Month: October 2019

Categories
Faculty Spotlight Global Change Research

Using data to prepare communities for disasters

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From VT News | October 31, 2019

When disaster strikes, every second is critical. Professor Chris Zobel has been using data to help the Red Cross pre-position resources for optimal disaster response.  

“Not only will our approach allow assets to be more accurately prepositioned to reduce immediate suffering, it also will save time and resources that can then be put toward other types of disaster response and relief activities,” he said.

Zobel and co-researcher Andy Arnette, who received a Ph.D. from Virginia Tech and now teaches at the University of Wyoming, worked with the Red Cross in Wyoming and Colorado to build a computer model allocating assets to prepare for the possibility of multiple disasters in a region. Their model is adaptable to a variety of problems, including hurricanes, floods, damaging winds, forest fires, and infectious disease outbreaks.

Zobel, a member of the Global Change Center, and his graduate students have also looked at using 911 calls to help characterize the range of impacts that were felt by the population of New York City when Hurricane Sandy struck in 2012. Funded by the National Science Foundation, this research has the potential to help cities better understand their potential vulnerability to such disasters, as well as to help them strengthen their resilience to future events.

“It’s very rewarding to apply data modeling and analysis techniques to humanitarian problems,” Zobel said. “Although this is a different focus than many people would expect to find in a business school, the Pamplin College of Business is very much committed to supporting research that can help improve people’s lives. By leveraging available data and improving decision-making, we can help organizations improve their abilities to manage their responses to a disaster and thus contribute to protecting people’s lives and livelihoods.” 

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CONTACT:
Becky Freemal (540) 231-4972

 

 

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Categories
Biodiversity Blog Conservation

Happy Halloween: Meet the Batmen and Batwomen of Virginia Tech

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From VT News | October 31, 2019

Bats flying through the inside of a house might conjure up visions of a Halloween movie — or even a sitcom.

Just two weeks ago, Alexa Briehl, communications director for Operations at Virginia Tech, was just beginning to fall asleep when four bats descended through the master bathroom vent from the attic and began to flutter about her bedroom and home.

Unsure what to do about the flying creatures flickering from room to room, Briehl and her husband reached out to friend, neighbor, and fellow Virginia Tech communications director Kristin Rose Jutras and her husband, Virginia Tech assistant professor Brandon Jutras, who knew just what to do.

They put out the bat signal to Kate Langwig and Joe Hoyt, both assistant professors in the Department of Biological Sciences in the College of Science. Langwig and Hoyt’s research focuses on endangered bats and the proliferation of the fungal disease white nose syndrome in bats.

According to the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, three species of bats are endangered in Virginia and 12 are nongame protected species in Virginia.  Also,“it is illegal to transport, release, or relocate a bat anywhere other than the property it was caught on.”

Langwig and Hoyt walked Briehl and Rose Jutras through a humane step-by-step process for catching and releasing the bats. “First, open windows and try to encourage them to leave with a soft towel. Otherwise, you can safely catch them with a soft, thick towel, or handle them directly with thick leather gloves like fireplace gloves,” said Langwig, who is also an affiliated faculty member of the Global Change Center.

Bats are nighttime insect predators that can greatly benefit agriculture, but their populations are being decimated by white-nose syndrome.

“Little brown bats were not an uncommon species prior to the emergence of white-nose disease. It would be like losing robins from the bird community. These are abundant backyard species that you would see at nighttime that have essentially been removed,” Hoyt said.

In a relatively new discovery, Hoyt and researchers found in a field trial that probiotic bacteria could be used to reduce wildlife disease and conserve biodiversity. They found that it reduces the impact of the disease about five-fold. These findings were published recently in Scientific Reports.

“Bats are surrounded by myths and folklore that date back centuries, and are always a focal point this time of year,” said William Hopkins, director of the Global Change Center, housed within the Fralin Life Sciences Institute. “The reality is that the world would be very unpleasant for people if bats weren’t around. Many bat species regulate populations of biting insects and agricultural insect pests, thus providing economic and human health benefits as well as reducing our need for damaging pesticides. In addition, other bats are important pollinators of plants around the globe. The more we can learn to coexist with bats, the better off we will be. The research conducted by Drs. Langwig and Hoyt represents an enormous step towards protecting these critically important species.”

Kristin Rose Jutras and Alexa Briehl
Communications director for the Fralin Life Sciences Institute Kristin Rose Jutras (left) and Operations communications director Alexa Briehl (right) show off their new bat “condo.” Photo credit: Micah Briehl.

