Blue Planet Prize

For her work on practical actions and policies to secure ecosystems and human wellbeing, Natural Capital Project co-founder and Bing Professor of Environmental Science Gretchen Daily was honored with the 2017 Blue Planet Prize, a $450,000 award widely considered the Nobel Prize for environmental science. The Natural Capital Project has had a number of successes, including informing decisions on land use in China, transportation in Latin America, and sourcing of products across the globe with enhanced understanding of environmental impacts. Daily joins the ranks of Stanford’s other Blue Planet Prize recipients, including Harold Mooney, Paul S. and Billie Achilles Professor of Environmental Biology, Emeritus, and Paul Ehrlich, Bing Professor of Population Studies. Erhlich was a mentor to Daily during her time at Stanford as an undergraduate, graduate student and postdoctoral scholar.

Ecosystems of California

Ecosystems of California , a comprehensive reference guide for California’s diverse ecological landscape edited by Senior Fellow Harold Mooney and Erika Zavaleta, professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz, received the Gold Medal for Contribution to Publishing in the 86th Annual California Book Awards as well as the PROSE Award for Excellence in Physical Sciences & Mathematics. In addition, Woods staff worked with Mooney and his co-authors to produce a policy-focused supplement to the book entitled, Ecosystems of California: Threats and Responses

China: Areas of High Ecological Importance

Using software from the Natural Capital Project, researchers, including Senior Fellow Gretchen Daily, helped Chinese leaders identify ecologically valuable areas that the country plans to protect as part of an ecological initiative. This effort highlights the need to value ecosystem services, as doing so can result in better decision-making from leaders in the more than 80 countries where the software is in use.

Underground Conservation Easements

Rob Jackson, Michelle and Kevin Douglas Provostial Professor in the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth), along with two environmental law experts proposed creating underground easements to allow private landowners a way to restrict hydraulic fracturing and mining without relying on governments to create new regulations. The ‘mineral estate conservation easement’ would work much like conservation easements on the land’s surface, prohibiting development while offering a potential tax break for landowners.

Deforestation in Africa

As multinational corporations expand agricultural operations in Africa to produce in-demand commodity crops such as soy and oil palm, a study by Stanford Earth researchers highlights the devastating impacts such land use change has on valuable tropical forests. The authors – PhD student Elsa Ordway, Greg Asner, professor at Stanford Earth by courtesy, and Eric Lambin, George and Setsuko Ishiyama Provostial Professor — recommend implementing policies that would alleviate poverty in local regions and incentivize forest conservation.

Predicting Environmental Impacts

Researchers with the Natural Capital Project developed a new way for companies to better understand how the production of their products affects the environment. By using data to hone in on regional landscape differences and characteristics, the Land Use Change Improved Life Cycle Assessment, or LUCI-LCA, is designed to provide a more accurate method of the predicted impacts of new designs and sourcing than traditional life-cycle assessments that take a broader, less-detailed approach.

Forecasting the Future of Oil Crops

How can we make the oil crop industry sustainable? What are the related land management and availability issues? Derek Byerlee of Georgetown University; Walter Falcon, the Farnsworth Professor of International Agricultural Policy (Emeritus); and Rosamond Naylor, the William Wrigley Professor in the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences; discuss these and other pressing questions in their book, “The Tropical Oil Crop Revolution: Food, Feed, Fuel and Forests.” They predict a decrease in oil crop demand to ease pressure on native ecosystems, thus giving hope for a more sustainable sector. They note the necessity and likelihood for convergence among societies, consumers, businesses and governments in order to enact these changes.

Predicting Poverty

Preventing poverty requires locating its victims. Marshall Burke, an assistant professor in the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences; and David Lobell, the William Wrigley Senior Fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute; proposed pioneered the use of satellite imagery to predict village-level wealth. Because brighter areas at night are generally more developed, the researchers combined high-resolution daytime and nighttime satellite imagery. Then they used the comparative data to identify features correlated with economic development. Their algorithm learned to pick out signs of urban areas, such as roads and buildings. This algorithm proved to be surprisingly accurate, and outperformed existing approaches in predicting poverty distribution. The researchers hope the improved poverty maps help aid organizations and policymakers make more informed development decisions.

