Institute for a Sustainable Earth (ISE)

George Mason earns solid gold in sustainability

Lauren Reuscher — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 13:56:18 +0000

George Mason earns solid gold in sustainability Lauren Reuscher Thu, 06/06/2024 - 09:56

For its commitment to campus sustainability, ��AV has earned a Gold rating in the STARS (Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System) Assessment. STARS is a self-reporting framework for colleges and universities to measure their sustainability performance and is offered by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). George Mason has received four consecutive STARS Gold ratings and was the first Virginia university to earn that rating in 2014.

George Mason earned a Gold rating in the STARS assessment for the fourth consecutive time, Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding

STARS was administered by staff from University Sustainability and University Business Consulting. This year, George Mason demonstrated improvements in several performance categories, earning a total of 73.66 points. The university’s score increased 13% since the last assessment in 2021. The threshold for earning a Gold rating is 65 points, and George Mason is only 11.34 points away from earning the highest honor, STARS Platinum. Rankings are valid for three years.

Amber Saxton, program manager in University Sustainability, co-led the university-wide assessment with Minh Le, senior consultant in University Business Consulting.

“STARS recognizes what we are doing well, puts our sustainability planning and execution in context with peers nationwide, and helps us create a roadmap for continued improvement,” Saxton said. “Mason’s Gold rating reflects a comprehensive effort from stakeholders across the university, from research to operations.”

Sustainable purchasing is part of George Mason's STARS Gold rating. Locker room renovations for the men's soccer team included sustainable upgrades like lockers made from recycled content and responsibly sourced materials and energy-efficient lights. This project was supported by the Patriot Green Fund. Photo by Shelby Burgess/Office of University Branding

Consistent success in campus sustainability

George Mason has consistently earned high scores in the STARS categories for sustainable transportation programs, stormwater management, and academics and research. George Mason also scored highly in the innovation category for its on-campus gardens, food bank (the Student Support and Advocacy Center's Patriot Pantry), and sustainability project grant funds (Facilities’ Patriot Green Fund and the Institute for a Sustainable Earth’s new Mason as a Living Lab fund).

The on-campus gardens help Mason score consistently high in the innovation category on STARS. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding

High marks in these categories reflect the commitment of stakeholders across the university.

“Mason departments and colleges have prioritized sustainability as a strategic part of their performance criteria and benchmarks for progress,” said Greg Farley, director of University Sustainability. “Mason has set a goal to be the highest-scoring AASHE STARS school in Virginia by 2030, so University Sustainability and its partners will need to keep pushing forward.”

Measuring the culture of sustainability

This year, George Mason earned new points in the sustainability literacy and culture category for launching a survey to measure students' sustainability literacy, culture, and behavior. Recent graduate Nikita Lad, PhD Environmental Science and Policy ’24, and K.L. Akerlof, associate professor of science communication, administered the survey to a representative sample of undergraduates in fall 2022 and spring 2023.

“The survey measured what factors affect students' sustainability behaviors and whether their knowledge and behaviors changed through formal or informal programming during their college careers,” said Lad.

The theoretically informed survey model found that time spent on campus and informal program participation influenced students’ nature connectedness and norms, which in turn affected sustainability behaviors. Lad shared the research study through a webinar with other members of AASHE and hopes to collaborate with other universities on future iterations of the survey.

Through Bioblitz, the Mason Nation crowdsources the identification of species across campus. Photo by Cristian Torres/Office of University Branding

Bioblitz made an impact

George Mason earned new points in biodiversity this year thanks to Bioblitz, a crowdsourced assessment of plant and animal species on campus. Through an app, the Mason Nation helped identify and monitor endangered and vulnerable species around the university. In spring 2024, more than 500 biodiversity observations were entered into the Bioblitz app by 107 observers, documenting 273 species.

Bigbelly solar waste stations were recently installed across George Mason's campuses. Photo by Facilities

Moving toward zero waste

New efforts to improve waste diversion boosted George Mason’s score in that category. Facilities Management, University Sustainability, Auxiliary Services and Operations, and other campus partners worked to expand composting, reduce single-use plastics, and promote the use of certified compostable and aluminum products.

George Mason is expected to improve further in this category in the future, with the installation of new Bigbelly solar waste stations across its campuses, the development and implementation of new design standards for “zero waste” bins, the addition of glass recycling, and the future launch of a reusable food container pilot and paper towel composting.

Mason earned one of the highest STARS ratings among Virginia universities. As of April 2024, the University of Virginia earned 74.85 points, ��AV earned 73.66 points, and Virginia Commonwealth University earned 66.4 points. Participating institutions can earn points toward a STARS Bronze, Silver, Gold, or Platinum Rating, or earn the STARS Reporter designation.

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Mason Scientists Sound 'Wake-up Call' on Virginia’s Wildfires

Colleen Rich — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 15:17:57 +0000

Mason Scientists Sound 'Wake-up Call' on Virginia’s Wildfires Colleen Rich Tue, 04/23/2024 - 11:17

Page, Shenandoah County wildfires a warning to prepare for more frequent future disasters

A group of scientists from ��AV’s College of Science are calling the Page and Shenandoah County wildfires a “wake-up call” for Virginia and the Eastern Seaboard that heralds the increasing threat of wildfire to the region as the climate continues to change.

Wildfires that are a regular occurrence in the western United States will become more frequent in the east in the decades to come, they warn.

“There have been few wildfires in Virginia over the last two decades, but the risk of wildfires has been increasing due to extreme weather and climate events caused by climate change,” said John Qu, director of Mason’s Environmental Science and Technology Center.

In the case of the Page and Shenandoah County wildfires, “swift actions from emergency managers and first responders, complemented by fortunate rainfall, helped dodge a dire outcome,” said Alireza Ermagun, director of the Mobility Observatory and Data Analytics Lab and an assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Geoinformation Science.

Nevertheless, “the fires brought severe air pollution to northwestern Virginia,” said Daniel Tong, associate professor of atmospheric chemistry and aerosols in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Earth Sciences.

The scientists said this alarm bell points to the need for building resilience, solidifying emergency preparedness, and planning for evacuation, particularly for vulnerable populations including those with disabilities or without private transportation. Early detection measures will help, as will making the population more aware of this increasing threat.

The Mason scientists who are available for comment on wildfire, including in Virginia, include:

Daniel Tong—air quality observations and predictions (wildfires, dust storms and aerosol effects)

Daniel Tong, an associate professor of atmospheric chemistry and aerosols in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Earth Sciences within Mason’s College of Science, works closely with NASA’s Health and Air Quality Applied Sciences Team, and leads a NASA-funded effort to improve the country’s dust forecasting capabilities. His atmospheric modeling tools were tapped to better understand the recent Canadian wildfires and their impact on air quality across the United States. By plugging real-time satellite data into a complex model of Earth’s atmosphere—one that accounts for site-specific variables like soil type, wind speed, and how Earth’s surface interacts with winds—the system churns out hourly forecasts that can even predict dust storms up to three days in advance.

Alireza Ermagun—vulnerable populations, emergency preparedness

Alireza Ermagun, the Director of the Mobility Observatory and Data Analytics Lab and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Geoinformation Science at ��AV, is at the forefront of creating safer futures for wildfire-prone communities in California. By developing a practice-ready framework, he addresses the urgent evacuation and sheltering needs of disadvantaged communities when wildfires erupt. His NSF-sponsored project, “Snuff It Out: Extinguishing the Disparity of Access to Shelters for Disadvantaged Communities in Wildfire-Prone Areas,” marks a significant leap forward in his commitment. Collaborating closely with local emergency preparedness and law enforcement officials, Ermagun’s work is setting new standards in optimizing wildfire responses. This project is not just about immediate relief; it is about embedding equity into wildfire preparedness strategies, offering a model for resilience that communities across America facing similar threats can replicate.

