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School of Global Environmental Sustainability

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://hdl.handle.net/10217/189446

These digital collections include faculty publications and datasets from the School of Global Environmental Sustainability.

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    Precipitationshed data for the moisture recycling analysis within the article "Megacity precipitationsheds reveal tele-connected water security challenges"
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Keys, Patrick W.; Wang-Erlandsson, Lan; Gordon, Line J.
    Urbanization is a global process that has taken billions of people from the rural countryside to concentrated urban centers, adding pressure to existing water resources. Many cities are specifically reliant on renewable freshwater regularly refilled by precipitation, rather than fossil groundwater or desalination. A precipitationshed can be considered the "watershed of the sky" and identifies the origin of precipitation falling in a given region. In this paper, we use this concept to determine the sources of precipitation that supply renewable water in the watersheds of the largest cities of the world. We quantify the sources of precipitation for 29 megacities and analyze their differences between dry and wet years. Our results reveal that 19 of 29 megacities depend for more than a third of their water supply on evaporation from land. We also show that for many of the megacities, the terrestrial dependence is higher in dry years. This high dependence on terrestrial evaporation for their precipitation exposes these cities to potential land-use change that could reduce the evaporation that generates precipitation. Combining indicators of water stress, moisture recycling exposure, economic capacity, vegetation-regulated evaporation, vegetation-regulated runoff, land-use change, and dry-season moisture recycling sensitivity reveals five highly vulnerable megacities (Karachi, Bengalaru, Delhi, Istanbul, and Wuhan). A further nine megacities were found to have medium vulnerability with regard to their water supply. We conclude that understanding how upwind landscapes affect downwind municipal water resources could be a key component for understanding the complexity of urban water security.
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    Precipitationshed data for the moisture recycling analysis within the article "On the social dynamics of moisture recycling"
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2018) Keys, Pat
    The biophysical phenomenon of terrestrial moisture recycling connects distant regions via the atmospheric branch of the water cycle. This process, whereby the land surface mediates evaporation to the atmosphere and the precipitation that falls downwind, is increasingly well-understood. However, recent studies highlight a need to consider an important and often missing dimension – the social. Here, we explore the social dynamics of three case study countries with strong terrestrial moisture recycling: Mongolia, Niger, and Bolivia. We first use the WAM-2layers moisture tracking scheme and ERA-Interim climate reanalysis, to calculate the evaporation sources for each country's precipitation, a.k.a. the precipitationshed. Second, we examine the social aspects of source and sink regions, using economic, food security, and land-use data. Third, we perform a literature review of relevant economic links, land-use policies, and land-use change for each country and its evaporation sources. The moisture-recycling analysis reveals that Mongolia, Niger, and Bolivia recycle 13, 9, and 18 % of their own moisture, respectively. Our analysis of social aspects suggests considerable heterogeneity in the social characteristics within each country relative to the societies in its corresponding evaporation sources. We synthesize our case studies and develop a set of three system archetypes that capture the core features of the moisture-recycling social–ecological systems (MRSESs): isolated, regional, and tele-coupled systems. Our key results are as follows: (a) geophysical tele-connections of atmospheric moisture are complemented by social tele-couplings forming feedback loops, and consequently, complex adaptive systems; (b) the heterogeneity of the social dynamics among our case studies renders broad generalization difficult and highlights the need for nuanced individual analysis; and, (c) there does not appear to be a single desirable or undesirable MRSES, with each archetype associated with benefits and disadvantages. This exploration of the social dimensions of moisture recycling is part of an extension of the emerging discipline of socio-hydrology and a suggestion for further exploration of new disciplines such as socio-meteorology or socio-climatology, within which the Earth system is considered as a coevolutionary social–ecological system.
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    Dataset associated with "A machine-learning approach to human footprint index estimation with applications to sustainable development"
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2020) Keys, Patrick; Barnes, Elizabeth; Carter, Neil
    Fundamental to the success of sustainable development is a foundation of intact ecosystems. While the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 15, “Life on Land”, seeks to protect biodiversity in terrestrial ecosystems, accelerating human-driven changes across the Earth system are undermining efforts to preserve biodiversity. Understanding this tension has never been more urgent and requires tools that reveal pathways for development that also support biodiversity. Here we introduce a near-present, global-scale machine learning-based human footprint index which is capable of routine update. By comparing global changes in the machine learning human footprint index between 2000 and 2019 to national-scale biodiversity metrics for Goal 15, we find that some countries are experiencing increases in their human footprint while biodiversity metrics are improving as well. We further examine development and policy dynamics to uncover enabling mechanisms for balancing increased human pressure with biodiversity gains. This has immediate policy relevance, since the majority of countries globally are not on track to achieve Goal 15 by the declared deadline of 2030. Moving forward, the machine learning human footprint index can be used for ongoing monitoring and evaluation support toward the twin goals of fostering a thriving society and global Earth system.
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    Climate indicators for agriculture