Reforming China’s Fisheries

China accounts for one-fifth of global fish catch volume. How can the best available science be implemented in the country’s fisheries management to protect coastal and ocean ecosystems? Ling Cao, a social science research associate at the Center on Food Security and the Environment; and Woods Senior Fellow Rosamond Naylor; coauthored an analysis that examined the opportunity for marine fisheries reform in China in relation to its most recent five-year conservation plan. They highlight that while China has attempted to reverse the decline for past fish stocks, these efforts are futile without country-wide institutional reform. The researchers recommend new institutions for science-based fisheries management, secure fishing access, educational programs for fisheries managers and increased public access to scientific data.

Explaining Food Security Policy

The Center on Food Security and the Environment hosted engaging conversations as part of its Food and Nutrition Policy Symposium Series. Expert lecturers included David Little, a professor of aquatic resources and development at the University of Sterling; Ronald Hardy, director of the Aquaculture Research Institute at the University of Idaho; and Pamela Ronald, a professor of plant pathology at the University of California, Davis. The series is supported by Zach Nelson and Elizabeth Horn in honor of Phillip Falcon. Watch videos.

Water Transfers Scorecard

How do states in the Colorado River Basin rank when it comes to using environmental water transfers, a legal tool that enables water rights holders to voluntarily transfer their water to rivers, streams and wetlands to benefit the environment? A study led by Water in the West Executive Director Leon Szeptycki found that Colorado was the most successful while Arizona was the furthest behind in supporting this valuable option for conservation.

Cleaning Wastewater

The William and Cloy Codiga Resource Recovery Center, a project years in the making and a first-of-its-kind approach to wastewater recycling, became fully operational in 2017. The research and ideas for the center, which switches from an energy-intensive aerobic system to an anaerobic system for treating wastewater, received seed grant funding from two environmental venture project grants as well as other sources. The project has the potential to cut up to 50 percent of the energy usage in wastewater treatment. So far there have been more than 150 tours of the facility and nine graduate students trained as operators. The system is currently removing greater than 95 percent of organic contamination in the raw wastewater and a street lamp on site is burning continuously using the renewable energy biogas produced from the wastewater. The center is in the design phases of a project with the California Energy Commission and Silicon Valley Clean Water to scale up its flagship SAF-MBR technology in Redwood City. That new system will supplant the center as the largest such system in the world.

Water Infrastructure

Aging infrastructure is a persistent problem throughout the nation and the risks it presents will only worsen as the climate changes. During the wettest winter on record in California, the spillway of Oroville Dam was breached causing 180,000 evacuation notices. Kimmelman Family Fellow Noah Diffenbaugh showed that extreme weather in California is expected to increase with climate change. A study coauthored by Diffenbaugh and other Stanford researchers showed the traditional 100-year flooding estimates for bridges fail to account for the full risk of bridge collapse as climate extremes become more prevalent. Financing for beneficial infrastructure projects is also a challenge. To help address this issue, a team of researchers led by Newsha Ajami, Director of Urban Water Policy at Water in the West, created a “Living Map” of innovative ways to finance water projects in the United States that will help regions finance upgrades.

Saltwater Intrusion

Removing too much groundwater from underground aquifers risks changing the fluid pressure and drawing in seawater, corrupting water supplies. To help local groundwater managers identify regions most impacted by saltwater intrusion, researchers led by Rosemary Knight, George L. Harrington Professor in the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences, used geophysical imaging techniques to map where saltwater is getting into groundwater aquifers in Monterey Bay.

Standing Rock and the Law

The construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline has drawn extended protests and public challenges. Stanford experts in law and earth science explained the legal and environmental issues surrounding the pipeline, which is set to run beneath the Missouri River, the main water source for the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota. Native American water rights is a highly debated subject among legal scholars. Barton “Buzz” Thompson, Founding Perry L. McCarty Director of the Woods Institute, discussed another case involving the Agua Caliente tribe in Palm Springs and how it could help clarify tribal rights to groundwater.

War and Water Use

Researchers with the Global Freshwater Initiative used satellite data to show how the Syrian civil war and subsequent refugee migration caused sudden changes in the area’s land use and freshwater resources. The conflict caused agricultural irrigation and reservoir storage to decrease by nearly 50 percent compared to prewar conditions. This combined with drought recovery led an increase in the Yarmouk River flow to downstream Jordan.

