Underestimation of Thermogenic Methane Emissions in New York City.

Recent studies have shown that methane emissions are underestimated by inventories in many US urban areas. This has important implications for climate change mitigation policy at the city, state, and national levels. Uncertainty in both the spatial distribution and sectoral allocation of urban emissions can limit the ability of policy makers to develop appropriately focused emission reduction strategies.

Defining Populations and Predicting Future Suitable Niche Space in the Geographically Disjunct, Narrowly Endemic Leafy Prairie-Clover (; Fabaceae).

Conservation actions for rare species are often based on estimates of population size and number, which are challenging to capture in natural systems. Instead, many definitions of populations rely on arbitrarily defined distances between occurrences, which is not necessarily biologically meaningful despite having utility from a conservation management perspective. Here, we introduce a case study using the narrowly endemic and highly geographically disjunct leafy prairie-clover (), for which we use nuclear microsatellite loci to assess the current delimitations of populations and management units across its entire known range.

Corrigendum to "Detailed urban roughness parametrization for anthropogenic heat flux estimation using earth observation data" [Heliyon 9(7) (July 2023) e18361].

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.

Detailed urban roughness parametrization for anthropogenic heat flux estimation using earth observation data.

Anthropogenic Heat (AH) emissions modify the energy balance in urban areas and is crucial for urban microclimate modelling and improved weather forecast modelling. Therefore, the present study conducted on Delhi and its surroundings firstly aims to estimate AH using Earth Observation (EO) data of Landsat 8 then, evaluate the impact of detailed urban roughness parameterization on the estimation of AH and further validate the obtained flux values with ground based observations of Large Aperture Scintillometer (LAS) setup. The study has been conducted over three time periods for October 2017, March 2018 and June 2018 by processing six Landsat tiles.

Communication, trust and leadership in co-managing biodiversity: A network analysis to understand social drivers shaping a common narrative.

Environmental co-management has been advocated and applied in diverse contexts as an integrative and inclusive approach to make biodiversity conservation more effective and contextual. Co-management however requires the actors involved to overcome tacit boundaries and reconcile different viewpoints to reach a shared understanding on the environmental problem and envisioned solution(s). We depart from the assumption that a common narrative can serve as a base for a shared understanding and analyze what types of actor relations in co-management influence the emergence of a common narrative.

Food insecurity and disasters: predicting disparities in total and first-time food pantry visits during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Unlabelled: In the U.S. state of Arizona, nearly one-third of households experienced food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic, an increase from one-fourth of households before the pandemic.

A Literature Review of the Effects of Air Pollution on COVID-19 Health Outcomes Worldwide: Statistical Challenges and Data Visualization.

Several peer-reviewed papers and reviews have examined the relationship between exposure to air pollution and COVID-19 spread and severity. However, many of the existing reviews on this topic do not extensively present the statistical challenges associated with this field, do not provide comprehensive guidelines for future researchers, and review only the results of a relatively small number of papers. We reviewed 139 papers, 127 of which reported a statistically significant positive association between air pollution and adverse COVID-19 health outcomes.

Predicting hourly PM concentrations in wildfire-prone areas using a SpatioTemporal Transformer model.

Globally, wildfires are becoming more frequent and destructive, generating a significant amount of smoke that can transport thousands of miles. Therefore, improving air pollution forecasts from wildfires is essential and informing citizens of more frequent, accurate, and interpretable updates related to localized air pollution events. This research proposes a multi-head attention-based deep learning architecture, SpatioTemporal (ST)-Transformer, to improve spatiotemporal predictions of PM concentrations in wildfire-prone areas.

Voluntary consensus based geospatial data standards for the global illegal trade in wild fauna and flora.

We have more data about wildlife trafficking than ever before, but it remains underutilized for decision-making. Central to effective wildlife trafficking interventions is collection, aggregation, and analysis of data across a range of source, transit, and destination geographies. Many data are geospatial, but these data cannot be effectively accessed or aggregated without appropriate geospatial data standards.

Accelerating ethics, empathy, and equity in geographic information science.

Science has traditionally been driven by curiosity and followed one goal: the pursuit of truth and the advancement of knowledge. Recently, ethics, empathy, and equity, which we term “the 3Es,” are emerging as new drivers of research and disrupting established practices. Drawing on our own field of GIScience (geographic information science), our goal is to use the geographic approach to accelerate the response to the 3Es by identifying priority issues and research needs that, if addressed, will advance ethical, empathic, and equitable GIScience.

Air pollution exposure disparities across US population and income groups.

Air pollution contributes to the global burden of disease, with ambient exposure to fine particulate matter of diameters smaller than 2.5 μm (PM) being identified as the fifth-ranking risk factor for mortality globally. Racial/ethnic minorities and lower-income groups in the USA are at a higher risk of death from exposure to PM than are other population/income groups.

Environmental drivers of autumn migration departure decisions in midcontinental mallards.

Background: The timing of autumn migration in ducks is influenced by a range of environmental conditions that may elicit individual experiences and responses from individual birds, yet most studies have investigated relationships at the population level. We used data from individual satellite-tracked mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) to model the timing and environmental drivers of autumn migration movements at a continental scale.

