The presence of active or inactive (i.e., postproduction) oil and gas wells in neighborhoods may contribute to ongoing pollution. Racially discriminatory neighborhood security maps developed by the ...Home-Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) in the 1930s may contribute to environmental exposure disparities.
To determine whether receiving worse HOLC grades was associated with exposure to more oil and gas wells.
We assessed exposure to oil and gas wells among HOLC-graded neighborhoods in 33 cities from 13 states where urban oil and gas wells were drilled and operated. Among the 17 cities for which 1940 census data were available, we used propensity score restriction and matching to compare well exposure neighborhoods that were similar on observed 1940 sociodemographic characteristics but that received different grades.
Across all included cities, redlined D-graded neighborhoods had 12.2 ± 27.2 wells km
, nearly twice the density in neighborhoods graded A (6.8 ± 8.9 wells km
). In propensity score restricted and matched analyses, redlined neighborhoods had 2.0 (1.3, 2.7) more wells than comparable neighborhoods with a better grade.
Our study adds to the evidence that structural racism in federal policy is associated with the disproportionate siting of oil and gas wells in marginalized neighborhoods.
Purpose of Review
Climate change is causing warming over most parts of the USA and more extreme weather events. The health impacts of these changes are not experienced equally. We synthesize the ...recent evidence that climatic changes linked to global warming are having a disparate impact on the health of people of color, including children.
Recent Findings
Multiple studies of heat, extreme cold, hurricanes, flooding, and wildfires find evidence that people of color, including Black, Latinx, Native American, Pacific Islander, and Asian communities are at higher risk of climate-related health impacts than Whites, although this is not always the case. Studies of adults have found evidence of racial disparities related to climatic changes with respect to mortality, respiratory and cardiovascular disease, mental health, and heat-related illness. Children are particularly vulnerable to the health impacts of climate change, and infants and children of color have experienced adverse perinatal outcomes, occupational heat stress, and increases in emergency department visits associated with extreme weather.
Summary
The evidence strongly suggests climate change is an environmental injustice that is likely to exacerbate existing racial disparities across a broad range of health outcomes.
Recent studies from the Madre de Dios region of Peru report elevated mercury exposure among the general population. Our objective was to assess mercury exposure, risk factors, risk perceptions, and ...knowledge among women of childbearing age, a population of concern due to risks to infant and fetal health. We collected hair samples and administered a survey among 200 women aged 18–49 years residing in Madre de Dios. Hair total mercury (THg) concentrations were analyzed in accordance with EPA Method 7473. Associations between exposures and potential risk factors were analyzed using generalized linear mixed models. Geometric mean hair THg concentration (±standard deviation) for all participants was 1.62 ± 2.54 μg/g (range: 0.01–30.12 μg/g), and 67 participants (33.5%) had concentrations above the 2.2 μg/g reference dose established by the World Health Organization (WHO). Higher exposure was significantly associated with higher fish consumption (p = 0.03) and less mercury knowledge (p < 0.0001), but not with age or educational attainment. Most participants (86.2%) expressed concern about mercury contamination, but few (26.2%) had knowledge of the health risks associated with exposure. Many residents consumed fish species previously found to have low mercury concentrations, but more than 25% of participants reported consuming fish species with high mercury concentrations. We did not observe cross-sectional differences in fish intake among women who were pregnant or breastfeeding at the time of data collection.
•Mercury exposure was widespread in women of childbearing age, a group of concern.•Over one-fourth of participants consumed fish with high mercury contamination.•Participants expressed worry about mercury; most had no knowledge of its effects.•More mercury knowledge was associated with lower exposure.