John Qu—early warning systems, forestry–wildfire nexus

John Qu is a professor of Geography and Geoinformation Science at Mason and Mason Institute of Sustainable Earth Fellow. He serves as the director of the Environment Science and Technology Center (ESTC) (http://estc.gmu.edu) and served as the funding director of the EastFIRE Lab from 2005 to 2013. He focuses his research on wildland fires, land, water, and atmospheric environmental remote sensing, and also collaborates with international partners. His efforts to develop integrated early warning and decision-support systems for sustainable Water-Energy-Food-Health (WEFH) Nexus are already underway, including projects to support the NOAA Atmospheric Temperature Climate Data Record from POES Microwave Sounders to JPSS/ATMS, NOAA; the Africa Soil Moisture Monitoring and Applications with WMO, and assessing impacts of large wildland fires with USDA/FS.

About ��AV

��AV is Virginia’s largest public research university. Located near Washington, D.C., Mason enrolls more than 40,000 students from 130 countries and all 50 states. Mason has grown rapidly over the past half-century and is recognized for its innovation and entrepreneurship, remarkable diversity, and commitment to accessibility. In 2023, the University launched Mason Now: Power the Possible, a one-billion-dollar comprehensive campaign to support student success, research, innovation, community, and stewardship. www.gmu.edu.

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Podcast - Ep 58: What will become of the Amazon?

Damian Cristodero — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 14:19:56 +0000

Podcast - Ep 58: What will become of the Amazon? Damian Cristodero Mon, 04/22/2024 - 10:19

What will become of the Amazon?

Jeremy Campbell, associate director for strategic engagement in ��AV’s Institute for a Sustainable Earth, says that at its current pace the vast Amazon rainforest, in five to 10 years, could pass a tipping point in which it could transform into grasslands. That process, fueled by deforestation and climate change, is a threat to the biodiversity and socio-cultural aspects that define the region, and has global implications as well. In this fascinating conversation in recognition of Earth Month, Campbell explains to Mason President Gregory Washington the magnitude of what the loss of the Amazon rainforest would really mean, and how the Institute for a Sustainable Earth in on the front lines in the region.

Where there used to be forest, you’re not going to get any more of that transpiration cycle, and so the drying isn’t limited to the places where deforestation happens. Where things are dry, things get hotter. And then when you add like we had last year with the horrible situation throughout the Amazon of an El Nino-induced heat spike and drought, then you have villages that rely on fish, rely on the rivers to get around because the rivers are the highways of the Amazon, who are literally stranded. So the drying out of the Amazon is a tremendous biodiversity challenge, it’s also a tremendous economic challenge. But it’s also a human tragedy that is taking tremendous costs on the people of the Amazon as well."

Read the Transcript

Narrator (00:04):

Trailblazers in research, innovators in technology, and those who simply have a good story. All make up the fabric that is ��AV, where taking on the grand challenges that face our students, graduates, and higher education is our mission and our passion. Hosted by Mason President Gregory Washington, this is the Access to Excellence podcast.

Gregory Washington (00:26):

The Amazon Basin, which holds the world's biggest river rainforest and a fifth of its fresh water is running dry. That was the news in the Washington Post recently. The New York Times went even further citing a study that says the Amazon rainforest could transform into grasslands in the coming decades because of climate change, deforestation, and severe drought, such as the one the region just experienced. Jeremy Campbell is a cultural anthropologist who studies land conflicts and environmental change in the Brazilian Amazon. He is also the associate director for strategic engagement at Mason's Institute for Sustainable Earth. Since 2020, Dr. Campbell has served as the president of the Society of Anthropology of Lowland South America. That's an international scholarly organization that advocates on behalf of peoples and environments in Amazonia and beyond. In this Earth Month, I am thrilled that Dr. Campbell has given us an opportunity to engage. Welcome Dr. Campbell.

Jeremy Campbell (01:44):

Thank you so much Dr. Washington. It's a pleasure to be here.

Gregory Washington (01:47):

Well, it's great to have you. So let's get right to the bad news.

Jeremy Campbell (01:51):

Yeah, let's do it.

Gregory Washington (01:53):

According to the Times and the study that was produced by an international team of scientists and published in the Journal Nature, the collapse of all or part of the Amazon rainforest would release the equivalent of several years of global emissions, possibly 20 years’ worth, into the atmosphere. Give us a template or an understanding for how that actually happens.

Jeremy Campbell (02:19):

Sure. It's complex inherently because the Amazon is, is a very complex region. But to understand what's really going on, you have to really appreciate the size and the immensity and the complexity of the Amazon, which I think for most North Americans, certainly me growing up, I didn't really have much of an understanding other than maybe the, uh, back of the cereal box image of the canopy rainforest with monkeys and toucans and things like this. But you know, the Amazon is vast. It's the size of the lower 48 United States. Yeah, the Amazon Basin is that big.

Gregory Washington (02:51):

The Amazon Basin is the size of essentially the US minus Alaska and Hawaii.

Jeremy Campbell (02:58):

You got it. That's it. It's amazing. Yeah. Not only that, there are nine different nation states that share a portion of that basin going around from Bolivia in the southwest up to Peru, Ecuador, Columbia, Venezuela, Guiana, Surinam, French Guiana, which is an overseas part of the French Republic, so it's part of Europe, it's part of the EU. And then of course Brazil is the lion's share about 70% of the basin. You mentioned Dr. Washington, your stats are good. Your research is good that the Amazon is the world's biggest river by water discharge. Yes. But if you look at the top 20 hydrological discharges rivers in the world, six of them are tributaries of the Amazon. So you've got seven of the top 20 rivers in the world. Right. In that region. Okay. So it is a region that is so immense and so complex to say nothing of the diversity of different river types.

Jeremy Campbell (03:49):

You have black river systems, you have clear water systems, you have white water systems. The subbasins are very complex. What that all adds up to is with this immense area, with immense amounts of water, it is big enough to generate its own weather. And so when we talk about the tipping point, the looming tipping point that actually our departed colleague Tom Lovejoy coined that phrase back in 2018. It's the idea that the neotropics, the subtropical system that is the Amazon is in danger of phase shifting from a robust complex rainforest to something like a Savannah, a grassland, or even in some cases something more like the Sahel region of Northern Africa

Gregory Washington (04:35):

That's near desert.

Jeremy Campbell (04:35):

That's near desert. Exactly. And so how can that happen?

Gregory Washington (04:38):

Now, now let's, let's put it in perspective. You're talking five years, we're talking five decades, or we're talking 500 years? What are we talking about?

Jeremy Campbell (04:49):

Great question. So back in 2018, when Dr. Lovejoy and his colleague Dr. Carlos Nobre from the University of Sao Paulo, published in Nature, the first warning about the tipping point, they estimated what it would take to get to the tipping point is a gross deforestation of approximately 20 to 25% of the land in the entire basin. That was in 2018. At that time, about 18% of the basin had been deforested. Flash ahead six years we're at about 20% of the basin has been deforested. So depending on the projections, and depending on what we might be able to do to put the brakes on deforestation, we might be looking at a tipping point in the next five to 10 years. And again, to put that in perspective, you have the wettest place on earth, some parts of that place becoming a savanna due to deforestation,

Jeremy Campbell (05:40):

but the other crucial part, we can handle deforestation. It's difficult, but we can handle it. The other contributing factor to the tipping point is climate change. And that we're locked into in terms of warming that's affecting the Amazon. The Amazon is warming faster than other regions. It's already warmed 1.3 degrees Celsius since 1980. And it's on an upward trend. That means that some parts of the Amazon are getting wetter, especially the northern parts of the Amazon. But other parts of the Amazon within the global climate system are getting far, far drier. And that's irrespective of seasonal anomalies like an El Nino or a La Nina, which intensify things even further as we know. So you have deforestation cutting down trees that make their own weather through transpiration and evaporation. The Amazon is big enough to, through the transpiration process, there's literally rivers flying above your head.

