Celina Balderas Guzman, Networked shorelines: A review of vulnerability interactions between human adaptation to sea level rise and wetland migration, Global Environmental Change, Volume 92, 2025, 102985, ISSN 0959-3780, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2025.102985.
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Abstract
Facing urgent climate risks, many human and non-human actors are adapting to climate change with adaptations that sometimes shift vulnerabilities to other actors. Shifting vulnerabilities is a type of maladaptation and understanding them is a critical component of adaptation planning given the growing incidence of maladaptation across many sectors and regions. This review creates an analytical framework, called the Vulnerability Interactions Framework, to identify instances of shifting vulnerabilities from across the natural and social science literature and interpret them using a systematic approach. To demonstrate its utility, the analytical framework is applied in the context of coastal adaptation to sea level rise on the topics of coastal squeeze and wetland migration. Along certain shorelines, humans are building protective infrastructure, such as sea walls and levees, to protect themselves from sea level rise. Meanwhile, coastal wetlands—one of the world’s most valuable ecosystems—are able to adapt to sea level rise when they can migrate landward. This wetland adaptation is often blocked by human shoreline development and infrastructure—a phenomenon known as coastal squeeze. Yet migrating wetlands may also impact human actors in negative ways. This review identifies 53 distinct ways that vulnerabilities can shift across human and non-human actors on physical, economic, environmental, social, cultural, and institutional dimensions. These interactions reflect particular biophysical and social contexts and can operate on multiple spatial and temporal scales. Because of these complex interactions, adaptation planning must look towards developing solutions that are cross-sectoral and cross-scalar in scope, place adaptation within a larger socio-ecological context, consider a phased approach, engage with communities, build local adaptive capacity, and address personal, social, and cultural losses inherent in coastal transformations. Overall, the Vulnerability Interactions Framework can be used as a research or planning tool to map observed or hypothetical shifts in vulnerability.
Keywords
Vulnerability; Adaptation; Maladaptation; Sea level rise; Wetlands; Socio-ecological systems
Mix, E. C., Hamele, M., Dannenberg, A. L., Freitag, R., & Errett, N. A. (2024). Integrating climate change into state hazard mitigation plans: A five-year follow-up survey of state hazard mitigation officers. PLOS Climate, 3(10), e0000385-. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000385.
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Abstract
Climate change is making disaster events more frequent and intense, increasing the risk to economic security, ecosystem health, and human health and well-being. Hazard mitigation planning, overseen in the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), aims to reduce disaster risk by identifying hazards and taking action to reduce their impact. While FEMA policy requires states and territories to consider the risks of climate change in their plans, guidance remains broad. As a result, jurisdictions have taken different approaches to integrating climate change into their hazard mitigation plans (HMPs). Thirty of 56 U.S. State and Territorial Hazard Mitigation Officers (SHMOs) responded to a survey concerning climate planning, building on a similar survey conducted in 2018. A majority of respondents recognized that their jurisdictions are vulnerable to climate change and agreed that climate change is a threat to their jurisdictions both now and in the future. Respondents were motivated to integrate climate change into their HMPs by factors including increased evidence for climate change projections and disaster events in either their jurisdictions or neighboring ones. Among the most frequently reported barriers was reliance on historical patterns of hazard exposure. Most respondents had incorporated at least one climate change adaptation strategy into their HMPs but reported having insufficient resources to plan for and implement climate-related hazard mitigation activities. Findings suggest that state and territorial hazard mitigation planning programs are taking more steps to integrate climate change into their plans and that SHMOs are more aware of the risks that climate change poses than in 2018. Further research is needed to explore how best to support state-level hazard mitigation program response to climate change.
Tetteh, M. O., Darko, A., Boateng, E. B., & Chan, A. P. C. (2024). Energy Efficiency Retrofitting of Existing Building Stock for Net Zero. In Rethinking Pathways to a Sustainable Built Environment (pp. 142–158). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.1201/9781003317890-9
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Abstract
Existing buildings’ retrofits improve energy efficiency and are a crucial part of global decarbonization plan. There is a need for a better understanding of public sentiment toward energy efficiency retrofitting of existing buildings (EEREB) to effectively promote its widespread adoption through policy interventions. Currently, there is a lack of comprehensive studies that assess the general public's sentiments toward EEREB. This chapter utilizes social media data to assess the overall public's sentiments of EEREB. Sentiment analysis was used to analyze a total of 3,306 comments from the social media platform YouTube. The concerns and perceptions of the public were analyzed using a Latent Dirichlet Allocation model, which identified nine main themes. These themes include ventilation, energy efficiency, indoor environment quality, comfort and occupant behavior, cost considerations, community engagement, technology usage, implementation knowledge, and social impact. The public expressed stronger positive sentiments, with about 64% reporting favorable views of EEREB and acknowledging its benefits. In addition, interesting patterns of perceptions shaped by a combination of generic and local-specific factors were identified. This chapter enhances the understanding of the general public's needs, concerns, and views on EEREB. Additionally, it could provide valuable insights for policymakers to refine or develop more effective actions in support of EEREB.