And the bats won’t be too far away after all. They have a new home in a bat “condo” in the Briehls yard.

Installing a bat condo, or “bat box” as they are often called, is just one way to help reduce humans’ impact on the bat population. Other ways include protecting waterways and changing landscaping to provide insects for bats. To learn more about how you can help the bats and build your own bat box, read here.

–Written by Alexa Briehl and Kristin Rose Jutras

Related stories: 

Researchers find that probiotic bacteria reduces the impact of white-nose syndrome in bats

Virginia Tech researchers receive $2.9 million grant with China to study infectious diseases

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CONTACT:
Kristin Rose (540) 231-6614

Alexa Briehl  540-231-7899

 

 

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Categories
Blog Drinking water Global Change Science Communication Seminars, Workshops, Lectures Special Events

Researchers collaborate to address water and health issues in rural China and Appalachia

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From VT News | October 31, 2019

On Oct. 4, the first-ever Water & Health in Rural China & Appalachia Conference kicked off at Virginia Tech on the Blacksburg campus. This event also marked the formal inclusion of Virginia Tech in a collaborative research program with researchers from UC Berkeley and China.

Inadequate access to safe drinking water remains a substantial problem for low-income rural communities around the world. From central Appalachia to rural China, the causes and consequences of water contamination and unreliable access to safe water overlap considerably.

Virginia Tech faculty and students came together with officials from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and researchers from UC Berkeley. Together, they shared their past, present, and upcoming research on water and health-related challenges and opportunities in communities living in low-income areas in rural Appalachia and China. The conference was also bookended by meetings and working sessions, which also served as planning platforms for new collaborative projects.

Alasdair Cohen, an assistant professor of environmental epidemiology in the Department of Population Health Sciences and Virginia Tech Public Health Program, in the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine, organized the event. Previously, Cohen worked at UC Berkeley as a project scientist and research director for The Berkeley/China-CDC Program for Water & Health, which he helped create in 2016.

Opening remarks were given by Laura Hungerford, professor and department head of the Department of Population Health Sciences, and Tao Yong, the chief scientist at the National Center for Rural Water Supply Technical Guidance of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and also the committee chairman of the Chinese Preventative Medicine Association’sRural Drinking Water and Environment Professional Committee.

For the rest of the day, talks covered a variety of topics, ranging from environmental health, economic change, reflections on failed and innovative drinking water technologies, and future collaborations. 00:0001:34

Isha Ray, co-director of the Berkeley Water Center and associate professor of water and development at UC Berkeley, discussed findings from her research on the challenges of access and accountability in the rural drinking systems of Mexico, Tanzania, India, and the United States.

Ray pointed out that low-income, overworked individuals do not always have the energy, time, and costs required to keep up with the many methods of water purification: “It’s not that they aren’t willing to do anything. It’s that they lack the financial resources.”

She added that governments need to take more responsibility, otherwise their drinking water problems will never be solved and their constituents will continue to suffer. “If affordability becomes wrapped up with accountability at the very lowest stages of use, the chances that we will fail, and continue to fail, are high,” she said.

According to the World Health Organization, 785 million people lack access to even basic drinking-water services, 144 million of whom are dependent on surface water. The lack of access to sufficient quantities of reliably safe drinking water is expected to increase as water scarcity, climate change, and population growth, put more stress onto water supply systems.

“Water is the one resource for which there is no substitute,” said Stephen Schoenholtz, a professor of hydrology in the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservationin the College of Natural Resources and Environment and director of the Virginia Water Resources Research Center.

He explained how tackling these issues requires an all-hands-on-deck effort. “You can’t look at water quality and supply in terms of one set of values. You have to take many things into account to solve these complex systems,” he said.

Shu Tao, professor of environmental science in the College of Urban and Environmental Sciences at Peking University – Beijing, spoke about the cultural tradition, economics, and health implications of boiling water in rural China.

“Income appears to be the most important driver for when people transition from boiling with solid fuels to cleaner fuels like electricity,” said Tao.

At the end of the event, faculty from Virginia Tech and Berkeley signed a memorandum of understanding to mark the restructuring and expansion of their water and health research program to now include Virginia Tech.

“We’ve been discussing the expansion of our program to Virginia Tech for some time now, so it’s especially rewarding to be together here today to reaffirm and formalize our collective commitment to this program and its goals of expanding safe water access and improving environmental health in China, the USA, and elsewhere around the world,” said Cohen, who is also a faculty member of the Global Change Center, housed in Virginia Tech’s Fralin Life Sciences Institute.