Gregory Washington (06:39):

That much water.

Jeremy Campbell (06:39):

That much water. Exactly. And those rivers basically follow the trade winds that come from Senegal, from Cape Verde in Africa, and those winds pick up moisture over the South Atlantic. They pick up all the moisture at the Falls of the Amazon near the city of Belem. And then all of that goes kind of in a southwesterly direction towards the Andes. And the Andes is 20,000 feet high. So what happens when air hits that barrier?

Gregory Washington (07:04):

It turns into ice and snow.

Jeremy Campbell (07:05):

It turns to ice and snow. Some of it turns left, which is to say south and southeast and irrigates, South America's bread basket where most of South America's wheat in Argentina, soy in Paraguay and Bolivia and Brazil is grown. And then of course, cattle and pig operations. South America's economy over the past 20 years has been based on the export of commodities in the agricultural sector to East Asia. You turn off the spigot, which is the Amazon hydrogeological cycle, and you're going to see some drying out of that bread basket as well. And so the Amazon plays a crucial role in the global climate system sequestering carbon, we can get into some of the numbers for that if you like. But it also plays a key role in the hydrological and geochemical cycling beyond its borders in South America, which then has implications for global trade and for wellbeing of people who, you know, we've got 8 billion of us on this planet.

Gregory Washington (08:04):

That’s exactly right

Speaker 3 (08:04):

Hungry souls, right?

Gregory Washington (08:05):

You got more than 8 billion. So climate change is affecting that way. I was also reading in the same Nature article where they were talking about the drought significantly reducing the depth in a number of the rivers and slso causing tremendous warming of the waters in some of the lakes. I think they talk about one of the lakes, I think it's pronounced Tefe

Jeremy Campbell (08:30):

Tefe. Yah, that's in Brazil.

Speaker 2 (08:31):

Yeah, where the temperature had reached 40 degrees Centigrade. For those of us who are challenged on that system, it's 104 degrees Fahrenheit and you had large pods of dolphins over 150 of 'em, these freshwater dolphins that perished. 'cause the water got so warm. So that meant other water life didn't live either. If you major and if you major living, eating and living off and using the sea life that's right in that water for commerce, you probably saw some changes there as well.

Jeremy Campbell (09:09):

Sure. And for subsistence living, I've done a quite a bit of work over the past 20 years with indigenous and other traditional peoples in the Amazon. And you're absolutely right. The stresses caused by climate change and by deforestation, which really do interact with one another dynamically to push us ever closer to that system change, that phase change from a stable system where water gets recycled to one where, you know, when you cut down a tree and around 20% of the forest is gone now, you are drying out that soil. You are drying out that part of that region. And basically the southern strip of the Amazon has been converted to pasture and cities in the past 40, 50 years. Where there used to be forests, you're not gonna get any more of that transpiration cycle. And so the drying isn't limited to the places where deforestation happens, where things are dry, things get hotter.

Jeremy Campbell (10:01):

And then when you add, like we had last year with the horrible situation in Lago Tefe, but all throughout the Amazon of an El Nino induced heat spike and drought, then you have villages that rely on fish, rely on the rivers to get around because the rivers are the highways in the Amazon who are literally stranded without the ability to get to major cities, the without the ability to get healthcare. So the drying out of the Amazon is a tremendous biodiversity challenge. It's also a tremendous economic challenge in the ways we just talked about, but it's also a human tragedy, and it's taking tremendous costs on the people of the Amazon as well.

Gregory Washington (10:41):

Wow. This is a pretty significant outcome. I've always wanted to get a better understanding of the impact that the Amazon can have on the planet in terms of a losing of substantial portion of it. What do you think that will do to the rest of us? So let's say if we lost, let's make it a big number, 50%. What are we talking about relative to what the rest of the globe will feel?

Jeremy Campbell (11:10):

Well, the catastrophic loss of biodiversity, let's take that first, because the Amazon is estimated these are our best guesses.

Gregory Washington (11:18):

I know. I look, I understand.

Jeremy Campbell (11:19):

I mean, it's …

Gregory Washington (11:20):

But your guess is a scientific guess.

Jeremy Campbell (11:24):

Well, that's right. That's right.

Gregory Washington (11:25):

And that's better than me putting my index finger in the air and saying, you know, about, okay, so.

Jeremy Campbell (11:31):

Right, right, right. And so, yeah, for the sake of argument, if we lose half of the rainforest, then I think we're definitely, even though there was some quibbling when Dr. Lovejoy and Dr. Nobre said tipping point will be reached at 25% deforestation. There was some pushback against that. But if we get to 50%, we're definitely seeing a phase change. We're gonna be seeing savannization, we're gonna be seeing the loss of endemic species diversity in the affected valleys. Again, the Amazon is the name we give to the river that goes west to east. But there are huge river systems that go north south and south north that feed that Amazon. And each one has its distinct biodiversity profile and has also distinct sociocultural properties, different social groups who speak different languages. And so, depending on what happens valley by valley, region by region, we could be experiencing a catastrophic loss of biodiversity.

Jeremy Campbell (12:22):

What goes along with that, of course, is part of the mystery of life. Part of what makes us human is that we share this planet with other creatures. And so even before we're able to describe them scientifically, you would see thousands, if not millions of species being pushed to the brink of extinction. Of course, many minds would go towards the opportunity value or the, or the opportunity lost to develop medicines or to develop new technologies based upon things that we don't know, that we don't know in the Amazon, because it is such a biodiversity library. Library is also a good metaphor. Uh, and it's actually a metaphor that's used by my indigenous colleagues when deforestation or drought spikes and begins to challenge and affect indigenous lands. My indigenous colleagues describe that as the libraries of their people burning. Because the trees and the animals and the plant life are part of the traditional knowledge system. Part of how you make your way in the universe, know your place in the universe, find medicine, find food, find stories to pass down to the next generation. And so deforestation plays a sociocultural role in terms of challenging culture's ability to reproduce itself, right? And for people to continue to hold onto their languages and their traditional knowledges and medicines. Also, it's worth saying, because we're talking about climate change, that the system, the broader Amazonian system, sequesters roughly 200 billion tons of carbon dioxide, 200 billion tons. If we lost half of that, let's just go,

Gregory Washington (14:03):

Just cut it in half.

Jeremy Campbell (14:04):

Really gross numbers here, exactly. A hundred billion tons goes into the atmosphere, poof, just like that. We, as the United States of America, the world's second largest emitter emitted 4 billion tons of carbon last year. So that's 25 years’ worth of our emissions.

Gregory Washington (14:21):

Okay, so now we start to get an understanding of the magnitude exactly. Of what this loss can actually mean for us. And that's kind of what I wanted people to kind of grasp. Wow. It's a big number.

Jeremy Campbell (14:36):

It’s a big number. And again, the loss of biodiversity. I mean, here in the United States, we're comfortable. We plug into our cell phones, we plug into cable news, whatever it is, it can feel like the Amazon's far away. But some major drugs have been developed based on traditional ecological knowledge and biodiversity. In the Amazon, for example, the very first drug that treated malaria quinine or quinine, right? Quinine is based on, uh, derived from the bark of a tree in the Amazon. And so that's kind of a big deal, right? There are others. There are,

Gregory Washington (15:09):

And there probably, you know, as we start to, uh, for lack of a better way of putting this, use AI and other tools to look at the pharmaceutical benefits of natural extracts from plants and from plant life and all throughout the planet, but particularly that in the Amazon, we're gonna discover many more.