Adabre, M. A., Chan, A. P. C., Darko, A., Edwards, D. J., Yang, Y., & Issahaque, S. (2024). No Stakeholder Is an Island in the Drive to This Transition: Circular Economy in the Built Environment. Sustainability, 16(15), 6422-. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16156422
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Abstract
Ensuring optimum utilisation of the Earth’s finite resources engenders the circular economy (CE) concept which has attracted the attention of policymakers and practitioners worldwide. As a bifurcated strategy which involves both scientific knowledge, advanced technologies and behavioural changes, the CE transition is sociotechnical in nature. Yet, prolific studies focus on scientific knowledge and technologies alone, while studies on promoting CE practices or built environment stakeholders’ behaviour are limited. Using Stakeholder Theory, a comprehensive literature review on CE drivers was conducted. Through a questionnaire survey of professionals, key drivers identified were deployed to develop a 20-driver model for CE transition in the built environment. The model is relevant to policymakers and practitioners because it highlights essential drivers for optimum resource allocation. Moreover, the findings apprise policymakers of the drivers that pertain to key stakeholders (i.e., professional and higher educational institutions, society and clients, government and firms), thus stating the requirements for driving each stakeholder to achieve this sociotechnical transition.
Keywords
circular economy; sociotechnical transition; sustainability; drivers; stakeholder theory; waste reduction
The University of Washington’s Life Cycle Lab, with Lab Director and Professor of Architecture Kate Simonen, has been awarded a $10 million, 5-year collaborative research project from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The project is entitled “Validating and Extending Research and Education for Life Cycle Assessment (VERE-LCA)” and the work will be done in partnership with collaborators from Howard University, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and CBE UC Berkley. Read more about the EPA funding and other projects that were awarded…
A cohort of 4 projects were awarded Inspire Funds in April 2023. The report-outs from these projects are described below with a summary of project work and progress. The 2023 cohort of Inspire Fund awardees met with the 2024 cohort of awardees in May 2024 to share their accomplishments, successes, and challenges, and to foster a connection between these research teams as resources to one another. The 2024 cohort has begun their projects and will share their products in 2025….
The Inaugural CBE Climate Solutions Symposium took place on May 23, 2024. The event began with a reception and poster session, followed by an invited lecture “Every Project is a Climate Opportunity” with Don Davies, PE, SE and Joan Crooks. 36 research posters were submitted and accepted to the symposium. The posters covered a range of topics, from affordable housing in Indonesia (Bella Septianti, Architecture/Design Technology), to CLT and structural steel comparative lifecycle assessment (Mira Malden, Community, Environment, and Planning)….
EarthLab announced their Innovation Grants for 2024-25 for projects focused on Climate and Social Justice. The awardees were announced in March 2024, and 2 of the 5 selected projects include CBE researchers. Project Title: Catalyzing Just Circular Communities: A Feasibility Study of a Large-Scale Anaerobic Biodigester to Generate Hyper-local, Community-Owned Clean Energy Infrastructure in Seattle’s South Park CBE Team Members: Catherine De Almeida, Associate Professor, Landscape Architecture; Gundula Proksch, Associate Professor, Architecture. Project Title: Healing Amazonian Soils with Science and…
Urban, M.C., Alberti, M., De Meester, L. et al. Interactions between climate change and urbanization will shape the future of biodiversity. Nat. Clim. Chang. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-01996-2
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Abstract
Climate change and urbanization are two of the most prominent global drivers of biodiversity and ecosystem change. Fully understanding, predicting and mitigating the biological impacts of climate change and urbanization are not possible in isolation, especially given their growing importance in shaping human society. Here we develop an integrated framework for understanding and predicting the joint effects of climate change and urbanization on ecology, evolution and their eco-evolutionary interactions. We review five examples of interactions and then present five hypotheses that offer opportunities for predicting biodiversity and its interaction with human social and cultural systems under future scenarios. We also discuss research opportunities and ways to design resilient landscapes that address both biological and societal concerns.
Waldman, B., Hyatt, A., Carlisle, S., Palmeri, J., and Simonen, K. (2023). 2023 Carbon Leadership Forum North American Material Baselines (version 2). Carbon Leadership Forum, University of Washington. Seattle, WA. August 2023. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/49965
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Abstract
The CLF Baseline values represent an estimate of industry-average GHG emissions for construction materials manufactured in North America. An overwhelming majority of the CLF Baselines published in this report are based on a North American industry-wide EPD if one was available at the time of publication. As such, it is appropriate to use this number as a rough estimate of a product type’s embodied carbon before a specific product has been selected or as a reference value against which product-level comparisons can be made.
Each material category has a detailed appendix that includes a description of the embodied carbon impacts, the available EPDs, and summary statistics. The Appendices in this report allow users to better understand the availability of existing industry-wide and product EPDs, and the variability of product types across a category. The snapshot of available EPDs summarized in each Appendix was assembled using the EC3 database in Fall 2022.