The newly expanded program is now called “The Berkeley / China / Virginia Tech Program for Water & Health.” More information can be found at the recently launched program website: http://ruralwaterhealth.org/.

Sponsors for this event included the Department of Population Health Sciences and the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine, the Global Change Center, the Fralin Life Sciences Institute, the Virginia Water Resources Research Center, and The Inn at Virginia Tech.

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CONTACT:
 Kristin Rose (540) 231-6614

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Categories
Uncategorized

“Hidden Rivers” at the Lyric, November 2nd

Ten years in the making, “Hidden Rivers” is Freshwaters Illustrated’s newest feature film that explores the rivers and streams of the Southern Appalachian region, North America’s most biologically rich waters. The film follows the work of conservation biologists and explorers throughout the region, and reveals both the beauty and vulnerability of these ecosystems.

The Global Change Center welcomes Freshwater Illustrated as they present their film “Hidden Rivers” at the Lyric Theater on November 2nd at 2pm. The event is free and open to the public; it will be preceded by festivities and followed by a panel discussion. Co-sponsored by the Global Change Center, the Fralin Life Sciences Institute, the Lyric Theater, the New River Land Trust, and Wild Virginia, this event hopes to inspire and bring awareness of freshwater conservation to Virginia Tech and the regional community.

Pre-film activities will begin at 1:15pm: mingling with fun-loving riverine mascots, as well as info booths by the Global Change Center, the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, and the US Forest Service, and our other sponsors.

Visit www.hiddenrivers.com to learn more! See you there.

Categories
Blog Climate Change Global Change Ideas Interfaces of Global Change IGEP Opinion Pollution

End of Expertise & Politicizing Science: IGC Seminar Reflection Series

by Suwei Wang & Abby Lewis

Between September 20th and 27th, 2019, at least 4 million people from over 150 countries stepped up to support young climate strikers and demand an end to the age of fossil fuels. Greta Thunberg, a 16 year old Swedish environment activist, hit the headlines again. 

Thunberg began striking for action on climate change last year leading up to the Swedish parliamentary election. Her solitary strike from school has since transformed into an international movement of students that leave school each Friday to fight for climate action. The Global Climate Strike from September 20th to 27th was the first event that specifically invited all generations to participate, and it brought the movement to the forefront of national and international news.

In the midst of all of this, our first year Interfaces of Global Change (IGC) seminar met to discuss politicization of science and the end of expertise.

What does it mean that the world’s most prominent climate activist is a 16-year-old child? What authority does she have? How does her work politicize science? What is the role of scientists in these public demonstrations? 

We drew from the week’s events to begin diving into the subject of politicization of science because the climate strikes were impossible to ignore, and because they helped to shed light on some of the complex and highly relevant issues surrounding the intersection between science and policy.

More broadly, our discussion focused on ideas of expertise and science politicization. Various studies and surveys have shown that there has been an alarming increase in the distrust of scientists and experts in Americans. In the seminar, we broke into small groups to discuss what makes a person an expert in a field and why the authority of experts has been undermined over time. We also discussed the politicization of science. While there is a consensus of scientists that climate change is real and human activities are causing it, the way this knowledge is disseminated to citizens by various powers, including politicians, can be selective or biased, creating a political distortion of the scientific facts. This is perpetuated by people’s desire to hear identity-confirming news from media outlets and politicians.

At the end of the discussion we came back to Greta Thunberg and the Global Climate Strike. 

According to an anonymous survey, the majority of students in the class (65%) went or would have gone to the strike if they were able to. In reality, three-fourths of the students did not go. 

Forms response chart. Question title: Did you intend to join the global climate strike on Sep 20th? Did you make it? . Number of responses: 20 responses.

We discussed some of the reasons students of global change would decide to participate or not participate. Some students argued that taking a visible political stance in this way may undermine their ability to talk about climate policy with others who disagree with their views. Some argued that their time is better spent doing research that could potentially contribute to the fight for environmental protection in the future. However, other students disagreed, arguing that this type of action is an important extension of the theoretical discussions we have our seminar, and scientists should use their authority as experts to support a movement that is advocating for evidence-based policy.

Ultimately, there probably cannot be a proscriptive answer to this question that works for every scientist, and having a diversity of approaches from different individuals is often helpful. However, it is often useful to revisit these issues on an individual level in order to ensure your actions are in agreement with your beliefs.

Suwei Wang is a third year PhD student from Translational Biology, Medicine, and Health Program, working in Dr. Julia Gohlke’s lab in Environmental Health. 