Jeremy Campbell (15:31):

That’s right, that’s right. So we're putting at peril future discoveries, we're putting at peril a big chunk of the mosaic of life and the big chunk of sociocultural diversity. Part of the bad news in the Amazon is in part the attitude that outsiders have taken and continue to take that understanding the region as a place where you can get rich quick, right? So I, I hear you, and it would be great if we could develop something that would be that elixir, but what the trick would be to develop that drug or develop that therapy and make sure the proceeds stay with the people of the Amazon. Because unfortunately, the more that we study the Amazon, and I've been working there for 25 years, there is chapter after chapter of economic boom that is all about getting a particular commodity out. First it was rubber.

Jeremy Campbell (16:21):

The world's rubber supply was limited to the Amazon basin because it's native to the Amazon basin. So during the industrial revolution of the late 1800s, all the world's rubber came from the Amazon. So that resulted in actually a really bad impact on the Amazon, because rubber is hard to extract. You have to physically cut the trees and collect the sap. So basically slave labor, uh, indigenous peoples were enslaved other peoples from throughout the Americas were taken in and dropped into the Amazon by their bosses and forced to work in really terrible kinds of conditions. And that all basically flamed out when the British, during the British Empire, Grand Britannia, stole some rubber trees and began a rubber plantation in Malaysia, which allowed for other markets and other sources to open up for rubber. Then you get a gold boom, similar kind of extraction, where profits are extracted, leaving behind very little in the region itself. I would argue that the cattle and soy boom that's happening right now is similar. We have 50 million people living in the Amazon, 50 million individuals, 40 million of them live in cities. A lot of people don't understand that either, right? The Amazon is a highly urbanized place.

Gregory Washington (17:34):

Interesting.

Jeremy Campbell (17:34):

There are cities of 4 and 5 million people, but they are very low on the human development index because they are the sites of factories or farms or these sorts of things where labor and environmental protections are looked askant at or really not enforced. And people are getting by as best they can. And the investment that goes to the area, because it is an incredibly rich area, tends not to stay in the area. That's a key piece of this too. The environmental and social sustainability of the area depends on economic sustainability as well. I believe that crucially, you gotta have all three pillars, uh, all three legs of that stool. And that's a key piece that we really do need to be figuring out.

Gregory Washington (18:17):

Well, that brings me to my next question, because recently it was announced that the governments of Brazil and France announced a plan to invest 1.1 billion in the Amazon over the next four years to protect the rainforest, right? Now on first blush, anytime you hear the word billion, you think, wow, it's a lot. But there was a part of me that says, given what you just told me now, it didn't seem like that much money for a region that vast. Now it's also been reported that Brazil has contemplated allowing oil exploration t certain parts of the Amazon as well. So, Can you talk a little bit about these plans and what your thoughts are relative to success?

Jeremy Campbell (18:58):

Absolutely. Yeah. So it is good news that donor countries like Germany, like Norway, like France, like the United States, actually, the United States has pledged just under, I think around seven 50 million to the Amazon Fund, which is an international, it's based in Brazil, but it's an international scoped fund to try to set up conservation areas to set up sustainable business practices, to support community led conservation and all these sorts of things, which really are project by project wonderful examples of keeping the social, the environmental, and the economic flowing in the right direction. So that's to be applauded. But I think you're right. It's a drop in the bucket when compared to the potential revenues that Petrobras, which is Brazil's largest company, and the second largest petroleum company on the planet Sees when they look at oil exploration in the Amazon, and specifically in a place that is all in the news right now. Brazil has been investing in offshore oil drilling technology in the southern part, uh, near Rio, near Sao Paulo.

Jeremy Campbell (20:06):

But a lot of oil has been found just where the Amazon River empties into the Atlantic. It's called the Falls of the Amazon. And so they are moving ahead quickly to begin to develop that area. And we're talking, if it's 1.1 billion that the French and the Germans and the Norwegians have pledged for doling out projects over the next couple years, we'll see 200, 300 multiples of that when it comes to the oil revenue based upon what's there in the offshore area. So the question then is, is that a good idea? Does that not

Gregory Washington (20:37):

Well, we, well, well, we can tell you that it's not a good idea once you have a spill. Uh, but the reality is, my fundamental philosophy on deposits of hydrocarbons in the ground is that people are going to develop 'em. To the extent that we develop technologies for mitigation, we need to, The reality of the situation is until the planet forces us to stoP, man will pull those hydrocarbons out of the ground and we'll burn them.

Jeremy Campbell (21:08):

I tend to agree with you, provided that it isn't too expensive to get them out. There has to be an economic kind of motivator. And right now, at least for the foreseeable, we see oil selling at a high enough level to justify those offshore investments, which are in the billions themselves To get started. But I absolutely agree with you. And so then I think if we're realists about it, we need to think about mitigation. We need to think about, okay, with those tax revenues going into the public coffers of Brazilian nations or multicultural corporations, what is the dividend that needs to be paid forward to the Amazon to make sure that the commitment to climate change that you're getting by pumping those hydrocarbons outta the ground can be mitigated with the peoples and places? Here's a, a moment of hope, guarded hope next year in November of 2025, so 18 months from now, Brazil will be hosting the 30th meeting of the Convention of the Parties, COP, so COP Paris,

Jeremy Campbell (22:07):

Right, The Paris Agreement, et cetera. Copenhagen, Brazil and other Amazonian nations are eager, very eager to appear to be doing right by the Amazon, which they understand to be simultaneously a globally important asset, but also their particular sovereign ground, right? So Brazil, Brazil is not interested in any, in the UN or the US coming in and taking it over, right? But they are interested in a COP or in a huge international meeting being able to tell a good story about what they're doing. And so if they're gonna move ahead to your point, right? If they're gonna get those hydrocarbons out of the continental shelf, off the Falls of the Amazon, when everyone knows that, right? What can they do when they're up there on that stage to say, this is what we're doing to make sure that the Amazon is not gonna be the victim of these or other kinds of economic development schemes?

Jeremy Campbell (23:02):

And so many of the people that I work with are pressing hard, both publicly and quietly in the back halls of power in Brasilia and other Amazonian capitals to make sure there can be some kind of, okay, if you're gonna do this, or you're gonna continue with agriculture as well, 'cause we could talk about deforestation, right? We need to have some real commitments, some measured commitments, and a plan on how to get there when it comes to putting the brakes on deforestation, protecting human rights, protecting biodiversity, and really investing in the potential there that's in the Amazon.

Gregory Washington (23:33):

That leads me to my next question, and let me make it a little more specific. So what would you like to see in a response to outcomes like this, right? Not just from the Brazilian government, but from other governments in the United Nations. From the United States for crying out loud, right?. So what would you like to see in terms of a, a response?

Jeremy Campbell (23:56):

So I think that the United States and the Brazilian government and all governments, and for that matter, NGOs and consumers, need to pay a little bit more attention to what's going on in the Amazon. And that's where I think getting some of that pretty basic, but often lacking context out there about the Amazon, that it is as big as it is, that it is really diverse. I mean, I, I don't think I mentioned this, but this is a good time to sort of say there's 300 different languages spoken in the Amazon.

Speaker 2 (24:27):

Really?

