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Socio-ecological impacts of the investment of urban nature in heat mitigation for two megacities
Wang, J., W. Zhou, T. McPhearson, E. M. Cook, P. Herreros-Cantis, and J. Liu. 2025. Socio-ecological impacts of the investment of urban nature in heat mitigation for two megacities. Earth’s Future 13(6):e2025EF005976.
Cities are increasingly adapting green interventions meant to enhance climate resilience, given their capacity to provide numerous ecosystem services (ES). Yet, little is known about ecological and social impacts of such interventions in the context of socio-ecological framework and environmental justice. Here, we used a quantitative and spatial analytical approach to assess the changes of urban greenspace (UG) and examine the equity of changes in...
Cascading failure propagation and perfect storms in interdependent infrastructures
Hoff , R., R. Sparks, M. Chester, A. Mustafa, N. Johnson, A. Birchfield, T. McPhearson, R. Li, N. Ahmad, and I. Searles. 2025. Cascading failure propagation and perfect storms in interdependent infrastructures. ASCE OPEN: Multidisciplinary Journal of Civil Engineering 3(1):04025001.
The increasingly complex conditions that are reshaping environments demand novel analysis of infrastructure weaknesses and behavior. Of critical concern are cascading failures and how small disruptions can spiral into large-scale outages. Significant evidence indicates infrastructures are increasingly stressed given a combination of disruptions including extreme climate events, disrepair, cyberattacks, and emerging and disruptive technology integration. Small disruptions appear increasingly likely to cascade to larger failures...
Urban heat in global cities and the role of nature-based solutions in mitigating future climate risks
Esperon-Rodriguez, M., R. V. Gallagher, J. Lenoir, V. L. Barradas, L. J. Beaumont, C. Calfapietra, P. Cariñanos, S. J. Livesley, T. Iungma, G. Manoli, R. M. Marchin, T. McPhearson, C. Messier, M. Nieuwenhuijsen, S. A. Power, P. D. Rymer, and M. G. Tjoelker. 2025. Urban heat in global cities and the role of nature-based solutions in mitigating future climate risks. Environmental Research: Climate 4(2):023001.
Approximately eight billion people are living on Earth today with more than half (55%, ∼4.2 billion) living in cities—a proportion predicted to increase to 70% (∼6.6. billion) by 2050. As the human population grows, urban residents will face increasingly extreme temperatures under future climate change, which will affect human well-being, health, and mortality. However, nature-based solutions offer promising strategies to mitigate these impacts. Here, we...
Barriers and opportunities for resilient and sustainable urban forests
Esperon-Rodriguez, M., R. Gallagher, C. Calfapietra, P. Cariñanos, C. Dobbs, A. A. Eleuterio, D. Esperon Rodriguez, A. Jahani, E. Litvak, S. J. Livesley, G. Manoli, R. M. Marchin, T. McPhearson, C. Messier, J. Östberg, L. A. Roman, A. Russo, M. Saff ariha, C. Shackleton, H. Sjöman, I. Solfjeld, J. Susskind, J.-C. Svenning, N. van Doorn, B. Wiström, J. Yang, and M. G. Tjoelker. 2025. Barriers and opportunities for resilient and sustainable urban forests. Nature Cities 2(4):290–298.
As cities heat up and expand in area and population, urban forests offer a nature-based solution to enhance liveability and reduce rising temperatures in cities. However, urban forests are vulnerable to climate change and face costly establishment and maintenance challenges. Here we explore four key ecological and socioeconomic barriers to achieving resilient urban forests: species selection, tree supply, tree life cycle (establishment and maintenance, including...
New York City 2100: environmental justice implications of future scenarios for addressing extreme heat
Dutta, M., P. Herreros-Cantis, T. McPhearson, A. Mustafa, M. I. Palmer, M. Tosca, J. Ventrella, and E. M. Cook. 2025. New York City 2100: environmental justice implications of future scenarios for addressing extreme heat. Landscape and Urban Planning 254:105249.
