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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 127 records · Page 7
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2021

Living on the edge: A continental-scale assessment of forest vulnerability to drought

Globally, forests are facing an increasing risk of mass tree mortality events associated with extreme droughts and higher temperatures. Hydraulic dysfunction is considered a key mechanism of drought-triggered dieback. By leveraging the climate breadth of the Australian landscape and a national network of research sites (Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network), we conducted a continental-scale study of physiological and hydraulic traits of 33 native tree species from contrasting environments to disentangle the complexities of plant response to drought across communities. Here, we found strong relationships between key plant hydraulic traits and site aridity. Leaf turgor loss point and xylem embolism resistance were correlated with minimum water potential experienced by each species. Across the data set, there was a strong coordination between hydraulic traits, including those linked to hydraulic safety, stomatal regulation and the cost of carbon investment into woody tissue. These results illustrate that aridity has acted as a strong selective pressure, shaping hydraulic traits of tree species across the Australian landscape. Hydraulic safety margins were constrained across sites, with species from wetter sites tending to have smaller safety margin compared with species at drier sites, suggesting trees are operating close to their hydraulic thresholds and forest biomes across the spectrum may be susceptible to shifts in climate that result in the intensification of drought.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS2010

Assessment of the Vulnerability of Water Resources to Seasonal Fires Across the Northern Sub-Saharan African Region

The northern sub-Saharan African (NSSA) region, extending from the southern fringes of the Sahara to the Equator, and stretching west to east from the Atlantic to the Indian ocean coasts, plays a prominent role in the distribution of Saharan dust and other airborne matter around the region and to other parts of the world, the genesis of global atmospheric circulation, and the birth of such major (and often catastrophic) events as hurricanes. Therefore, this NSSA region represents a critical variable in the global climate change equation. Recent satellite-based studies have revealed that the NSSA region has one of the highest biomass-burning rates per unit land area among all regions of the world. Because of the high concentration and frequency of fires in this region, with the associated abundance of heat release and gaseous and particulate smoke emissions, biomass-burning activity is believed to be a major driver of the regional carbon, energy, and water cycles. We acknowledge that the rainy season in the NSSA region is from April to September while biomass burning occurs mainly during the dry season (October to March). Nevertheless, these two phenomena are indirectly coupled to each other through a chain of complex processes and conditions, including land-cover and surface-albedo changes, the carbon cycle, evapotranspiration, drought, desertification, surface water runoff, ground water recharge, and variability in atmospheric composition, heating rates, and circulation. In this presentation, we will examine the theoretical linkages between these processes, discuss the preliminary results based on satellite data analysis, and provide an overview of plans for more integrated research to be conducted over the next few years.

Ichoku, Charles M.↗
NASA NTRS2024

Bridgeport Urban Development: Leveraging NASA Earth Observations and Sociodemographic Data to Assess Urban Heat Vulnerability and Inform Cool Corridors in Bridgeport, Connecticut

Urban environments face hotter temperatures than suburban and rural areas due to higher concentrations of impervious surfaces, heat-retaining buildings, and lack of green space. Bridgeport, Connecticut, which was formerly a national manufacturing hub, is now the densest and most populous city in the state. Bridgeport experiences hotter temperatures, exposing its residents to more extreme temperatures than the surrounding affluent suburbs. Extreme heat affects the health of those exposed to it and intensifies energy demands. Understanding temperature differences is the first step in effectively directing mitigation efforts. Our partner, Groundwork Bridgeport, along with the Yale Urban Design Workshop, are planning a “cool corridors” project, implementing cooling infrastructure to combat urban heat. We used Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor and Landsat 9 Thermal Infrared Sensor-2 data to conduct a Land Surface Temperature analysis in Google Earth Engine for the county of Fairfield. A Principal Component Analysis was performed to identify indicators of social vulnerability in Bridgeport. We used the SOlar and LongWave Environmental Irradiance Geometry model to identify felt heat on the block level to inform where the partner should locate their cooling interventions to ensure they are most effective and equitable. We focused on the East Side of Bridgeport, which we found was 10 degrees hotter than other areas of Bridgeport and the neighboring town of Fairfield. We integrated our findings using Earth observations and additional sociodemographic and climate data into final communication products for our partners which will facilitate their selection of candidate locations for their Cool Corridors project.

Silas Kirsch↗
DOE OSTI2025

V-INT: Automated Vulnerability Intelligence and Risk Assessment

The project team, including the University of Arkansas (UA) as the lead, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR), Network Perception (NP), and Bastazo, has successfully researched, developed, and demonstrated the V-INT toolset, and also integrated it into the commercial products of NP (i.e., NP-View) and Bastazo (i.e., Spartan). The end product is a cybersecurity software tool for energy utilities that can automatically assess the risks of software vulnerabilities in an organization’s assets considering the organization’s firewall policies. It allows security operators to identify the small portion of vulnerabilities that poses true threats to their system (i.e., those that are not protected by firewall policies) and prioritize the mitigation of these vulnerabilities to minimize risks. It also allows security operators to identify the vulnerability-induced attack paths under their organization’s firewall policy, providing effective decision supports for mitigating potential attacks.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRS2015