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2020-07) Walsh, Margaret K., author; Backlund, Peter W., author; Buja, Lawrence, author; DeGaetano, Arthur, author; Melnick, Rachel, author; Prokopy, Linda, author; Takle, Eugene, author; Todey, Dennis, author; Ziska, Louis, author
    Climate Indicators for Agriculture identifies 20 climate indicators that are important for agricultural management in a changing climate. The same indicators will allow scientists to identify the types and magnitude of change faced by agricultural producers and land managers across the United States. Five categories of indicator are described. Physical indicators show changes in climate variables that have direct effects on agricultural production and food systems. Crop and Livestock indicators show climate-induced changes in agricultural systems. Biological Indicators show how climate change is altering the range and infestation intensities of weeds, pests, disease and disease vectors that affect crop production and animal agriculture. Phenological Indicators show how climate change is affecting the timing of seasonal activities in agriculture, such as the date of flowering and pollination for a given crop. Socioeconomic Indicators show how human and economic factors in agriculture are affected by climate change.
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    Dataset associated with "Visions of the Arctic Future: Blending Computational Text Analysis And Structured Futuring to Create Story-based Scenarios"
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Keys, Patrick; Meyer, Alexis
    The future of Arctic social systems and natural environments is highly uncertain. Climate change will lead to unprecedented phenomena in the pan-Arctic region, such as regular shipping traffic through the Arctic Ocean, urban growth, military activity, expanding agricultural frontiers, and transformed indigenous societies.While intergovernmental to local organizations have produced numerous synthesis-based visions of the future, a challenge in any scenario exercise is capturing the possibility space of change. In this work, we employ a computational text analysis to objectively generate unique thematic input for novel, story-based visions of the Arctic. Specifically, we develop a corpus of more than 2,000 articles in publicly accessible, English-language Arctic newspapers that discuss the future in the Arctic. We then perform a latent Dirichlet allocation, resulting in ten distinct topics and sets of associated keywords. From these topics and keywords, we design ten story-based scenarios employing the Mānoa mashup, science fiction prototyping, and other methods. Our results demonstrate that computational text analysis can feed directly into a creative futuring process, whereby the output stories can be traced clearly back to the objectively identified topics and keywords. We discuss our findings in the context of the broader field of Arctic scenarios, and show that the results of this computational text analysis produce complementary stories to the existing scenario literature. We conclude that story-based scenarios can provide vital texture toward understanding the myriad possible Arctic futures.
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    Data associated with "Atmospheric water recycling an essential feature of critical natural asset stewardship"
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Keys, Patrick
    Global ecosystems are interconnected via atmospheric water vapor flows. Land use change can modify evaporation from land, altering atmospheric moisture recycling and potentially leading to significant changes in downwind precipitation and associated ecological impacts. We combine insights on global ecosystem-regulated moisture recycling with an analysis of critical natural assets (CNA, the 30% of global land providing most of nature’s contributions to people) to reveal the sources and sinks of atmospheric water cycle regulation. We find that 65% of the precipitation over CNA is supplied by evaporation from other land areas. Likewise, CNA regions supply critical moisture as precipitation to terrestrial natural ecosystems and production systems worldwide, with 44% of CNA evaporation falling on terrestrial surfaces. Specifically, the Congo River basin emerges as a hotspot of overlap between local atmospheric water cycle maintenance and concentration of nature’s contributions to people. Our results suggest global priority areas for conservation efforts beyond and in support of CNA, emphasizing the importance of sparsely populated managed forests and rangelands, along with wild forests, for fostering moisture recycling to and within CNA. This work provides additional insights for understanding the manifold benefits associated with achieving SDG 15, to sustainably manage life on land and conserve biodiversity.
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    Dataset associated with "Analysis of Kenya's Atmospheric Moisture Sources and Sinks"
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Keys, Patrick W.
    Achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are contingent on understanding the potential interactions among human and natural systems. In Kenya, the goal of conserving and expanding forest cover to achieve SDG 15 ‘Life on land’ may be related to other SDGs because it plays a role in regulating some aspects of Kenyan precipitation. We present a 40-year analysis of the sources of precipitation in Kenya, and the fate of the evaporation that arises from within Kenya. Using MERRA2 climate reanalysis and the Water Accounting Model 2-layers, we examine the annual and seasonal changes in moisture sources and sinks. We find that most of Kenya’s precipitation originates as oceanic evaporation, but that 10% of its precipitation originates as evaporation within Kenya. This internal recycling is concentrated in the mountainous and forested Kenyan highlands, with some locations recycling more than 15% of evaporation, to Kenyan precipitation. We also find that 75% of Kenyan evaporation falls as precipitation elsewhere over land, including 10% in Kenya, 25% in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and around 5% falling in Tanzania and Uganda. Further, we find a positive relationship between increasing rates of moisture recycling and fractional forest cover within Kenya. By beginning to understand both the seasonal and biophysical interactions taking place, we may begin to understand the types of leverage points that exist for integrated atmospheric water cycle management. These findings have broader implications for disentangling environmental management and conservation and have relevance for large-scale discussions about sustainable development.