Jeremy Campbell (24:28):

Yeah, yeah, 300 different Amerindian languages to say nothing of the, the colonial languages, Spanish and Portuguese and French and and English, right? And many, many different kinds of societies. There are 2 million indigenous people. There are roughly 6 million Quilombola or Maroon communities. These are descendants of enslaved people who escaped slavery to the Amazon. A lot of people don't appreciate this, that Brazil was actually the destination of most enslaved Africans who were forced to cross in the middle passage.

Gregory Washington (25:00):

Is that for sugar primarily, or what was it?

Jeremy Campbell (25:02):

For sugar. For sugar in the Northeast and for coffee in the south of the country, right? And so enslaved people's fleeing for freedom would go to a place that was relatively uninhabited and set up their own communities called Quilombos starting in the 1600s, right? They would trade with indigenous people. Sometimes they would fight with indigenous peoples. But there were cultures set up, uh, Afro-Brazilian cultures set up that are thoroughly Amazonian and are thoroughly unique with their own cultural, religious, and subsistence practices. You have riverside communities as well, who are the descendants of, I talked about the rubber boom after the rubber bust when there was no more money in the very laborious production of rubber in the Amazon. The communities that were brought there, stayed there and basically hunted and fished and had a relationship with the environment. That was a very sustainable and interesting one. And so the Amazon, in addition to being an urbanized place, is also a place of tremendous social and cultural diversity. And it's a place of poverty, it's a place of corruption, it's a place of international crime. It's a place where all of this is happening. And so, as with any place, I mean, think again, it's, it's the size of the lower 48. Is there one policy solution to all the problems in the lower 48 United States?

Gregory Washington (26:20):

Of course not.

Jeremy Campbell (26:21):

So there are many different things that we need to think about that most of the time when we're in international audience, we just think climate or biodiversity or forest.

Gregory Washington (26:31):

Right. We just think, yeah, stop deforesting.

Jeremy Campbell (26:34):

Uh, and we need to That's absolutely crucial.

Gregory Washington (26:36):

No, I get it, I get it. But what I hear you saying is that it's more than that.

Jeremy Campbell (26:39):

Yeah. It really is. And so real partnership, real engagement, government to government or corporate or consumers needs to appreciate that diversity of the Amazon, needs to appreciate that Amazonian people have a lot to contribute to the world in terms of being stewards of the environment, in terms of the knowledge that they have and that they can share with us. But that, that has to be done in an equitable way. It's not the case that we can go save the Amazon from the United States, you know, like parachuting in. Their capacity is, is actually there in the region, but also the forces that are leading to its destruction are there in the region. Not to make this too political, but if you're in the United States and you're in higher education like you and I are, chances are you may be invested in a TIAA retirement account. Full disclosure, I've done research on this. I have the receipts, but they're not the only ones. Okay. So don't get at me, TIAA, please. They've invested, and subsequently, once this came to light, they divested, but they were investing in ranch properties on recently deforested land on the edges of the Amazon. And so, in other words, they were good investments, these ranches were accruing in value. But I didn't know, and maybe you didn't know that your own retirement is vested in, you know, deforestation.

Gregory Washington (28:01):

This is, this is the very first time I'm hearing about it. Wow.

Jeremy Campbell (28:04):

People are concerned about meat. And they should be, because it was the case in the 1980s and 1990s that Brazil was exporting meat grown on deforested land to the United States. That has stopped. So it's actually not the case that we should go after McDonald's for selling Amazonian beef in the United States, 'cause they don't. But that beef is going to China, so the rest of the world is engaged in benefiting from the Amazon's destruction. But the rest of the world can also show up in solidarity with the people who are the true stewards of the land, who are the indigenous and traditional people.

Gregory Washington (28:41):

The, the reality is, is the people who are there trying to survive as well, right?

Jeremy Campbell (28:47):

That’s right, yep.

Gregory Washington (28:47):

And it's hard to tell them, hey, make a change in your lifestyle now and suffer now, starve now so that somebody in America or some other country could have a better quality of life, 10, 20, 30 years from now, right? And that's what makes it hard and a little self-serving when we sit here.

Jeremy Campbell (29:13):

Yeah, right. I'd agree with that. And, and that actually brings to mind something that you ask how the US or how outsiders could engage. And one thing that I think we can do is support sustainable commodity chains, right? So verifiable chains of value that begin in the Amazon, and maybe the product goes to the United States, maybe just goes to urban Brazil or urban Argentina. But the majority of that profit gets reinvested in the local community. It does not get captured by a middleman or by the urban retailer, but instead it really gets returned much like shade grown coffee, you might think of that, right. It's not a good example for the Amazon, but you probably have heard, and maybe you've enjoyed acai, the wonderful super fruit from the Amazon, right? Yeah. Well, it is really wonderful and it's, it's a great way for the Amazon to be exported all throughout the world. But 90% of the economic value chain of acai rests outside the Amazon. Only 10% rests in the actual cultivation of the Amazon. So that needs to be switched, right?

Gregory Washington (30:22):

Not surprised by that, right.

Jeremy Campbell (30:24):

Yeah. Yeah.

Gregory Washington (30:25):

So talk to me a little bit about Mason's Institute for Sustainable Earth and how it's involved with what's going on in Amazonia.

Jeremy Campbell (30:32):

So we, at the ISC, the Institute for a Sustainable Earth, are involved in a lot of different projects with partners in the region, but we're also supporting a lot of really talented Mason faculty who are working on a variety of issues. And really what we try to do, our kind of theory of the case that the ISE, is to bring together teams that are interdisciplinary to do research that can be of impact, be of consequence, right? And so along those lines, I actually had the privilege of convening a high-level international symposium, I guess is the best way to to think about it, back in January of 2023, where we went to the Smithsonian Mason School of Conservation up in front Royal, spent a couple days really hashing out the priorities for international interdisciplinary research that includes communities that valorizes and really platforms scientists working in the region at Brazilian Peruvian Bolivian institutions,

Jeremy Campbell (31:38):

right so that it's a real partnership as opposed to, uh, global northern institution coming in and making the discoveries or taking the credit. And it was really eye-opening. We came out, we published a, a paper, basically a white paper, laying out what some of the big priorities are, and also where we want some of the funding mechanisms to go, whether it's agency funding for research or corporate funding or foundation funding for conservation, how that needs to be thought about and maybe redistributed in the context of the tipping point in the context of we have 10 years to make as much progress as possible with halting deforestation, with supporting the human right and dignity of Amazonian peoples with building socio, bio economy value chains that return economic investment to the region without cutting down the forest.

Gregory Washington (32:36):

So Tom Lovejoy coined that tipping point phrase in 2018. What progress have we made since then?

Jeremy Campbell (32:44):

Overall, we have done a good job since 2018, getting the word out. People are tuned into the Amazon more today than they have been, I would say since the 1988, 1989 forest fires grabbed the headlines and made the cover of Time Magazine. Remember Time Magazine?

Gregory Washington (33:01):

I do.

Jeremy Campbell (33:01):

So that was, that was a big deal, right?

Gregory Washington (33:03):

That that was. So for those of you who don't know who Tom Lovejoy is, he was a world-renowned faculty member and Mason professor. And he was studying, spent a good bit of his life studying biodiversity in the Amazon, and would often take groups of very wealthy and very famous individuals, whether were actors and actresses. And I saw what Leonardo DiCaprio and

Jeremy Campbell (33:32):

That's right. Mel Gibson.

Gregory Washington (33:34):

Mel Gibson, Cameron Diaz, and all of those people, Angelina Jolie, he would take them right into the Amazon to learn what you and I are talking about right now.

Jeremy Campbell (33:46):

That’s right. And so Tom's

Gregory Washington (33:47):

And to physically see the diversity and to see the wildlife that was there.