Environmental change can affect species directly by altering their physical environment and indirectly by altering the abundance of interacting species. A key challenge at the interface of community ...ecology and conservation biology is to predict how direct and indirect effects combine to influence response in a changing environment. In particular, little is known about how direct and indirect effects on biodiversity develop over time or their potential to influence ecosystem function. We studied how nitrogen (N), winter precipitation (snow) and warming influenced diversity and ecosystem function over 6 years in alpine tundra. We used path analyses to partition direct effects of environmental manipulations from indirect effects due to changes in the abundance of two dominant plants. We hypothesize that (i) indirect effects will develop more slowly but will become stronger than direct effects over time and (ii) after 6 years, indirect effects will more strongly influence diversity while direct effects will influence ecosystem function. Indirect effects of N on diversity were consistently stronger than direct effects and actually developed quickly, prior to direct effects. Direct effects of snow on diversity were detected in year 2 but then subsequently were reversed, while indirect effects were detected in year 4 and grew stronger over time. Overall in year 6, indirect effects were much stronger than direct effects on diversity. Direct effects predominated for three of four ecosystem functions we measured (productivity, N mineralization, winter N availability). The only indirect effects we found were that N and snow indirectly affected microbial biomass N by influencing Geum abundance. Across all four ecosystem measures, indirect effects were infrequent and weaker than direct effects. Synthesis. Increasing indirect effects on diversity over time indicate that short‐term experiments or monitoring of natural systems may underestimate the full magnitude of global change effects on plant communities. Moreover, explicitly accounting for changes in dominant plant abundance may be necessary for forecasting plant community response to environmental change. Conversely, weak indirect effects for ecosystem processes suggest that predicting ecosystem function without knowledge of plant responses to global change may be possible.
Prior studies have found that residential proximity to upstream oil and gas production is associated with increased risk of adverse health outcomes. Emissions of ambient air pollutants from oil and ...gas wells in the preproduction and production stages have been proposed as conferring risk of adverse health effects, but the extent of air pollutant emissions and resulting nearby pollution concentrations from wells is not clear.
We examined the effects of upstream oil and gas preproduction (count of drilling sites) and production (total volume of oil and gas) activities on concentrations of five ambient air pollutants in California.
We obtained data on approximately 1 million daily observations from 314 monitors in the EPA Air Quality System, 2006-2019, including daily concentrations of five routinely monitored ambient air pollutants: PM2.5, CO, NO2, O3, and VOCs. We obtained data on preproduction and production operations from Enverus and the California Geographic Energy Management Division (CalGEM) for all wells in the state. For each monitor and each day, we assessed exposure to upwind preproduction wells and total oil and gas production volume within 10 km. We used a panel regression approach in the analysis and fit adjusted fixed effects linear regression models for each pollutant, controlling for geographic, seasonal, temporal, and meteorological factors.
We observed higher concentrations of PM2.5 and CO at monitors within 3 km of preproduction wells, NO2 at monitors at 1-2 km, and O3 at 2-4 km from the wells. Monitors with proximity to increased production volume observed higher concentrations of PM2.5, NO2, and VOCs within 1 km and higher O3 concentrations at 1-2 km. Results were robust to sensitivity analyses.
Adjusting for geographic, meteorological, seasonal, and time-trending factors, we observed higher concentrations of ambient air pollutants at air quality monitors in proximity to preproduction wells within 4 km and producing wells within 2 km.
Display omitted
•Oil and gas wells have been linked to adverse health, but mechanisms not well understood.•Applied a quasi-experimental design with daily air pollution and oil production data•We leveraged wind direction as source of exogenous variation for exposure to wells.•Upstream oil and gas production emitted air pollutants at concentrations that may be harmful.•Evaluated proximity as an appropriate indicator of air pollution exposure from wells
AIM: Terrestrial ecosystems sequester about 25% of anthropogenic CO₂ emissions annually; however, nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) limitation of plant productivity and microbial functioning could ...curtail this key ecosystem service in the future. Our aim is to address variations in nutrient resupply during decomposition – especially whether the N:P ratio of nutrient recycling via mineralization varies within and across diverse forest biomes. LOCATION: Global forest ecosystems. METHODS: We compiled data on in situ litter decomposition experiments (leaf, wood and root) from the primary literature to examine the relationships between net N and P mineralization across temperate versus tropical forests world‐wide. We define net nutrient mineralization ratios as the average N:P released from decomposing substrates at a given ecosystem site. RESULTS: We show that net N and P mineralization are strongly correlated within biomes, suggesting strong coupling between N and P recycling in forest ecosystems. The net N:P of leaf‐litter mineralization is higher in tropical forests than in temperate forests, consistent with latitudinal patterns in foliar and leaf‐litter N:P. At the global scale, the N:P of net mineralization tracks, but tends to be lower than that of litter N:P, pointing to preferential P (versus N) mineralization in forest ecosystems. MAIN CONCLUSIONS: Our results do not support the view that there is a single, globally consistent mineralization N:P ratio. Instead, our results show that the N:P of net mineralization can be predicted by the N:P of litter, offering a method for incorporating P into global‐scale models of carbon–nutrient–climate interactions. In addition, these results imply that P is scarce relative to microbial decomposer demands in tropical forests, whereas N and P may be more co‐limiting when compared with microbial biomass in the temperate zone.
