%0 Book %A National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine %T Next Generation Earth System Prediction: Strategies for Subseasonal to Seasonal Forecasts %@ 978-0-309-38880-1 %D 2016 %U https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/21873/next-generation-earth-system-prediction-strategies-for-subseasonal-to-seasonal %> https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/21873/next-generation-earth-system-prediction-strategies-for-subseasonal-to-seasonal %I The National Academies Press %C Washington, DC %G English %K Earth Sciences %P 350 %X As the nation's economic activities, security concerns, and stewardship of natural resources become increasingly complex and globally interrelated, they become ever more sensitive to adverse impacts from weather, climate, and other natural phenomena. For several decades, forecasts with lead times of a few days for weather and other environmental phenomena have yielded valuable information to improve decision-making across all sectors of society. Developing the capability to forecast environmental conditions and disruptive events several weeks and months in advance could dramatically increase the value and benefit of environmental predictions, saving lives, protecting property, increasing economic vitality, protecting the environment, and informing policy choices. Over the past decade, the ability to forecast weather and climate conditions on subseasonal to seasonal (S2S) timescales, i.e., two to fifty-two weeks in advance, has improved substantially. Although significant progress has been made, much work remains to make S2S predictions skillful enough, as well as optimally tailored and communicated, to enable widespread use. Next Generation Earth System Predictions presents a ten-year U.S. research agenda that increases the nation's S2S research and modeling capability, advances S2S forecasting, and aids in decision making at medium and extended lead times. %0 Book %A National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine %T A Review of the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives %@ 978-0-309-37985-4 %D 2016 %U https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/21829/a-review-of-the-landscape-conservation-cooperatives %> https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/21829/a-review-of-the-landscape-conservation-cooperatives %I The National Academies Press %C Washington, DC %G English %K Earth Sciences %P 150 %X The United States' tradition of conserving fish, wildlife, habitats, and cultural resources dates to the mid-19th century. States have long sought to manage fish and wildlife species within their borders, whereas many early federal conservation efforts focused on setting aside specific places as parks, sanctuaries, or reserves. With advances in landscape ecology over the past quarter-century, conservation planners, scientists, and practitioners began to stress the importance of conservation efforts at the scale of landscapes and seascapes. These larger areas were thought to harbor relatively large numbers of species that are likely to maintain population viability and sustain ecological processes and natural disturbance regimes - often considered critical factors in conserving biodiversity. By focusing conservation efforts at the level of whole ecosystems and landscape, practitioners can better attempt to conserve the vast majority of species in a particular ecosystem. Successfully addressing the large-scale, interlinked problems associated with landscape degradation will necessitate a planning process that bridges different scientific disciplines and across sectors, as well as an understanding of complexity, uncertainty, and the local context of conservation work. The landscape approach aims to develop shared conservation priorities across jurisdictions and across many resources to create a single, collaborative conservation effort that can meet stakeholder needs. Conservation of habitats, species, ecosystem services, and cultural resources in the face of multiple stressors requires governance structures that can bridge the geographic and jurisdictional boundaries of the complex socio-ecological systems in which landscape-level conservation occurs. The Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCC) Network was established to complement and add value to the many ongoing state, tribal, federal, and nongovernmental efforts to address the challenge of conserving species, habitats, ecosystem services, and cultural resources in the face of large-scale and long-term threats, including climate change. A Review of the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives evaluates the purpose, goals, and scientific merits of the LCC program within the context of similar programs, and whether the program has resulted in measurable improvements in the health of fish, wildlife, and their habitats. %0 Book %A National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine %T The Future of Atmospheric Chemistry Research: Remembering Yesterday, Understanding Today, Anticipating Tomorrow %@ 978-0-309-44565-8 %D 2016 %U https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/23573/the-future-of-atmospheric-chemistry-research-remembering-yesterday-understanding-today %> https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/23573/the-future-of-atmospheric-chemistry-research-remembering-yesterday-understanding-today %I The National Academies Press %C Washington, DC %G English %K Earth Sciences %P 226 %X Our world is changing at an accelerating rate. The global human population has grown from 6.1 billion to 7.1 billion in the last 15 years and is projected to reach 11.2 billion by the end of the century. The distribution of humans across the globe has also shifted, with more than 50 percent of the global population now living in urban areas, compared to 29 percent in 1950. Along with these trends, increasing energy demands, expanding industrial activities, and intensification of agricultural activities worldwide have in turn led to changes in emissions that have altered the composition of the atmosphere. These changes have led to major challenges for society, including deleterious impacts on climate, human and ecosystem health. Climate change is one of the greatest environmental challenges facing society today. Air pollution is a major threat to human health, as one out of eight deaths globally is caused by air pollution. And, future food production and global food security are vulnerable to both global change and air pollution. Atmospheric chemistry research is a key part of understanding and responding to these challenges. The Future of Atmospheric Chemistry Research: Remembering Yesterday, Understanding Today, Anticipating Tomorrow summarizes the rationale and need for supporting a comprehensive U.S. research program in atmospheric chemistry; comments on the broad