Jeremy Campbell (33:53):

It makes such a difference to be up close and personal. And Tom knew that Tom understood the power of the forest and the power of making that connection with the wildlife and with the people of the Amazon. And so

Gregory Washington (34:06):

Are we still doing that now, or has that subsided with Tom's passing?

Jeremy Campbell (34:10):

We are still actively engaged as a mason community with the Forest Fragments project that he was basically his brainchild and which is under the care of one of our partner organizations, the Amazonian Institute for Research. We actually have a graduate student that is funded through an ISC grant doing research right there where Tom Lovejoy took Angelina Jolie and, and Tom Cruise. We've had regular check-ins. We have one of our colleagues, Dr. David Luther, continues to do research there. And Tom's legacy really has been putting that part of the Amazon on the map. I think it's inspired a whole lot of consciousness raising in the English-speaking world about what's going on in the Amazon. And so what we're trying to do at the ISE is press that forward, really press that legacy forward.

Gregory Washington (34:58):

I got to spend a lot of time with Tom before he passed, and just one of the nicest people on Earth. I hate it we lost him so soon.

Jeremy Campbell (35:06):

He's a towering figure still, for some reason, the phrase science diplomat comes to mind, right, 'cause he was thoroughly a scientist.

Gregory Washington (35:15):

You would routinely, when I would have these meetings at his home, which was extraordinarily modest, right? It's such a Tom Lovejoy home, right? But you would routinely have the ambassador from Brazil or some dignitary from some foreign country. Some industrial leader.

Jeremy Campbell (35:34):

Or a World Bank president.

Gregory Washington (35:36):

A world bank president. Yeah. You’d routinely have those individuals at his home as well.

Jeremy Campbell (35:41):

And as you say, he was so modest, so humble, but so passionate and singularly focused that the story about the Amazon got out there. And in addition to being a, an incredible advocate and a bridger of dialogues and a diplomat, he was also a brilliant scientist. But also the whole debt for nature idea where impoverished nations would have some of their debt forgiven in exchange for conserving areas and keeping them pristine. That was his idea, right? So I mean, practical applications that have really left their mark on the world.

Gregory Washington (36:17):

And it's better and it was better than writing the debt off, right?

Jeremy Campbell (36:20):

That's right. That's right.

Gregory Washington (36:21):

No, outstanding, outstanding. So talk to me a little bit about your research. What is it you do, what are your next steps?

Jeremy Campbell (36:30):

Yeah, great. Thank you for that. I, as I said, I'm a cultural anthropologist and I've been working with native people and other traditional riverside communities who are really taking the lead in defending their own lands. The phrase for this is forest defenders, although it goes by lots of different names depending on the language you're speaking. But it entails physically defending land from loggers, from miners, from government agencies that might want to do something different with the land. And doing so not only through the physical demarcation, but through political alliances, with non-profits, with advocacy organizations, with researchers. My role specifically has been in helping the sociocultural and environmental mapping of these areas so that there can be some translation of traditional ecological knowledge that's associated with a landscape into a kind of language that maybe an ecologist or a politician might understand as well, right? And so it's really fascinating, the interplay between the kind of ethic of responsibility to lands and non-humans and waters that an indigenous person has, and how that lines up with how an ecologist sees the interaction and interdependence of species and the abiotic world and, uh, climate, et cetera.

Jeremy Campbell (37:54):

And so I sit at that node where indigenous peoples are organizing for their own defense, facing an existential threat, but helping connect them with data, with science, with storytellers, so that they can tell those stories. And I'll give you an example. The people that I've been working with for the past 10 years now, the Munduruku, have been tremendously successful in demarcating lands that were slated for, to basically to go to the bottom of a lake, a reservoir, that was going to be behind the world's second largest dam. But they stood up and organized themselves and protected their sacred land, protected the relationships that they have with non-humans. And were able to shelve that dam and have become sort of a real inspiration to other indigenous and traditional societies throughout the Amazon, standing up to not just dams; and dams, we can have a debate about whether that's green power, whether it's not.

Jeremy Campbell (38:47):

But what they were really standing up to do was to stand up and say, we're here. I’m moved by their courage and the courage of others like them who stand up. And we see it with indigenous peoples here in, in North America as well, who stand up and refuse to say we are in the past, who refuse that may be social expectation that whether it's assimilation or you've given up your culture, that the expectation that indigenous people are, are no longer among us. And the Munduruku and others in the Amazon are standing up and saying, we're here and we know how to steward these lands. We know how to make sure that the biogeochemical cycles and hydrological cycles continue. They wouldn't say it in those terms, but the terms that they would use would be about balance, reciprocity, relationship with the forces of life that course around us.

Jeremy Campbell (39:43):

So the ecology and the traditional learning really go hand in hand. And then we get them to policy through making arguments, through communication strategies, through raising awareness. There's a big push that I'm part of, and that the ISE is part of and supporting to try to preserve 80% of the Amazon by 2025. Now that's next year, we're not quite there. About 50% of the Amazon is officially protected, whether you're talking about national forests or national parks or indigenous lands, about 20% of it is deforested and urbanized, which leaves 30% up for grabs. And we're not gonna get there next year through a stroke of the pen to lock up the other 30% of it. The task here is to raise awareness and to, even in the 30% that remains, make sure that whatever happens to it, it's sustainable. That we don't see it kind of a zero-sum game. It's either a park or a paved cityscape right. There can actually be sustainable, thriving, living landscapes with people in them whose economic models are not based on extraction and destruction.

Gregory Washington (40:54):

How much time do you spend in Brazil?

Jeremy Campbell (40:55):

Well, I've got two small kids, so not as much as I used to. I'm sure you know how that goes. ... 9-year-old twins actually. Boy, girl twins. They keep me busy. But I'm down there once or twice a year usually to check up on research and to engage my research partners, but also to create new opportunities for Mason. I mentioned we've got some great faculty here that are working. We've got, uh, David Luther who works on birds. We've got Louise Shelley in the Schar School who works on transnational criminal networks, which is a big thing in the Peruvian, Colombian, Brazilian Amazon. So I've been working with her a little bit on sort of how to have conversations about rule of law and cross-border diplomacy when it comes to not just drug trafficking, but get this trafficking of species, trafficking of huge fish, the pirarucu, which is a fish that can grow up to 50, 60 kilos that is caught in Brazil, and then brought into Colombia illegally to feed an urban frontier in Colombia and, and Peru.

Jeremy Campbell (41:56):

So money laundering, drug trafficking species, et cetera, Louisehas been doing some really great work with the IUCN on traceability. You got Mike Gilmore, who's working in Peru on anti-road demonstrations and building a biocultural corridor with the Maijuna people. So I don't just go to Brazil, that's where most of my research is, but I'm also working with Mason faculty, trying to connect them better and, and really get their research out into the community and the community present in what we do here at Mason, so. I used to live in Brazil. I lived in Brazil for three years. So I have dear friends and colleagues and family, so I wish I could get there more, but we've got good stuff going on here too in Fairfax.

Gregory Washington (42:39):

So your award-winning book, “Conjuring Property: Speculation and Environmental Futures in the Brazilian Amazon,” gives a good sense of the conflict between indigenous land rights and the corporate colonization of the land for agriculture, for ranching, for mining, and for deforestation that goes along with that. So can you talk a little bit about the book? Give us a sense of how this all plays out in actuality.

Jeremy Campbell (43:10):

It's not unlike, if you think about sort of the 19th century story of the United States, this whole idea of manifest destiny, that the western part of the continent was for the taking of the proud, ambitious pioneer, usually white, the bro, the white man, right?

Gregory Washington (43:28):

The, the few, the bold.