Abby Lewis is a first year PhD student in the Biological Sciences department. She works in Dr. Cayelan Carey’s lab studying freshwater ecology and biogeochemistry.

Categories
Blog Ideas Interfaces of Global Change IGEP

IGCoffeeConvo with Bill Hopkins

October 17, 2017

by Melissa Burt

On Sept. 25th, 4 IGC fellows and 1 GCC faculty got together for the FIRST IGCoffeeConvo of the fall semester!

IGCoffeeConvo is a new regularly occurring (~3 per semester) event for small groups of IGC students to get to know a GCC faculty member in an informal setting. This event was created out of growing interest among students to get to know the 70+ GCC-affiliated faculty a little better. To address this need in a new way, the fellows decided to create a informal, small-group setting for students and faculty to connect, and IGCoffeeConvo was born! 

The goal is simple: get 1 faculty and 3-4 students together for ~1-hour for coffee/tea and see where the conversation goes.  Participants can talk about whatever they choose: academic life perspectives, favorite foods or hobbies, grad school experiences, research interests, science-policy, interdisciplinary research, etc. We hope IGCoffeeConvos will help our rapidly growing community maintain a smaller sense of community over time. 

For the first IGCoffeeConvo, GCC Director Bill Hopkins met with fellows Melissa Burt, Devin Hoffman, Lauren Maynard, and Alaina Weinheimer at Deet’s Place. It was a beautiful September afternoon in Blacksburg, so they enjoyed their coffees/teas outside. Their conversation covered a variety of topics from the recent IGC fellow float on the New River where there was a record number of floaters to the (at the time) upcoming IGC Picnic that would occur the following week. The fellows and Bill also discussed what funding students might expect from IGC in the foreseeable future and possibilities for fundraisers that could contribute to that (e.g. selling t-shirts, silent auctions at our socials, etc.). 

If you are a GCC Faculty member and interested in participating in an upcoming IGCoffeeConvo, please contact Nicole Ward at nkward@vt.edu. Fellows should keep an eye on their email inboxes for opportunities to join in on future IGCoffeeConvo meetings!

Categories
Blog Ideas Interfaces of Global Change IGEP Opinion Science Communication Uncategorized

What To Say And Whom To Say It To

Group of diverse people with speech bubbles icons

by R. Bruce Hull and Paul Angermeier

Making global change science relevant and impactful often requires more than careful scholarship and robust methods.  It can also require getting that science to the people who matter and presenting it in ways that motivate those people to care and act.

As members of the Interfaces for Global Changecurriculum committee, we’re always seeking new, relevant material to use in the IGC seminars.  Here we summarize a few readings recently shared with us by conservation professionals. For more details, review these guides for talking about energy and climateand about water and wildlife.

Use the “Right” Words
Use words that connect your science to topics your audience finds personally relevant and meaningful. Unfortunately, with the occasional exception of clean water, opinion polls repeatedly show that few environmental issues make it onto the list of the top 10 public concerns, so connect your research to issues that are always in the top 10:  health, safety, security, jobs, faith, fairness, family, and quality of life.  For example:

  • Clean Air and Water: Relate your work to air and water that are clean, healthy, and safe for people(rather than healthy for ecosystems or biodiversity).
  • Clean Energy: Connect climate change research to the benefits of clean energy.
  • Place-specific Impacts: Be specific about the places and impacts associated with pollution or key regional trends.  People identify with place.
  • Quality of Life: Emphasize how global change impacts the character, economy, amenity, and identity that define local communities and so add to quality of life.
  • Security: Voters, especially conservatives, are worried about how national security is undermined by dependence on foreign oil.
  • Economy: Find a connection to jobs, employment, and community vitality.
  • Fairness: Point out how some people are benefiting or being harmed more than others.

Avoid terms like “biodiversity,” “watershed,” and “sustainability” because most people don’t know what they mean.  

Target Key Stakeholders
Conduct a simple back-of-the-envelope analysis of stakeholders to plan your communication strategy. Don’t worry about people with low interest and little influence.  Focus your efforts on stakeholders who have lots to win or lose and who can bring considerable resources to advance or derail your efforts. 

Stakeholder Matrix

Low InterestHigh Interest
 High Influence Keep Satisfied,
Enhance Interest		 Fully Engage,
Don’t Offend
 Low Influence Ignore Keep Informed


Keep in mind this stakeholder stratification is probabilistic and dynamic. Thus, effective communicators invest in knowing their audience’s contexts. For example, a few years ago many disinterested people living along the newly revealed path of the Mountain Valley Pipeline suddenly became keenly interested in protecting water quality and endangered species.