Methods: We combined two sets of location records (2004-2007 and 2010-2011) from satellite-tracked mallards during autumn migration in the Mississippi Flyway, and identified records that indicated the start of long-range (≥ 30 km) southward movements during the migration period.

Global assessment of tropospheric and ground air pollutants and its correlation with COVID-19.

The declaration of COVID-19 pandemic by the WHO initiated a series of lockdowns globally that varied in stringency and duration; however, the spatiotemporal effects of these lockdowns on air quality remain understudied. This study evaluates the global impact of lockdowns on air pollutants using tropospheric and ground-level indicators over a five-month period. Moreover, the relationship between air pollution and COVID-19 cases and mortalities was examined.

Excess of COVID-19 cases and deaths due to fine particulate matter exposure during the 2020 wildfires in the United States.

The year 2020 brought unimaginable challenges in public health, with the confluence of the COVID-19 pandemic and wildfires across the western United States. Wildfires produce high levels of fine particulate matter (PM). Recent studies reported that short-term exposure to PM is associated with increased risk of COVID-19 cases and deaths.

Spatio-temporal analysis of air quality and its relationship with major COVID-19 hotspot places in India.

The COVID-19 pandemic spread worldwide, such as wind, with more than 400,000 documented cases as of March 24, 2020. In this regard, strict lockdown measures were imposed in India on the same date to stop virus spread. Thereafter, various lockdown impacts were observed, and one of the immediate effects was a reduction in air pollution levels across the world and in India as well.

The influence of near-field fluxes on seasonal carbon dioxide enhancements: results from the Indianapolis Flux Experiment (INFLUX).

Background: Networks of tower-based CO mole fraction sensors have been deployed by various groups in and around cities across the world to quantify anthropogenic CO emissions from metropolitan areas. A critical aspect in these approaches is the separation of atmospheric signatures from distant sources and sinks (i.e.

Improved air quality and associated mortalities in India under COVID-19 lockdown.

India enforced stringent lockdown measures on March 24, 2020 to mitigate the spread of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronovirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). Here, we examined the impact of lockdown on the air quality index (AQI) [including ambient particulate matter (PM and PM), nitrogen dioxide (NO), sulfur dioxide (SO), carbon monoxide (CO), ozone (O), and ammonia (NH)] and tropospheric NO and O densities through Sentinel-5 satellite data approximately 1 d post-lockdown and one month pre-lockdown and post-lockdown. Our findings revealed a marked reduction in the ambient AQI (estimated mean reduction of 17.

Geographical tracking and mapping of coronavirus disease COVID-19/severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) epidemic and associated events around the world: how 21st century GIS technologies are supporting the global fight against outbreaks and epidemics.

In December 2019, a new virus (initially called 'Novel Coronavirus 2019-nCoV' and later renamed to SARS-CoV-2) causing severe acute respiratory syndrome (coronavirus disease COVID-19) emerged in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, and rapidly spread to other parts of China and other countries around the world, despite China's massive efforts to contain the disease within Hubei. As with the original SARS-CoV epidemic of 2002/2003 and with seasonal influenza, geographic information systems and methods, including, among other application possibilities, online real-or near-real-time mapping of disease cases and of social media reactions to disease spread, predictive risk mapping using population travel data, and tracing and mapping super-spreader trajectories and contacts across space and time, are proving indispensable for timely and effective epidemic monitoring and response. This paper offers pointers to, and describes, a range of practical online/mobile GIS and mapping dashboards and applications for tracking the 2019/2020 coronavirus epidemic and associated events as they unfold around the world.

Examining geographic accessibility to radiotherapy in Canada and Greenland for indigenous populations: Measuring inequities to inform solutions.

Background: A high cancer burden exists among indigenous populations worldwide. Canada and Greenland have similar geographic features that make health service delivery challenging. We sought to describe geographic access to radiotherapy for indigenous populations in both regions.

Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status and Cognitive Trajectories in a Diverse Longitudinal Cohort.

Objectives: Although individual-level socioeconomic status is associated with poor outcomes, less is known regarding how the social context might affect cognitive outcomes. We examined the effect of neighborhood socioeconomic status (NSES) on baseline cognitive function and trajectories of decline.

Methods: The sample (N = 480) came from a longitudinal cohort recruited to study cognitive function.

Ground-level air pollution changes during a boreal wildland mega-fire.

The 2011 Richardson wildland mega-fire in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region (AOSR) in northern Alberta, Canada had large effects on air quality. At a receptor site in the center of the AOSR ambient PM, O, NO, NO, SO, NH, HONO, HNO, NH and NO were measured during the April-August 2011 period. Concentrations of NH, HNO, NO, SO and O were also monitored across the AOSR with passive samplers, providing monthly summer and bi-monthly winter average values in 2010, 2011 and 2012.

Who is providing aesthetic surgery? A detailed examination of the geographic distribution and training backgrounds of cosmetic practitioners in Southern California.

Background: In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the number of non-plastic surgeons performing cosmetic procedures. This has the potential to have an impact on the plastic surgery practitioner by increasing competition and bringing into question the assurance of patient safety. In this study, a demographic analysis was performed of providers of invasive and minimally invasive cosmetic treatments in the Southern California region.