Jeremy Campbell (43:29):

Exactly, right. So Brazil, it's a very different country than the United States. I don't want to suggest that it's the, the same, but it is continental in scale and in size. And often it has at different key moments in its history likened itself to the United States. And so there was a kind of manifest destiny moment in the 1950s and 60s where the Brazilian government, which at the time was a dictatorship, encouraged people to leave the coast of Brazil and move into the Amazon, which in the popular imagination was the next frontier. It was empty. It was a place where you could go and make something of yourself. So there was a ton of propaganda. There was a ton of kind of social engineering to try to move the vast majority of the Brazilian population, which due to it being a colonial export colony, lived along the coast, lived along the places that were close to ports.

Jeremy Campbell (44:25):

The average Brazilian thought of the Amazon as completely empty. The average Brazilian thought of it as a place where if I go and clear the forest, what I'm doing is improving the forest. What I'm doing is I'm making something where there is nothing, this terra nullius kind of idea. And so the book really traces how in the 21st century that idea continues to play out with both rich Brazilians and relatively impoverished Brazilians coming into the region and buying into and reproducing a kind of idea and ideology of the land belonging to them and their being no indigenous people there, and how they actually use land speculation and access to capital and access to political influence to undo some of the conservation and indigenous rights protections that were placed into law in the 1988 Brazilian constitution. So Brazil, as I mentioned, was in a dictatorship in the 1960s coming out of the dictatorship, had some of the most progressive environmental and human rights legislation and constitutional provisions of anywhere in the planet. But we've seen a backslide since then. And so the book really does explore that backslide and, and explore some of the social, political and environmental effects of this idea prevalent in Brazil, but again, I would say it's, it rhymes with what we have in the United States of there being no indigenous people there and it being the nation's goal to fill up this empty space with progress, and then how that motivated people's activities. It's the story that I tell in that book.

Gregory Washington (46:08):

So, uh, you have a friend in Brazil, Alessandra Korap, I, I believe the name is, who is part of one of Brazil's indigenous nations, who you have quoted saying that the resistance from the indigenous population to those who would exploit the Amazon is a fight for all of us. I think I know where this is going. But talk to me about a fight for all of us and what exactly does fight mean?

Jeremy Campbell (46:37):

Alessandra Korap is an amazing person, so I absolutely want to answer your question, but if I can paint just a quick portrait of her. She stands all of maybe four foot one, but has the fight of a thousand people in her. She is 28 years old, a law student, basically went to law school from her village, grew up in a village in the middle of the recesses of the Amazon rainforest, has gone to law school to learn how to fight with the master's tools for the rights of her people. And so when she talks about all of us, what she means, I think, is really in three different registers. First is people like her, indigenous people who have been sidelined, who have been written out of existence, who have been bulldozed. Second, the entire world's population, because she understands, as her elders do, and as her brothers and sisters do, that the work that the Munduruku are doing and, and the other indigenous people are doing, not just in the Amazon, but throughout the world.

Jeremy Campbell (47:47):

Here's another statistic. Indigenous people occupy and manage roughly 23, 24% of the world's terrestrial surface, where 80% of the world's biodiversity can be found; untold, name your metric of environmental service, whether it's clean water or wooden fiber, or carbon sequestration. So the work that indigenous people do, managing actively managing landscapes like the Amazon actually has a global benefit for all humans. So that's the other, all of us. The third all of us is non-human creatures, which for the Munduruku and many Amazonian people are literally relatives, literally brothers, sisters, uncles, cousins. And so there's that depth of compassion and empathy for the freshwater dolphins that you mentioned that literally baked or boiled alive in those warm waters. In Lago Tefe, she sees, Alessandro Korap, sees her advocacy on behalf of her people, on behalf of non-human relatives, and on behalf of all of us, even people, all of us humans, even people who might be her enemy. And so there's a kind of Gandhi-like, uh, stance or a Dr. King's stance to love even the person who would cut you down. That's what Alessandra Korap brings. It's not just me as a good friend and colleague of hers, but she received the, uh, RFK Leadership, Humanitarian Leadership Award two or three years ago. She's been to Switzerland, she's been to Germany, she's been to New York a couple times, really being an international sensation when it comes to advocating for the rights of her people and the rights of nature.

Gregory Washington (49:23):

As we close, talk to me about your level of optimism that we can avoid the worst consequences of the Amazon Basin.

Jeremy Campbell (49:31):

I am cautiously optimistic. My optimism meter goes up a point or two or several points. When I think about the indefatigable work of somebody like Alessandra Korap or other indigenous leaders who, unlike me, I, I have the luxury of being able to be in the thick of it but then come home, right? I can come home to Fairfax, I can come home to the United States. For Alessandra and for Ailton, the struggle's never ending, and they are positive. They are optimistic.

Gregory Washington (50:02):

That's amazing.

Jeremy Campbell (50:04):

They know that the world that they're giving to their children and their grandchildren is a better one, even though it is existentially threatened. So I think we all have to take our lead or, or take their lead and fall in place to do what we can to be innovative, to be a science diplomat in the model of a Tom Lovejoy, and to really try our best. I do think it's inevitable — here's just the caution part — I do think it's inevitable that 20, 30 years from now, the Amazon will be different because the world will be different, right? We've baked in a certain level of warming, we've baked in a certain level of anthropocenic and anthropogenic changes. But from the indigenous perspective, the world already ended in 1500 and has been ending in lots of different kinds of ways, and transforming in lots of different kinds of ways throughout all of that time. You know, 90% of the indigenous people who lived in the Amazon, there were 10 million there in 1500, 90% of 'em died, were gone by the time of 1600, right? So they know a lot about resilience, they know a lot about adaptation. They know a lot about bouncing back. And so I think we can take some inspiration from their lead in that respect, knowing though that the Amazon will be changing, we can nevertheless try to mitigate those changes and adapt to the new situation as it unfolds.

Gregory Washington (51:22):

Well, let's hope we can stay on the right track

Jeremy Campbell (51:25):

Here. Here.

Gregory Washington (51:25):

Jeremy Campbell, associate director for strategic engagement at ��AV's Institute for Sustainable Earth. Thank you for a great conversation.

Jeremy Campbell (51:38):

Thank you, Dr. Washington. It was a pleasure.

Gregory Washington (51:40):

I am Mason President Gregory Washington saying, until next time, stay safe, Mason Nation.

Narrator (51:49):

If you like what you heard on this podcast, go to podcast.gmu.edu for more of Gregory Washington's conversations with the thought leaders, experts, and educators who take on the grand challenges facing our students, graduates, and higher education. That's podcast.gmu.edu.

Access to Excellence Podcast Episodes

Podcast Ep 60 - Marking a decade of success at Mason Korea
August 6, 2024
Podcast Ep 59 - Cybersecurity and the global threats of tomorrow
July 5, 2024
Podcast - Ep 58: What will become of the Amazon?
April 22, 2024
Podcast - Ep 57: Catherine Read, mayor of Fairfax City, Va., is outspoken, unfiltered
March 25, 2024
Podcast - Ep 56: A view from the pulpit
February 16, 2024

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Mason researcher prepares vulnerable communities for wildfire impact

Colleen Rich — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 19:18:20 +0000

Mason researcher prepares vulnerable communities for wildfire impact Colleen Rich Tue, 03/05/2024 - 14:18

��AV scientist Alireza Ermagun is leading collaboration to establish disaster resilience prototype using an interactive map to protect vulnerable regions in California.

Alireza Ermagun. Photo by Robert Ritchie

Ermagun, assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Geoinformation Science in Mason's College of Science, leads a National Science Foundation (NSF)-supported project titled “Snuff It Out: Extinguishing the Disparity of Access to Shelters for Disadvantaged Communities in Wildfire-Prone Areas” to optimize response to the growing menace of wildfires.