Climate-driven hazards, such as extreme heat or precipitation, are threatening the current and future livability of New York City (NYC) and disproportionately affecting low-income communities and communities of color. To envision future climate resilience, government stakeholders and researchers co-produced future scenarios for 2100 in response to climate hazards for NYC during participatory workshops in Fall 2021. A commonly co-produced strategy included urban green infrastructure (UGI)...
Advances in the social construction of energy management and energy efficiency in industry
Thollander, P., M. Andrei, N. Jalo, P. Rohdin, J. Palm, A. Sannö, J. Colding, S. Barthel, G. Salah Uddin, and B. M. Xavier. 2025. Advances in the social construction of energy management and energy efficiency in industry. Nature Communications 16:4075.
Energy efficiency is essential for climate change mitigation. Energy management, shaped by both technical artefacts and social constructions, can overcome barriers and achieve greater emission reductions than technology-focused approaches alone. Nine social constructions of energy management emphasize the need for a broader view that includes operations, processes, and knowledge creation and diffusion. By adopting these strategies, corporations and policymakers can substantially reduce industrial energy use...
Community climate commons for collective climate action
Nässén, N., M. Lilja, S. Sjöberg, and J. Colding. 2025. Community climate commons for collective climate action. Sustainable Development 33(2):2078–2095.
Mitigating and adapting to climate change is a vital challenge that cannot rely solely on technology or macro policies but need also be tailored to local social and ecological contexts. As theory suggests, institutional designs that increase collective climate action could potentially speed up climate action in society. In this article we explore the concept of ‘community climate commons’ (CCCs) to foster interconnected and holistic...
NPCC4: Climate change and New York City’s flood risk
Rosenzweig, B., F. A. Montalto, P. Orton, J. Kaatz, N. Maher, J. Kleyman, Z. Chen, E. Sanderson, N. Adhikari, T. McPhearson, and P. Herreros-Cantis. 2024. NPCC4: Climate change and New York City's flood risk. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1539(1):127-184.
This chapter of the New York City Panel on Climate Change 4 (NPCC4) report provides a comprehensive description of the different types of flood hazards (pluvial, fluvial, coastal, groundwater, and compound) facing New York City and provides climatological context that can be utilized, along with climate change projections, to support flood risk management (FRM). Previous NPCC reports documented coastal flood hazards and presented trends in...
Co-producing research and data visualization for environmental justice advocacy in climate change adaptation: The Milwaukee Flood-Health Vulnerability Assessment
Herreros-Cantis, P., L. Hoffman, C. Kennedy, Y. Kim, J. Charles, V. Gillet, A. Getzin, D. Littlefield, A. Zielinski, J. Bernstein, R. Settle-Robbinson, J. Langemeyer, M. Neumann, and T. McPhearson. 2024. Co-producing research and data visualization for environmental justice advocacy in climate change adaptation: The Milwaukee Flood-Health Vulnerability Assessment. Cities 155:105474.
Cities in the world are experiencing increases in the severity of extreme weather events, leading to significant threats for urban dwellers. Ensuring an equitable implementation of risk reduction interventions requires considering the uneven distributions of risk. However, adaptation planning often fails to adequately consider the distributional injustices of risk, potentially reproducing spatial inequalities. Current forms of engagement hinder the effective contribution of local stakeholders to...
Community climate commons for collective climate action
Nässén, N., M. Lilja, S. Sjöberg, and J. Colding. 2024. Community climate commons for collective climate action. Sustainable Development https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.3227.
Mitigating and adapting to climate change is a vital challenge that cannot rely solely on technology or macro policies but need also be tailored to local social and ecological contexts. As theory suggests, institutional designs that increase collective climate action could potentially speed up climate action in society. In this article we explore the concept of ‘community climate commons’ (CCCs) to foster interconnected and holistic...
