Publications

This report provides a global assessment and outlook on wildfire risk in the context of climate change. It discusses the drivers behind the growing incidence of extreme wildfires and the attribution effect of climate change. It outlines the environmental, social and economic impacts of wildfires by illustrating the losses and costs observed during recent extreme wildfire events. Building on this,

Predictions of total water levels, the elevation of combined tides, surge, and wave runup at the shoreline, are necessary to provide guidance on potential coastal erosion and flooding. Despite the importance of early warning systems for these hazards, existing real-time meteorological and oceanographic forecast systems at regional and national scales, until now, have lacked estimates of runup nece

Short-crested breaking waves that result from directionally spread wave conditions dissipate energy and generate turbulence within the surf zone, altering sediment transport processes, wave runup, and forces on structures. Additionally, vertical vorticity generated near crest ends during breaking, which depends on the gradient in wave height along a crest, may enhance nearshore dispersion of pollu

In this study, we compare the Southern California Earthquake Center CyberShake platform against the Next Generation Attenuation‐West2 empirical datasets. Because the CyberShake and empirical datasets cover very different magnitude ranges and site conditions, we develop ground‐motion models (GMMs) for CyberShake datasets to compare trends with empirical GMMs and decompose the residuals for further

This report presents a reference flow network for the conterminous United States that is built from the best available information from the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Weather Service, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The work is intended to support durable data integration and reproducibility. Originating from the National Hydr

Species status assessments (SSAs) are required for endangered species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and focus on the resiliency, redundancy, and representation of endangered species. SSAs must include climate information, because climate is a factor that will impact species in the future. To aid in the inclusion of climate information, a decision support system (DSS) entitled Climate Analy

Freshwater biodiversity, from fish to frogs and microbes to macrophytes, provides a vast array of services to people. Mounting concerns focus on the accelerating pace of biodiversity loss and declining ecological function within freshwater ecosystems that continue to threaten these natural benefits. Here, we catalog nine fundamental ecosystem services that the biotic components of indigenous fresh

Permafrost underlies approximately one quarter of Northern Hemisphere terrestrial surfaces and contains 25–50% of the global soil carbon (C) pool. Permafrost soils and the C stocks within are vulnerable to ongoing and future projected climate warming. The biogeography of microbial communities inhabiting permafrost has not been examined beyond a small number of sites focused on local-scale variatio

Translocation, often a management solution reserved for at-risk species, is a highly time-sensitive intervention in the face of a rapidly changing climate. The definition of abiotic and biotic habitat requirements is essential to the selection of appropriate release sites in novel environments. However, field-based approaches to gathering this information are often too time intensive, especially i

The total concentration of dissolved constituents in water is routinely quantified by measurements of salinity or total dissolved solids (TDS). However, salinity and TDS are operationally defined by their analytical methods and are not equivalent for most waters. Furthermore, multiple methods are available to determine salinity and TDS, and these methods have inherent differences. TDS is defined a

Rapid and targeted management actions are a prerequisite to efficiently mitigate disease outbreaks. Targeted actions, however, require accurate spatial information on disease occurrence and spread. Frequently, targeted management actions are guided by non-statistical approaches that define the affected area by a pre-determined distance surrounding a small number of disease detections. As an altern

Emydoidea blandingii (Holbrook, 1838; Blanding’s turtles) are a species of medium-sized, long-lived, semiaquatic, freshwater turtles with a wide distribution across the northern and eastern United States and southern Canada. They have an annual activity cycle consisting of late autumn and winter overwintering and spring emergence, spring movement and foraging, spring and summer nesting, and summer