Examining Oil Sands Risks to Ocean

As the U.S. overhauls energy and environmental regulations, a troubling question hangs over an emerging source of unconventional oil the president has indicated he wants to expand. Bitumen – a tar-like fuel extracted from oil sands in Canada and elsewhere – is often stored in coastal areas and transported by ship. So, what are its potential effects on valuable ocean environments? The short answer, according to a study coauthored by Stephanie Green, a Banting postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Ocean Solutions: we have no idea. Green and her colleagues recommend collecting more information about the possible environmental effects of bitumen before making regulatory decisions. Watch video.

Simulating Ocean of the Future

Although a dire threat to coral and other marine systems that provide food and employment for hundreds of millions of people, ocean acidification is not a well-known phenomenon. Jeremy Bailenson, the Thomas More Storke Professor of Communiction, is trying to change that through the magic of virtual reality. His lab released “The Stanford Ocean Acidification Experience,” a free science education tool that can take you to the bottom of the sea, then fast-forward to the end of the century, when many coral reefs are predicted to corrode in waters made acidic by the absorption of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Watch video.

Finding Hope Below the Waves

Despite climate change’s wide-reaching impacts on ocean ecosystems, some kelp forest populations have remained stable or increased, according to a global survey coauthored by Fiorenza Micheli, the David and Lucile Packard Professor of Marine Science. While the impacts of climate change still generally harm kelp, these effects vary by region and species, the researchers find. However, areas with better local management were often found to have increasing kelp populations. This indicates that management in other sectors can play a greater role in kelp species survival by easing damage from impacts such as fishing, pollution and coastal development. Micheli, a Woods senior fellow, stresses the importance of unvaried research funding to continue monitoring the populations, which provide billions of dollars worth of natural services.

Exposing Benefits of Marine Protected Areas

Expanded marine protected areas (MPAs) are successful in limiting fishing, thus increasing reef shark populations, which support ecosystem health, according to a study coauthored by Barbara Block, the Charles and Elizabeth Prothro Professor in Marine Sciences; and Woods Senior Fellows Fiorenza Micheli and Giulio De Leo. The researchers find little evidence of fishing in a Pacific Ocean MPA, but a high density of fishing vessels just outside the MPA borders. This suggests even remote locations would be primed for fishing if protection disappears.

Winning with Water

Marking a milestone planetary health research collaboration, Stanford epidemiologist Stephen Luby is part of an international consortium that received a £10 million grant to potentially improve the lives of more than a billion people. The five-year project aims to transform water infrastructure, water management and sanitation practices in urban slums around the world. The project will deliver the first-ever public health and environmental data on the outcomes of an alternative water management approach. Luby, a member of the core team that developed the grant proposal, was tapped to be the human health evaluation leader on the project.

Explaining Antibacterial Soap Ban

When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) effectively banned a personal hygiene product used by millions of Americans, some public confusion was bound to ensue. In its decision to give manufacturers a year to remove certain chemicals from their antibacterial soaps, the FDA cited a study led by Stephen Luby showing no significant difference in results from plain soap and antibacterial soap.

Reducing Climate Change Health Impact

What connects heat exposure illness in California with drought in Syria? In these and many other global health challenges, the root cause is climate change. A report co-authored by researchers including Senior Associate Dean of Global Health and Woods Senior Fellow Michele Barry, recommended the U.S. initiate a formal, decade-long emergency response to climate change, managed by the State Department, and frame climate change as a global health security issue. Barry and her colleagues point to the need for a more resilient health system with better planning, technology, and understanding of how organizations work and how people function during crisis.

Revealing Ebola Mystery

A year after the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, researchers including Woods Senior Fellows Michele Barry and James Holland Jones identified individuals in a hot spot for the epidemic who had antibodies to the virus but said they had had no symptoms during the time of active transmission. The research confirms previous suspicions that Ebola does not uniformly cause severe disease, and that people may be infected without showing signs of illness. The study, which suggests the epidemic was more widespread than previously believed, received widespread media attention.

Finding Room to Improve Emissions Mitigation

Research led by Amy Pickering, an engineering research associate at Woods’ Program on Water, Health and Development, found a carbon offset program involving distribution of water filters in Kenya had inaccuracies in self-reported data and reflected a missed opportunity for improving community health. Such schemes, in which governments, industry and individuals offset their emissions by purchasing credits representing carbon dioxide removed or reduced from the atmosphere, could be financially sustainable tools for scaling up water treatment and improving health in low-income settings, according to Pickering and her coauthors. They recommend third-party monitoring to ensure effectiveness.