Search Our Scientific Publications & Authors

Environ Health 2021 Mar 22;20(1):31. Epub 2021 Mar 22.

School of Population and Public Health, The University of British Columbia (UBC), 2206 East Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada.

Background: Although the frequency and magnitude of climate change-related health hazards (CCRHHs) are likely to increase, the population vulnerabilities and corresponding health impacts are dependent on a community's exposures, pre-existing sensitivities, and adaptive capacities in response to a hazard's impact. To evaluate spatial variability in relative vulnerability, we: 1) identified climate change-related risk factors at the dissemination area level; 2) created actionable health vulnerability index scores to map community risks to extreme heat, flooding, wildfire smoke, and ground-level ozone; and 3) spatially evaluated vulnerability patterns and priority areas of action to address inequity.

Methods: A systematic literature review was conducted to identify the determinants of health hazards among populations impacted by CCRHHs. Read More

Environ Sci Pollut Res Int 2021 Mar 12. Epub 2021 Mar 12.

Departamento de Ingeniería Química y Bioprocesos, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile.

Tapado Glacier is a subtropical mountain glacier in the Coquimbo region of Chile that has been continuously retreating during the last 60 years due to diminishing precipitation rates and rising temperatures and likely due to a currently unknown influence from atmospheric pollutant deposition. Climatic and meteorological impacts on this, and other, Andean glacier have been previously studied; however, cryosphere changes driven by aerosols are still largely unknown. To contribute to the understanding of the origin of aerosols and their dispersion, this study aims to identify natural and anthropogenic sources of air pollution deposited on the Tapado Glacier (4500-5536 m a. Read More

Water Res 2021 Apr 14;194:116932. Epub 2021 Feb 14.

Institute of Earth Sciences, China University of Geosciences (Beijing), Beijing 100083, China. Electronic address:

Rivers transport abundant terrestrial carbon into the ocean, constituting a fundamental channel between terrestrial carbon pools and oceanic carbon pools. The black carbon (BC) derived from biomass and fossil fuel combustion is an important component of the riverine organic carbon flux. A recent study estimated that approximately 17 ~ 37 Tg C of BC was delivered in suspended particle phase by rivers per year. Read More

Ecol Appl 2021 Feb 26:e2316. Epub 2021 Feb 26.

Ecologie des Forêts Méditerranéennes (URFM), INRAe, 84914, Avignon, France.

• Modelling wildfire activity is crucial for informing science-based risk management and understanding the spatio-temporal dynamics of fire-prone ecosystems worldwide. Models help disentangle the relative influences of different factors, understand wildfire predictability and provide insights into specific events. Here, we develop Firelihood, a two-component Bayesian hierarchically structured probabilistic model of daily fire activity, which is modelled as the outcome of a marked point process: individual fires are the points (occurrence component), and fire sizes are the marks (size component). Read More

Ann Work Expo Health 2021 Feb 23. Epub 2021 Feb 23.

Division of Preventive Medicine, University of Alberta Edmonton, Canada.

Objectives: The Fort McMurray fire in Alberta, Canada, devastated the townsite in May 2016. First responders were heavily exposed to smoke particles. Blood samples taken from firefighters in May and August/September 2016 were used to measure concentrations of inflammatory markers in plasma and the relation of these markers to exposures and respiratory ill-health. Read More

Environ Res 2021 Apr 9;195:110754. Epub 2021 Feb 9.

John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.

The burning of fossil fuels - especially coal, petrol, and diesel - is a major source of airborne fine particulate matter (PM), and a key contributor to the global burden of mortality and disease. Previous risk assessments have examined the health response to total PM, not just PM from fossil fuel combustion, and have used a concentration-response function with limited support from the literature and data at both high and low concentrations. This assessment examines mortality associated with PM from only fossil fuel combustion, making use of a recent meta-analysis of newer studies with a wider range of exposure. Read More

PLoS One 2021 4;16(2):e0232995. Epub 2021 Feb 4.

USDA Forest Service, Lassen National Forest, Almanor Ranger District, Chester, California, United States of America.

Quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) is a valued, minor component on northeastern California landscapes. It provides a wide range of ecosystem services and has been in decline throughout the region for the last century. This decline may be explained partially by the lack of fire on the landscape due to heavier fire suppression, as aspen benefit from fire that eliminates conifer competition and stimulates reproduction through root suckering. Read More

Sci Total Environ 2021 Mar 11;760:144296. Epub 2020 Dec 11.

Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, CA, United States of America; School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, CA, United States of America.

Throughout the United States, wildland firefighters respond to wildfires, performing arduous work in remote locations. Wildfire incidents can be an ideal environment for the transmission of infectious diseases, particularly for wildland firefighters who congregate in work and living settings. In this review, we examine how exposure to wildfire smoke can contribute to an increased likelihood of SARS-CoV-2 infection and severity of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Read More

Epigenet Insights 2020 14;13:2516865720954873. Epub 2020 Sep 14.

Department of Community and Environmental Health, Boise State University, Boise, Idaho, USA.

Woodsmoke poses a significant health risk as a growing component of ambient air pollution in the United States. While there is a long history of association between woodsmoke exposure and diseases of the respiratory, circulatory, and cardiovascular systems, recent evidence has linked woodsmoke exposure to cognitive dysfunction, including Alzheimer's disease dementia. Alzheimer's disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder with largely idiopathic origins and no known cure. Read More

J Air Waste Manag Assoc 2020 11 23;70(11):1165-1185. Epub 2020 Sep 23.

Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency , Research Triangle Park, NC, USA.

Wildland fire emissions from both wildfires and prescribed fires represent a major component of overall U.S. emissions. Read More

PLoS One 2020 8;15(9):e0238688. Epub 2020 Sep 8.

USDA Agricultural Research Service, Northern Plains Agricultural Laboratory, Sidney, Montana, United States of America.

Grassland environments face a number of threats including land use change, changing climate and encroachment of woody plants. In the Southern Plains of the United States, woody plant encroachment threatens traditional agricultural grazing economies in addition to grassland dependent wildlife species. Numerous studies have examined the physical drivers of conversion from grassland to woodland but social drivers may be equally important to understanding the causes of and prescriptions for environmental degradation. Read More

Sci Total Environ 2020 Sep 23;736:139608. Epub 2020 May 23.

College of Ocean and Earth Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361102, China.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) have become the dominating burden in the Arctic ecosystems, but their transport pathways and relative importance of different sources in the Arctic remained unclear, and this would be further complicated by climate change. Here we interpreted 27 PAHs in 34 surface sediments from the northern Bering-Chukchi margin. We integrated source apportionment methods (including diagnostic ratios, principal component analysis, hierarchical analysis, and positive matrix factorization (PMF) model) together with geochemistry parameters, which reveal a gradually clear picture of the spatial patterns of different sources. Read More

Trends Ecol Evol 2020 09 4;35(9):767-775. Epub 2020 May 4.

Department of Biological Sciences, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa; South African Environmental Observation Network, National Research Foundation, Claremont, South Africa.

Plants are the largest biomass component of most terrestrial ecosystems, and litter decomposition is considered the dominant process by which nutrients return to plants. We show that in terrestrial ecosystems, there are three major pathways by which plant biomass is degraded into forms that release nutrients again available to plants: microbial decomposition; vertebrate herbivory; and wildfires. These processes act at different spatial and temporal scales, have different niches, and generates different ecological and evolutionary feedbacks. Read More

Sensors (Basel) 2020 Apr 26;20(9). Epub 2020 Apr 26.

Department of Geography, University of the Aegean, 81100 Mytilene, Greece.

In this study, we share an approach to locate and map forest management units with high accuracy and with relatively rapid turnaround. Our study area consists of private, state, and federal land holdings that cover four counties in North-Central Washington, USA (Kittitas, Okanogan, Chelan and Douglas). This area has a rich history of landscape change caused by frequent wildfires, insect attacks, disease outbreaks, and forest management practices, which is only partially documented across ownerships in an inconsistent fashion. Read More

Sci Total Environ 2020 Jul 13;726:138636. Epub 2020 Apr 13.

Departamento de Biodiversidad y Gestión Ambiental, Universidad de León, Campus de Vegazana s/n, 24071 León, Spain. Electronic address:

In recent years, the Mediterranean area has witnessed an increase of both the frequency and severity of large fires, which appears to be intimately associated with climate and land use changes. To measure the impact of wildfires on living organisms, diverse indicators have been proposed. These indicators of fire severity traditionally rely on quantifying the damage caused to the vegetal component of ecosystems. Read More

Environ Sci Technol 2020 05 27;54(10):5954-5963. Epub 2020 Apr 27.

Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, United States.

