2022

Precipitation trends determine future occurrences of compound hot–dry events

Compound hot–dry events—co-occurring hot and dry extremes—frequently cause damages to human and natural systems, often exceeding separate impacts from heatwaves and droughts. Strong increases in the occurrence of these events are projected with warming, but associated uncertainties remain large and poorly understood. Here, using climate model large ensembles, we show that mean precipitation trends exclusively modulate the future occurrence of compound hot–dry events over land. This occurs because local warming will be large enough that future droughts will always coincide with at least moderately hot extremes, even in a 2°C warmer world. By contrast, precipitation trends are often weak and equivocal in sign, depending on the model, region and internal climate variability. Therefore, constraining regional precipitation trends will also constrain future compound hot–dry events. These results help to assess future frequencies of other compound extremes characterized by strongly different trends in the drivers.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2019

Interactive Effects of Microbes and Nitrogen on Panicum virgatum Root Functional Traits and Patterns of Phenotypic Selection

Premise of research. Plants in natural and agricultural systems are influenced in myriad ways by their microbial communities, particularly by providing goods and services that change plant functional traits. Microbes are considered an influential part of the environmental context that change plant trait expression, but often, microbe-mediated effects are contingent on local resources, such as nitrogen. Here, we ask how microbes and nitrogen affect belowground functional traits and patterns of phenotypic selection. Methodology. We performed a fully factorial greenhouse experiment with switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), manipulating microbial community composition and nitrogen availability. We measured plant performance and belowground functional traits and performed 16S amplicon sequencing of the root-associated microbial communities. We looked for correlations between microbial taxa and root functional traits, and we performed phenotypic selection analysis on five belowground functional traits to determine how traits affect plant relative performance across biotic and abiotic contexts. Pivotal results. All belowground plant functional traits except root tissue density were affected by adding nitrogen. We found that a microbial taxon (amplicon sequence variant [ASV]) in the genus Micromonospora correlated with shorter root lengths. We also found strong positive selection for longer roots regardless of the abiotic or biotic environment. In contrast, selection favored lower root-to-shoot ratios in high-nitrogen conditions, and selection on root tissue density was highest in treatments that had high nitrogen levels and perturbed microbial communities. Conclusions. We did not detect microbial effects on the expression of plant traits (ecological effects); however, patterns of phenotypic selection (evolutionary effects) on root tissue density differed depending on the biotic and abiotic environment. Additionally, we detected strong selection for increased root length across treatments; we also found that one ASV correlated with decreased root length, indicating potential conflict between root microbiome components and plant fitness. Future work would be to include microbial taxa in phenotypic selection analysis and to conduct manipulations of the microbes correlated with functional traits to determine causality.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Mars Science Laboratory Mastcam Multispectral Investigation of Drill Targets From the Beginning of the Clay Sulfate Transition to Marker Band Valley

In March, 2021 the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover officially started exploring the Clay Sulfate Transition (CST). This area of Mt. Sharp has been interpreted to have hydrated Mg-sulfate spectral signatures in CRISM orbital data, and it no longer has the strong phyllosilicate spectral signature as the previous Glen Torridon region. Recently, the Curiosity rover has also encountered the marker band that was also identified in orbital data [1,3]. This shift from phyllosilicates to hydrated Mg-sulfates suggests a major change in the environmental conditions during which these rocks were deposited. This abstract focuses on changes seen in the Mastcam multispectral data between the CST drill targets.

S R Jacob↗
DOE OSTI2017

Adaptation Actions for a Changing Arctic: Perspectives from the Bering-Chukchi-Beaufort Region

In May 2013, the Arctic Council requested the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) to “produce information to assist local decision-makers and stakeholders in three pilot regions in developing adaptation tools and strategies to better deal with climate change and other pertinent environmental stressors” (AMAP, 2017). Adaptation Actions for a Changing Arctic (AACA) is the response to that request: an assessment of climate and integrated social and environmental frameworks or models that can inform adaptation actions in the face of Arctic change. Three Arctic regions were chosen by AMAP for pilot assessments to be conducted simultaneously. This report is an assessment for the Bering-Chukchi-Beaufort (BCB) region. It focuses on the challenges that residents have experienced and the adaptations they have implemented in response to the rapid changes of recent decades – in climate, landscape, wildlife, and social, economic, and health systems. It also looks to the future and analyzes the strengths and deficiencies in societies’ and individuals’ abilities to adapt, so that decision-makers may better understand where assistance is needed or where alternatives must be developed.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2017