AgMIP's Transdisciplinary Agricultural Systems Approach to Regional Integrated Assessment of Climate Impacts, Vulnerability, and Adaptation

This chapter describes methods developed by the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) to implement a transdisciplinary, systems-based approach for regional-scale (local to national) integrated assessment of agricultural systems under future climate, biophysical, and socio-economic conditions. These methods were used by the AgMIP regional research teams in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia to implement the analyses reported in their respective chapters of this book. Additional technical details are provided in Appendix 1.The principal goal that motivates AgMIP's regional integrated assessment (RIA) methodology is to provide scientifically rigorous information needed to support improved decision-making by various stakeholders, ranging from local to national and international non-governmental and governmental organizations.

agriculture↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Western Tennessee Water Resources: Leveraging High Resolution Remotely Sensed Data to Assess Water Availability and Vulnerability in the Memphis Aquifer Area in West Tennessee

The West TN portion of the Memphis aquifer, located within the Hatchie-Obion watershed is experiencing increased urban development, especially with the construction of "Blue Oval City", a battery manufacturing site for Ford's new electric trucks. Hayfood and Fayette counties fall within the sensitive recharge zone of the aquifer, and also contain the manufacturing megasite, making this an area of interest to highlight the consequences of increased urbanization to the aquifer. To understand the aquifers health, we averaged aquifer recharge factors seasonally to assess relationships from 2019-2022. Seasonal relationships were considered to highlight the hydrological factors that contribute to recharge, such as water balance, runoff, and evaporative stress that flux season to season (i.e. less precipitation in summer).

Katera Lee↗
DOE OSTI2026

Assessing Energy Infrastructure Devices for Vulnerabilities

Industrial control systems prove to be vital to the health and security of the nation in our critical infrastructure. Critical infrastructure includes the most foundational systems to support modern civilization which includes water and wastewater systems, communications, and the electricity we use to name a few sectors. However, these devices' overall composition remains largely unknown and are untested from a cyber security perspective. As part of the Cyber Testing for Resilient Industrial Control Systems (CyTRICS) program, I analyzed one such energy infrastructure device to better understand how it functions, what hardware and software components are present within it, and assess it for security vulnerabilities. To achieve this, I reverse engineered binary files using Ghidra to understand system functionality and learned more about how to collaborate with other researchers on a shared Ghidra project. I learned more about how web sockets function and how to interact with them through Python to test if they are secure or not. This work led me to assess possible vulnerabilities in this device and provide a better understanding of its composition and function, which are essential to INL's mission of securing our nation's energy infrastructure.

99 - GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2021

PV System Owner's Guide to Identifying, Assessing, and Addressing Weather Vulnerabilities, Risks, and Impacts

The report is designed to help federal facility managers, engineers, contractors, and consultants identify the most common PV system vulnerabilities that could lead from mild to catastrophic loss of PV systems during severe weather events. The guide helps users understand the type and severity of severe weather that can occur at any given location, and provides pre- and post-storm operations and maintenance (O&M) measures that can reduce the potential for damage to a PV system during a severe weather event and help speed the recovery of a PV system damaged during a storm. The guide emphasizes safety in responding to damage from severe weather events.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS1980

As assessment of power system vulnerability to release of carbon fibers during commercial aviation accidents

The vulnerability of a power distribution system in Bedford and Lexington, Massachusetts to power outages as a result of exposure to carbon fibers released in a commercial aviation accident in 1993 was examined. Possible crash scenarios at Logan Airport based on current operational data and estimated carbon fiber usage levels were used to predict exposure levels and occurrence probabilities. The analysis predicts a mean time between carbon fiber induced power outages of 2300 years with an expected annual consequence of 0.7 persons losing power. In comparison to historical outage data for the system, this represents a 0.007% increase in outage rate and 0.07% increase in consequence.

Larocque, G. R.↗
NASA NTRS2022

Western Tennessee Water Resources: Leveraging High Resolution Remotely Sensed Data to Assess Water Availability and Vulnerability in the Memphis Aquifer Area in West Tennessee

The Memphis Aquifer (MA) is located in the Mississippi Embayment that extends 250,000 square kilometers across eight states. Fayette and Haywood counties in West Tennessee are situated within the recharge zone of the MA and include the forthcoming Ford “mega campus” named Blue Oval City (BOC), which will consist of a vehicle-production facility and battery assembly division. Increased water demand and land cover change resulting from urban development, such as BOC in the MA’s narrow recharge zone, threaten the aquifer’s groundwater storage and recharge rate. Groundwater recharge factors that influence the narrow recharge zone of the MA include precipitation, evapotranspiration, runoff, and land cover type. In partnership with Protect Our Aquifer (POA) and the Center for Applied Earth Science and Engineering Research (CAESAR) at the University of Memphis, the team used data from the ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS), Integrated Multi-Satellite Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM IMERG), and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS). The team also used ancillary data from the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) and the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS) Noah Land Surface Model. These results identified “thriving” recharge locations, which are areas most conducive to aquifer recharge in Fayette County. The partners may use the results to prioritize specific areas in need of protection before they become susceptible to the effects of urbanization and industrialization.

precipitation↗