Wildfires are an important source of nitrous acid (HONO), a photolabile radical precursor, yet in situ measurements and quantification of primary HONO emissions from open wildfires have been scarce. We present airborne observations of HONO within wildfire plumes sampled during the Western Wildfire Experiment for Cloud chemistry, Aerosol absorption and Nitrogen (WE-CAN) campaign. ΔHONO/ΔCO close to the fire locations ranged from 0. Read More

Environ Res 2020 05 5;184:109328. Epub 2020 Mar 5.

University of Helsinki, Department of Forest Sciences, PO Box 27, Latokartanonkaari 7, 00014, Helsinki, Finland; Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research, University of Helsinki, Finland.

Wildfires strongly regulate carbon (C) cycling and storage in boreal forests and account for almost 10% of global fire C emissions. However, the anticipated effects of climate change on fire regimes may destabilize current C-climate feedbacks and switch the systems to new stability domains. Since most of these forests are located in upland soils where permafrost is widespread, the expected climate warming and drying combined with more active fires may alter the greenhouse gas (GHG) budgets of boreal forests and trigger unprecedented changes in the global C balance. Read More

New Phytol 2020 07 14;227(2):572-587. Epub 2020 Apr 14.

State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, East Beijing Road 71, Nanjing, 210008, China.

Soil fungi represent a major component of below-ground biodiversity that determines the succession and recovery of forests after disturbance. However, their successional trajectories and driving mechanisms following wildfire remain unclear. We examined fungal biomass, richness, composition and enzymes across three soil horizons (Oe, A1 and A2) along a near-complete fire chronosequence (1, 2, 8, 14, 30, 49 and c. Read More

Environ Sci Technol Lett 2019 Dec 11;6(12):696-701. Epub 2019 Nov 11.

Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, 97331, United States of America.

The human behavioral modification recommendations during wildfire events are based on particulate matter and may be confounded by the potential risks of gas-phase pollutants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Moreover, the majority of adults spend over 90 percent of their time indoors where there is an increased concern of indoor air quality during wildfire events. We address these timely concerns by evaluating paired indoor and outdoor PAH concentrations in residential locations and their relationship with satellite model-based categorization of wildfire smoke intensity. Read More

Glob Chang Biol 2019 Dec 13. Epub 2019 Dec 13.

Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.

Despite occupying a small fraction of the landscape, fluvial networks are disproportionately large emitters of CO and CH , with the potential to offset terrestrial carbon sinks. Yet the extent of this offset remains uncertain, because current estimates of fluvial emissions often do not integrate beyond individual river reaches and over the entire fluvial network in complex landscapes. Here we studied broad patterns of concentrations and isotopic signatures of CO and CH in 50 streams in the western boreal biome of Canada, across an area of 250,000 km . Read More

J Environ Manage 2020 Feb 12;255:109828. Epub 2019 Nov 12.

Instituto de Investigaciones Agrobiológicas de Galicia, IIAG-CSIC, Apartado 122, E-15780, Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Electronic address:

In NW of the Iberian Peninsula, the incidence of anthropogenic fires is very high and, due to the climatologic and topographical conditions, burnt soils are prone to high erosion risks. In recent years several environmental management techniques (BAER: burnt area emergency response) have been applied after some wildfires, but there are still few field studies about their effects on soils (the foundations of terrestrial ecosystems) and most of them are short-term. Aiming to fill this gap of knowledge, sixteen properties useful as soil quality indices (pH, WHC, total N, δN, NH-N, NO-N, and NHAc-DTPA extractable Na, K, Ca, Mg, P, Al, Fe, Mn, Cu and Zn) were studied four years after BAER application in a severely burnt area in the 0-2 and 2-5 cm depth layers of unburnt soil (US), burnt soil untreated (BS), and burnt soil treated with two BAERs techniques: rye seeding (BSS) and straw mulching (BSM). Read More

Sci Rep 2019 10 25;9(1):15368. Epub 2019 Oct 25.

Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA.

The use of fire played an important role in the social and technological development of the genus Homo. Most archaeologists agree that this was a multi-stage process, beginning with the exploitation of natural fires and ending with the ability to create fire from scratch. Some have argued that in the Middle Palaeolithic (MP) hominin fire use was limited by the availability of fire in the landscape. Read More

Sci Total Environ 2019 Nov 27;693:133603. Epub 2019 Jul 27.

Department of Agriculture and Forest Engineering, University of Lleida, Alcalde Rovira Roure 191, 25198, Lleida, Spain; GEOFOREST Group, University Institute of Research in Environmental sciences (IUCA), University of Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain.