trends in laboratory, field, satellite, and modeling studies of atmospheric chemistry; determines the priority areas of research for advancing the basic science of atmospheric chemistry; and identifies the highest priority needs for improvements in the research infrastructure to address those priority research topics. This report describes the scientific advances over the past decade in six core areas of atmospheric chemistry: emissions, chemical transformation, oxidants, atmospheric dynamics and circulation, aerosol particles and clouds, and biogeochemical cycles and deposition. This material was developed for the NSF's Atmospheric Chemistry Program; however, the findings will be of interest to other agencies and programs that support atmospheric chemistry research. %0 Book %A National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine %T Progress Toward Restoring the Everglades: The Sixth Biennial Review - 2016 %@ 978-0-309-45087-4 %D 2016 %U https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/23672/progress-toward-restoring-the-everglades-the-sixth-biennial-review-2016 %> https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/23672/progress-toward-restoring-the-everglades-the-sixth-biennial-review-2016 %I The National Academies Press %C Washington, DC %G English %K Environment and Environmental Studies %K Earth Sciences %P 264 %X The Everglades ecosystem is vast, stretching more than 200 miles from Orlando to Florida Bay, and Everglades National Park is but a part located at the southern end. During the 19th and 20th centuries, the historical Everglades has been reduced to half of its original size, and what remains is not the pristine ecosystem many image it to be, but one that has been highly engineered and otherwise heavily influenced, and is intensely managed by humans. Rather than slowly flowing southward in a broad river of grass, water moves through a maze of canals, levees, pump stations, and hydraulic control structures, and a substantial fraction is diverted from the natural system to meet water supply and flood control needs. The water that remains is polluted by phosphorus and other contaminants originating from agriculture and other human activities. Many components of the natural system are highly degraded and continue to degrade. Progress Toward Restoring the Everglades is the sixth biennial review of progress made in meeting the goals of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP). This complex, multibillion-dollar project to protect and restore the remaining Everglades has a 30-40 year timeline. This report assesses progress made in the various separate project components and discusses specific scientific and engineering issues that may impact further progress. According to Progress Toward Restoring the Everglades, a dedicated source of funding could provide ongoing long-term system-wide monitoring and assessment that is critical to meeting restoration objectives. This report examines the implications of knowledge gained and changes in widely accepted scientific understanding regarding pre-drainage hydrology, climate change, and the feasibility of water storage since the CERP was developed. %0 Book %A National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine %T Using Graywater and Stormwater to Enhance Local Water Supplies: An Assessment of Risks, Costs, and Benefits %@ 978-0-309-38835-1 %D 2016 %U https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/21866/using-graywater-and-stormwater-to-enhance-local-water-supplies-an %> https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/21866/using-graywater-and-stormwater-to-enhance-local-water-supplies-an %I The National Academies Press %C Washington, DC %G English %K Earth Sciences %K Environment and Environmental Studies %P 223 %X Chronic and episodic water shortages are becoming common in many regions of the United States, and population growth in water-scarce regions further compounds the challenges. Increasingly, alternative water sources such as graywater-untreated wastewater that does not include water from the toilet but generally includes water from bathroom sinks, showers, bathtubs, clothes washers, and laundry sinks- and stormwater-water from rainfall or snow that can be measured downstream in a pipe, culvert, or stream shortly after the precipitation event-are being viewed as resources to supplement scarce water supplies rather than as waste to be discharged as rapidly as possible. Graywater and stormwater can serve a range of non-potable uses, including irrigation, toilet flushing, washing, and cooling, although treatment may be needed. Stormwater may also be used to recharge groundwater, which may ultimately be tapped for potable use. In addition to providing additional sources of local water supply, harvesting stormwater has many potential benefits, including energy savings, pollution prevention, and reducing the impacts of urban development on urban streams. Similarly, the reuse of graywater can enhance water supply reliability and extend the capacity of existing wastewater systems in growing cities. Despite the benefits of using local alternative water sources to address water demands, many questions remain that have limited the broader application of graywater and stormwater capture and use. In particular, limited information is available on the costs, benefits, and risks of these projects, and beyond the simplest applications many state and local public health agencies have not developed regulatory frameworks for full use of these local water resources. To address these issues, Using Graywater and Stormwater to Enhance Local Water Supplies analyzes the risks, costs, and benefits on various uses of graywater and stormwater. This report examines technical, economic, regulatory, and social issues associated with graywater and stormwater capture for a range of uses, including non-potable urban uses, irrigation, and groundwater recharge. Using Graywater and Stormwater to Enhance Local Water Supplies considers the quality and suitability of water for reuse, treatment and storage technologies, and human health and environmental risks of water reuse. The findings and recommendations of this report will be valuable for water managers, citizens of states under a current drought, and local and state health and environmental agencies. %0 Book %A National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine %T From Maps to Models: Augmenting the Nation's Geospatial Intelligence Capabilities %@ 978-0-309-44994-6 %D 2016 %U https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/23650/from-maps-to-models-augmenting-the-nations-geospatial-intelligence-capabilities %> https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/23650/from-maps-to-models-augmenting-the-nations-geospatial-intelligence-capabilities %I The National Academies Press %C Washington, DC %G English %K Earth Sciences %K Math, Chemistry, and Physics %K Surveys and Statistics %P 134 %X The United States faces numerous, varied, and evolving threats to national security, including terrorism, scarcity and disruption of food and water supplies, extreme weather events, and regional conflicts around the world. Effectively managing these threats requires intelligence that not only assesses what is happening now, but that also anticipates potential future threats. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is responsible for providing geospatial intelligence on other countries—assessing where exactly something is, what it is, and why it is important—in support of national security, disaster response, and humanitarian assistance. NGA’s approach today relies heavily on imagery analysis and mapping, which provide an assessment of current and past conditions. However, augmenting that approach with a strong modeling capability would enable NGA to also anticipate and explore future outcomes. A model is a simplified representation of a real-world system that is used to extract explainable insights about the system, predict future outcomes, or explore what might happen under plausible what-if scenarios. Such models use data and/or theory to specify inputs (e.g., initial conditions, boundary conditions, and model parameters) to produce an output. From Maps to Models: Augmenting the Nation's Geospatial Intelligence Capabilities describes the types of models and analytical methods used to understand real-world systems, discusses what would be required to make these models and methods useful for geospatial intelligence, and identifies supporting research and development for NGA. This report provides examples of models that have been used to help answer the sorts of questions NGA might ask, describes how to go about a model-based investigation, and discusses models and methods that are relevant to NGA’s mission. %0 Book %A National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine %E Wunderlich, Gooloo S. %T Rationalizing Rural Area Classifications for the Economic Research Service: A Workshop Summary %@ 978-0-309-38056-0 %D 2016 %U https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/21843/rationalizing-rural-area-classifications-for-the-economic-research-service-a %> https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/21843/rationalizing-rural-area-classifications-for-the-economic-research-service-a %I The National Academies Press %C Washington, DC %G English %K Earth Sciences %K Behavioral and Social Sciences %K Surveys and Statistics %P 190 %X The U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service (USDA/ERS) maintains four highly related but distinct geographic classification systems to designate areas by the degree to which they are rural. The original urban-rural code scheme was developed by the ERS in the 1970s. Rural America today is very different from the rural America of 1970 described in the first rural classification report. At that time migration to cities and poverty among the people left behind was a central concern. The more rural a residence, the more likely a person was to live in poverty, and this relationship held true regardless of age or race. Since the 1970s the interstate highway system was completed and broadband was developed. Services have become more consolidated into larger centers. Some of the traditional rural industries, farming and mining, have prospered, and there has been rural amenity-based in-migration. Many major structural and economic changes have occurred during this period. These factors have resulted in a quite different rural economy and society since 1970. In April 2015, the Committee on National Statistics convened a workshop to explore the data, estimation, and policy issues for rationalizing the multiple classifications of rural areas currently in use by the Economic Research Service (ERS). Participants aimed to help ERS make decisions regarding the generation of a county rural-urban scale for public use, taking into consideration the changed social and economic environment. This report summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop. %0 Book %A National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine %T Affordability of National Flood Insurance Program Premiums: Report 2 %@ 978-0-309-38077-5 %D 2016 %U https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/21848/affordability-of-national-flood-insurance-program-premiums-report-2 %> https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/21848/affordability-of-national-flood-insurance-program-premiums-report-2 %I The National Academies Press %C Washington, DC %G English %K Earth Sciences %K Math, Chemistry, and Physics %K Surveys and Statistics %P 150 %X When Congress authorized the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) in 1968, it intended for the program to encourage community initiatives in flood risk management, charge insurance premiums consistent with actuarial pricing principles, and encourage the purchase of flood insurance by owners of flood prone properties, in part, by offering affordable premiums. The NFIP has been reauthorized many times since 1968, most recently with the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012 (BW 2012). In this most recent reauthorization, Congress placed a particular emphasis on setting flood insurance premiums following actuarial pricing principles, which was motivated by a desire to ensure future revenues were adequate to pay claims and administrative expenses. BW 2012 was designed to move the NFIP towards risk-based premiums for all flood insurance policies. The result was to be increased premiums for some policyholders that had been paying less than NFIP risk-based premiums and to possibly increase premiums for all policyholders. Recognition of this possibility and concern for the affordability of flood insurance is reflected in sections of the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act of 2014 (HFIAA 2014). These sections called on FEMA to propose a draft affordability framework for the NFIP after completing an analysis of the efforts of possible programs for offering "means-tested assistance" to policyholders for whom higher rates may not be affordable. BW 2012 and HFIAA 2014 mandated that FEMA conduct a study, in cooperation with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, which would compare the costs of a program of risk-based rates and means-tested assistance to the current system of subsidized flood insurance rates and federally funded disaster relief for people without coverage. Production of two reports was agreed upon to fulfill this mandate. This second report proposes alternative approaches for a national evaluation of affordability program policy options and includes lessons for the design of a national study from a proof-of-concept pilot study.