The role of bioenergy in a climate-changing world

Bioenergy has been under intense scrutiny over the last ten years with significant research efforts in many countries taking place to define and measure sustainable practices. We describe here the main challenges and policy issues and provide policy recommendations for scaling up sustainable bioenergy approaches globally. The 2016 Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs defined under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP21) will not reach global Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission targets of 2 °C. Sustainable biomass production can make a significant contribution. Substantive evidence exists that many bioenergy cropping systems can bring multiple benefits and off-set environmental problems associated with fossil fuels usage as well as intensive food production and urbanization. We provide evidence that there are many approaches to land use for bioenergy expansion that do not lead to competition for food or other needs. We should focus on how to manage these approaches on a synergistic basis and how to reduce tradeoffs at landscape scales. Priorities include successful synergies between bioenergy and food security (integrated resource management designed to improve both food security and access to bioenergy), investments in technology, rural extension, and innovations that build capacity and infrastructure, promotion of stable prices to incentivize local production and use of double cropping and flex crops (plants grown for both food and non-food markets) that provide food and energy as well as other services. The sustainable production of biomass requires appropriate policies to secure long-term support to improve crop productivity and also to ensure environmental as well as economic and social benefits of bioenergy cropping systems. Continuous support for cropping, infrastructure, agricultural management and related policies is needed to foster positive synergies between food crops and bioenergy production. In comparison to fossil fuels, biofuels have many positive environmental benefits. Potential negative effects caused by land-use change and agriculture intensification can be mitigated by agroecological zoning, best management practices, the use of eco-hydrology and biodiversity-friendly concepts at field, watershed and landscape scales. Global climate and environmental changes related to the use of fossil fuels and inequitable development make it unethical not to pursue more equitable energy development that includes bioenergy. Here, to achieve sustainable development, competitiveness and costs of bioenergy production need to be addressed in a manner that considers not only economic gains but also development of local knowledge and social and environmental benefits.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Spatio-temporal microbial community dynamics within soil aggregates

Soil microbial communities are highly spatially organized, shaped in part by the structure of soil itself. Understanding how spatially discrete microbial communities change across years and seasons in response to environmental factors, plant phenology and aggregate turnover, is key to understanding how varying management practices impact the ecology of soil microbial communities. We investigated both seasonal (within year) and annual (across sampling years) changes of discrete microbial communities in soil aggregate fractions, large macroaggregates (LM) and microaggregates (MICRO) in three different bioenergy management systems. We hypothesized that 1) seasonal changes due to plant phenology and aggregate turnover will be most pronounced within the MICRO aggregate soil microbial community; 2) inter-annual variability will lead to changes in microbial diversity across aggregate sizes and the magnitude of change will be mediated by management regime. We found that LM and MICRO aggregates have unique microbial communities within soil. MICRO aggregate microbial communities are more diverse and change more dynamically across the sampling season, peaking in diversity at peak plant growth and maximum biomass. The number of families indicative of specific MICRO aggregate habitats increases over the growing season for both bacteria (from 3 to 51) and fungi (from 8 to 14). The LM aggregates harbored less diverse, yet more stable, communities within a growing season. By contrast, between years the LM aggregates were the most responsive to inter-annual variability. Our study demonstrates the importance of including the spatio-temporal dynamics of soil microbes. We identified “hot spots” of microbial diversity within soil, with a greater diversity of microbes found under prairies, within the MICRO aggregates, and seasonally during peak plant biomass. Targeted analysis of the MICRO aggregates can contribute to deeper understanding of potential diversity and functioning of soil microbial communities for ecosystem maintenance as well as the response to climatic events and environmental change.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