Consider a future shaped by a new generation of environmental leaders skilled in data science. Envision cities built from wood, broader and more sophisticated approaches to solving environmental health problems, developed landscapes that contribute to a net-zero carbon future, and a wide-ranging effort to restore degraded ecosystems and rebuild humans’ relationship with the land.
ESF is addressing each of these issues and expanding its role as a global leader in environmental science with the launch of five new research projects identified through the College’s Discovery Challenge.
Set in motion by a directive from SUNY Chancellor Kristina Johnson, the Discovery Challenge established a framework for the ESF community to identify initiatives that will build on ESF’s strengths to position it for future success. The Discovery Challenge was conducted to move the College toward growth, enhanced prominence, increased funding streams, new academic/industry/government relationships and global impact.
At the end of a yearlong process, the College selected five project proposals to each receive $600,000 in SUNY seed funding over three years. ESF also plans to pursue funding support for another eight research proposals that were developed as part of the Discovery Challenge process.
“The ESF Discovery Challenge brought virtually all of our faculty together to think collaboratively and dream about how ESF could position itself in a visionary way to address the significant global challenges resulting from climate change and environmental degradation,” said Interim President David C. Amberg. “The 13 resulting initiatives are a testimony to our faculty’s creativity, and they position ESF to be a global leader in developing sustainable solutions at the nexus of carbon, water, land and energy well into the future.”
Initiative in Environmental Data Science
In the last decade, intensive data collection and processing have become woven into ordinary parts of life. For example, travelers might think nothing of checking traffic congestion on a phone while, behind the scenes, millions of GPS receivers in cell phones are being tracked, processed and instantly fed to web maps. However, this same capacity to collect and process data has not been fully incorporated into the solution of environmental problems.
The research team working on this initiative envisions a sophisticated melding of data with environmental science. ESF’s new Initiative in Environmental Data Science will be responsive to emergent data science themes pursued by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. The center will foster synergies with the newly formed Center of Excellence in Healthy Water Solutions and coordinate new course offerings, seed grants, graduate student support, campus computing, innovative faculty training and new partnerships with other academic institutions, government and industry. The initiative has already completed the first Environmental Data Science Bootcamp for graduate students at the ESF Adirondack Ecological Center and established two environmental data science Ph.D. fellowships.
“Our goal is to develop a new, specialized form of the broader field of data science and enact it here at ESF,” said Dr. Hyatt Green. “Environmental data needs special attention because it is our most helpful tool at mitigating and adapting to climate change; it now comes from a diversity of collection methods, including drones, satellite imagery and hand-recorded measurements, as well as terabytes of microbial sequence data. It can be difficult for traditionally trained environmental scientists to bring all this data together and make sense of it. We will use this messy data as well as the remarkable environmental science foundation already at ESF as a training ground to give students relevant skills needed to do most any job that requires the generation, manipulation and interpretation of data.”
Mass Timber Construction
“We are changing the way that we build. Our future cities will be built from timber,” said Dr. Paul Crovella ’16, who helps lead this project. “This moves us from combusting and releasing carbon to build our buildings, to capturing and storing carbon in our buildings.”
This initiative aims to implement a system that removes barriers, lowers costs and reduces risk for mass timber construction. The project reaches beyond ESF to not only share results, but to implement, demonstrate and educate decision makers about the vast potential of mass timber. The project will bring ESF forest properties to a starring role in transforming the built environment in cities such as New York. The project also includes a digital fabrication lab that would be a hub of exploration for innovation in developing new cross‐disciplinary applications in materials science, manufacturing and design.
Crovella and colleague Dr. William Smith ’76 said the project highlights the benefits of building with wood: its positive health effects include lower blood pressure, lower heart rate and lower nervous system stress levels; the resource is renewable and sustainable; wood construction is strong and durable; its insulating characteristics mean buildings made from wood require less energy to construct and operate.
Crovella has organized a Mass Timber Construction Symposium for April 2020 in Syracuse that will feature speakers from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. The event will be part of the annual New York State Green Building Conference.
Center for Environmental Medicine and Informatics
With a significant portion of human disease influenced by environmental exposures, an improved understanding of these links along with rapid translation of such findings into public health policy and clinical practice is critical. Experts at ESF, SUNY Upstate Medical University and Syracuse University will work together to fill this gap by creating a formal structure for collaboration centered on the application of big data, artificial intelligence, scientific computing and informatics to pressing environmental health problems.
On a national level, Dr. Mary Collins said, leadership is needed in the area of translational research as applied to environmental medicine. Experts at the three Syracuse-area universities are well-positioned to begin filling this gap. Collins said the center’s initial research portfolio will include environmental links to cancer and Parkinson’s disease; health disparities in morbidity and mortality, and small area variations in environmental quality; and the relationships between environmental stressors, such as toxicants and discrimination, and cardiovascular disease risk.
Pathways to a Net-Zero Carbon Future: Landscape Design for Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Mitigation
To avoid catastrophic climate change, industrialized nations must make rapid and fundamental changes to their energy systems and land use practices in ways that eliminate most greenhouse gas emissions, and offset the remainder through sequestration and storage. Renewable energy and land-based “natural climate solutions” such as forest carbon sequestration are therefore essential to achieving the goal of a “net-zero carbon” future. However, the pathways that lead toward this more sustainable future are largely uncharted, while the real-world landscapes that can allow these pathways — and other societal goals — to be achieved have not yet been conceived.
“We recognize the urgency to act to prevent catastrophic climate change, and although much has been done to set the stage, there has not been enough action,” said Dr. Colin Beier, a leading team member.
“But New York’s new climate bill can be a game-changer because it demands action. To achieve its ambitious goals, we must design and implement realistic solutions for reducing emissions through clean energy and natural climate solutions. By bringing together ESF’s strengths in land stewardship, sustainable energy and landscape architecture, we are seeking practical ways to reimagine and ultimately adapt our current landscapes to not only slow down climate change, but also be resilient to near-term changes we are likely to experience.”
ESF Restoration Science Center
This initiative will lead a hands‐on transdisciplinary restoration effort to regain ecological function from degraded systems, restore threatened and endangered species, and rebuild our cultural relationships with the land using adaptive methodology and science. ESF students and scientists will work side‐by‐side with research partners and communities to test, develop and apply novel technologies to deliver ecosystem restoration, incorporating biocultural and food system restoration while drawing strongly on indigenous knowledge and land stewardship practices.
“We’re launching a regional to global initiative to restore degraded habitats and species from small wetlands and streams to whole forests, lakes and beyond. We also plan to rebuild how people interact with restoration and restored environments by facilitating healthy biophysical relationships with the environment and the sustainable food the land provides,” said the team’s Dr. John Farrell ’91.
“We want to bring research and teaching closer together in an applied setting,” Farrell said. “This will prepare future generations for dealing with the challenges of environmental decline with technology and science solutions while developing strong biocultural and sustainability foundations.”
Claire B. Dunn is a freelance science writer in the Syracuse area.