Drought and water stress are widely known to influence fuel moisture content and flammability, although differences do exist according to the response mechanisms and adaptive traits displayed by plant communities. In the Mediterranean basin, as a result of climate change, extreme drought events are expected to become more frequent and severe, envisaging episodes of increased fire risk. In this paper, we expand the scale of analysis on how does drought influence wildfire incidence exploring the joint influence on burned area of drought duration, magnitude and temporal distribution, and the affected vegetation communities (VCs). Read More

Sensors (Basel) 2019 Sep 14;19(18). Epub 2019 Sep 14.

Institute for Cartography, Department of Geosciences, Faculty of Environmental Sciences, TU Dresden, 01069 Dresden, Germany.

Despite increasing the number of studies for mapping remote sensing insect-induced forest infestations, applying novel approaches for mapping and identifying its triggers are still developing. This study was accomplished to test the performance of Geographic Object-Based Image Analysis (GEOBIA) TreeNet for discerning insect-infested forests induced by defoliators from healthy forests using Landsat 8 OLI and ancillary data in the broadleaved mixed Hyrcanian forests. Moreover, it has studied mutual associations between the intensity of forest defoliation and the severity of forest fires under TerraClimate-derived climate hazards by analyzing panel data models within the TreeNet-derived insect-infested forest objects. Read More

Creat Nurs 2019 Aug;25(3):e9-e14

As global warming is taking effect, the number of natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornados, flooding, drought, and wildfires is increasing. The purpose of this article is to address the impacts of climate change on human health, using a model developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The effects of natural disasters on mental health, and actions nurses can take to help build strong, resilient communities, are discussed in detail. Read More

J Air Waste Manag Assoc 2020 02 6;70(2):158-179. Epub 2020 Jan 6.

Washoe County Health District, Reno, NV, USA.

Increases in large wildfire frequency and intensity and a longer fire season in the western United States are resulting in a significant increase in air pollution, including concentrations of PM (particulate matter <2.5 µm in aerodynamic diameter) that pose significant health risks to nearby communities. During wildfires, government agencies monitor PM mass concentrations providing information and actions needed to protect affected communities; this requires continuously measuring instruments. Read More

J Air Waste Manag Assoc 2019 10 4;69(10):1215-1229. Epub 2019 Sep 4.

Pacific Northwest Research Station, USDA Forest Service , Seattle , WA , USA.

A new statistical model for predicting daily ground level fine scale particulate matter (PM) concentrations at monitoring sites in the western United States was developed and tested operationally during the 2016 and 2017 wildfire seasons. The model is site-specific, using a multiple linear regression schema that relies on the previous day's PM value, along with fire and smoke related variables from satellite observations. Fire variables include fire radiative power (FRP) and the National Fire Danger Rating System Energy Release Component index. Read More

Front Plant Sci 2019 12;10:283. Epub 2019 Mar 12.

Department of Biomaterials, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Research Campus Golm, Potsdam, Germany.

Wildfires are a natural component in many terrestrial ecosystems and often play a crucial role in maintaining biodiversity, particularly in the fire-prone regions of Australia. A prime example of plants that are able to persist in these regions is the genus . Most species that occur in fire-prone regions produce woody seed pods (follicles), which open during or soon after fire to release seeds into the post-fire environment. Read More

J Environ Manage 2019 Apr 23;235:250-256. Epub 2019 Jan 23.

Escuela Técnica Superior Ingenieros Agrónomos y Montes, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Campus Universitario, 02071, Albacete, Spain.

In the Mediterranean Basin, changes in climate and fire regime (increased recurrence and severity) reduce ecosystem services after wildfires by increasing soil degradation and losses in plant diversity. Our study was a biological approach to relate soil properties to vegetation recovery and burn severity. We focused our study on the natural recovery of the soil-plant interphase in Pinus halepensis Mill. Read More

Sci Total Environ 2019 Mar 2;654:720-734. Epub 2018 Nov 2.

University of Leuven, Center for Human Genetics, Leuven, Belgium.

Mercury plays a critical role in serious health problems due to environmental or occupational exposures. Aquatic ecosystems are an essential component of the global biogeochemical cycle of mercury, as inorganic mercury can be converted to toxic methyl mercury in these environments and reemissions of elemental mercury rival anthropogenic mercury releases on a global scale. The history of the Minamata disease, a typical example of industrial pollution, has shown how corporate secrecy and ignorance on part of the health authorities may influence the devastating spread of environmental contamination and the progress of disease. Read More