Preterm birth (PTB) is associated with substantial mortality and morbidity. We describe environmental factors that may influence PTB risks. We focus on exposures associated with an individual's ...ambient environment, such as air pollutants, water contaminants, extreme heat, and proximities to point sources (oil/gas development or waste sites) and greenspace. These exposures may further vary by other PTB risk factors such as social constructs and stress. Future examinations of risks associated with ambient environment exposures would benefit from consideration toward multiple exposures - the exposome - and factors that modify risk including variations associated with the structural genome, epigenome, social stressors, and diet.
The growth in our knowledge of the diversity of the herpetofauna of Mexico has occurred over the period of approximately 445 years from the work of Francisco Hernández to that of a broad ...multinational array of present-day herpetologists. The work of this huge group of people has established Mexico as one of the most significant centers of herpetofaunal biodiversity in the world. This status is the result of a complex orography, in addition to diverse habitats and environments and the biogeographic history of Mexico. The current herpetofauna consists of 1,421 native and introduced species, allocated to 220 genera, and 61 families. This figure is comprised of 1,405 native species and 16 non-native species (as of April 2023). The non-native species include two anurans, 13 squamates, and one turtle. The level of endemism is very high, presently lying at 63%, with this level expected to increase with time. Species richness varies among the 32 federal entities in the country, from a low of 50 in Tlaxcala to a high of 492 in Oaxaca. Amphibian species richness by state-level can be envisioned as comprising three levels of low, medium, and high, with the lowest levels occurring in the Peninsula of Baja California, a group of seven states in north-central and central Mexico, and a group of three states in the Yucatan Peninsula, with the highest levels occupying the southern states of Guerrero, Puebla, Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Chiapas, and the medium level in the remaining states of the country. Reptile species richness also can be allocated to three categories, with the lowest level occupying Baja California Sur, a group of central states, and the states of the Yucatan Peninsula, and the highest level found in a cluster of the states of Veracruz, Guerrero, Oaxaca, and Chiapas. Knowledge of the Mexican herpetofauna will continue to grow with additional studies on systematics, conservation, and the construction of checklists at various levels.
Wildfires have become more frequent and intense due to climate change and outdoor wildfire fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations differ from relatively smoothly varying total PM2.5. Thus, we ...introduced a conceptual model for computing long-term wildfire PM2.5 and assessed disproportionate exposures among marginalized communities. We used monitoring data and statistical techniques to characterize annual wildfire PM2.5 exposure based on intermittent and extreme daily wildfire PM2.5 concentrations in California census tracts (2006 to 2020). Metrics included: 1) weeks with wildfire PM2.5 > 5 μg/m3; 2) days with non-zero wildfire PM2.5; 3) mean wildfire PM2.5 during peak exposure week; 4) smoke waves (≥2 consecutive days with >15 μg/m3 wildfire PM2.5); and 5) mean annual wildfire PM2.5 concentration. We classified tracts by their racial/ethnic composition and CalEnviroScreen (CES) score, an environmental and social vulnerability composite measure. We examined associations of CES and racial/ethnic composition with the wildfire PM2.5 metrics using mixed-effects models. Averaged 2006 to 2020, we detected little difference in exposure by CES score or racial/ethnic composition, except for non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaska Native populations, where a 1-SD increase was associated with higher exposure for 4/5 metrics. CES or racial/ethnic × year interaction term models revealed exposure disparities in some years. Compared to their California-wide representation, the exposed populations of non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaska Native (1.68×, 95% CI: 1.01 to 2.81), white (1.13×, 95% CI: 0.99 to 1.32), and multiracial (1.06×, 95% CI: 0.97 to 1.23) people were over-represented from 2006 to 2020. In conclusion, during our study period in California, we detected disproportionate long-term wildfire PM2.5 exposure for several racial/ethnic groups.
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