The project will address shelter access when wildfires occur and has the potential to revolutionize disaster preparedness and response strategies, serving as a blueprint for fostering resilience in communities facing the escalating threat.

This collaboration, supported by a $397,365 NSF grant, focuses on disaster resilience in Lake County, California, which grapples with persistent wildfires. The comprehensive examination of shelter access differences, in a broader sense, also seeks to better comprehend the challenges faced by marginalized communities in California.

“Access to shelters is indispensable in transforming wildfires from potential tragedies into manageable emergencies,” said Ermagun. "The project involves the development of an interactive map, serving as a platform for both public officials and community members to plan and implement disaster resilience strategies.”

Since 2015, wildfires have consumed more than 60% of the county, disproportionately impacting its disadvantaged residents. With wildfires increasing in severity and frequency, Ermagun stresses the urgency of this research, which unfolds in three phases: assessing disparities of access, optimizing equity through preparedness strategies, and developing an interactive model to reduce the vulnerability of marginalized communities to wildfires and the cascading hazards such as debris flows and flooding.

The “Snuff It Out” project employs an interdisciplinary approach, collaborating with Farshid Vahedifard from Tufts University, Chief of Police Kathy Lester of the Sacramento Police Department, Leah Sautelet from the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, and Nick Widmer and Gabriela Perez Albarracin from the American Red Cross.

Vahedifard emphasized the importance of community collaboration in addressing natural hazards, stating, “Having been fortunate to have very supportive community partners in the study area, we aim to work closely with the community to co-develop and implement a methodological framework to improve access to shelters during natural hazards and extreme events for all communities while prioritizing marginalized communities to account for their lower risk threshold and adaptive capacity.”

Echoing the commitment to community collaboration, Sautelet, serving as the emergency services manager for Lake County, articulated the synergy between the project’s aims and local emergency management objectives. “Utilizing this innovative interdisciplinary approach, the project has the potential to strengthen both public welfare and emergency management endeavors," she said. "Rooted in Lake County’s steadfast dedication to protecting public safety, the project seamlessly aligns with our overarching objective of enhancing community resilience as a whole. By providing crucial data for comprehensive planning and preparation, it seeks to reinforce our ability to respond effectively during times of crisis.”

Lester, expressing support for the initiative, highlighted its potential to make a significant societal impact. “This research project has potential widespread benefits to society by improving the resilience of disadvantaged communities and helping first responders with science-based tools to improve outcomes.” Lester’s enthusiasm underscores the project’s aim to empower both communities and first responders through evidence-based strategies.

Adding to the collective vision, Ermagun focused on the project’s commitment to addressing social inequalities, “We aim to address equity discrepancies and enhance community resilience faced by the residents during these ongoing challenges,” underscoring the project’s community-centered methodology.

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A $6 million NSF grant will translate research into practice to help local communities become climate-resilient

Colleen Rich — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 18:50:38 +0000

A $6 million NSF grant will translate research into practice to help local communities become climate-resilient Colleen Rich Tue, 01/23/2024 - 13:50

��AV scientists and partners will leverage their climate expertise and the university’s resources into broader societal implications, thanks to a $6 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) that is going to translate research into practice to support the creation of climate-resilient communities across Virginia.

Mason researcher Celso Ferreira (far right) and President Gregory Washington take Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger on a tour of Mason's Flood Hazards Research Lab. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding

The funding from the NSF’s Accelerating Research Translation (ART) program will allow Mason to expand its capabilities and capacity for translating research into real-world practical applications, with the creation of programming that will allow Mason faculty to serve communities across the commonwealth—especially within the state’s underserved regions—by co-producing science-based solutions that help them increase their resilience to climate change.

The four-year cooperative agreement, “ART: Translating Research to Practice to Create Climate-Ready Communities Across Virginia,” begins Feb. 1, and will allow Mason faculty and their nonprofit partner, the Center for Climate Strategies, to work with local municipal governments and community partners to produce science-based solutions that will create sustainable, community resilience to the impacts of climate change.

The project proposes two initial seed translational research projects, focusing on the co-production of solutions to mitigate flood hazards and reduce the impacts of urban heat on frontline communities. The latter comes on the heels of the world’s warmest year on record in 2023. Faculty will have the opportunity to propose additional translational research projects that address other climate impacts and response capabilities needed by Virginia communities to become climate-ready.

Mason’s Jeremy Campbell leads a discussion on local resiliency planning with staff from the Northern Virginia Regional Commission at a workshop held by the Virginia Climate Center in March 2023. Photo by VCC

“This really gives universities a chance to have an impact,” said Leah Nichols, the project’s principal investigator and the executive director of Mason’s Institute for a Sustainable Earth. “I think it’s going to help us start to institutionalize things that until now had been one-offs.”

Mason was one of 18 schools to have been awarded an ART cooperative agreement. The NSF overall investment of more than $100 million will enable academic institutions to accelerate the pace and scale of translational research that will grow the nation's economy.

“NSF endeavors to empower academic institutions to build the pathways and structures needed to speed and scale their research into products and services that benefit the nation,” said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. “The [ART program] identifies and champions institutions positioned to expand their research translation capacity by investing in activities essential to move results to practice.”

Mason’s ART program leverages the model already created by the Virginia Climate Center (VCC)—which was initially established by a $2 million Community Project grant sponsored by Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA) – since its inception in 2022 for the necessary engagement infrastructure. That includes targeted outreach to individual community leaders and other key influencers in the hopes of creating the kind of collaborative relationships necessary to figure out what each community’s specific needs are.

Other co-PIs on the Mason project include Jim Kinter, a professor in the Climate Dynamics PhD Program and the director of both Mason’s Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies within the College of Science and the Virginia Climate Center; Celso Ferreira, an associate professor within Mason’s College of Engineering and Computing and the director of the Flood Hazards Research Lab; Luis Ortiz, an assistant professor in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Earth Sciences within the College of Science; and Tom Peterson, the CEO of the Center for Climate Strategies. Other entities involved include MN Associates Inc., which will monitor’s the program’s implementation and progress, and the University of Kentucky, which is serving as the project’s mentoring institution. Pairing awardees with mentor institutions that have an established translational research ecosystem is one of the unique features of the ART program.

Current research that can be brought to bear on local community concerns includes, but is not limited to risk and vulnerability assessment, the development and deployment of new adaptive capacities through modeling, simulating, predicting and projecting climate variability and change, including downscaled global observational and modeling data sets, and the development of solutions to close vulnerability gaps by assessing needs for action and designing and evaluating new measures for local implementation.

Other aims include supporting faculty who wish to be involved and the creation of specific academic programming, such as specialized courses on key climate issues, a new climate action minor, and a graduate certificate program, for future workforce development.

“One very troubling aspect of the effects of climate change is that it has the biggest impact on underserved people and communities that are least able to address the issue,” Kinter said. “Mason, being the largest public university in Virginia, owes it to the residents of the commonwealth to understand the risks it faces and create innovative solutions to increase community resilience.”

Virginia bore the brunt of nine climate disasters in 2018 and 2019 alone, resulting in $1.6 billion of negative economic impact, according to the Secretary of Natural and Historic Resources.

Increasing community resilience to the effects of climate change is expected to help mitigate the impact and substantially reduce costs associated with damage from progressive climate change, extreme weather events, and other climate-driven effects, the researchers said.

“We’re really trying to understand what it is that [local communities] need from a scientific, technical, or research point of view through the lens of what is it that a university can provide,” Nichols said. “And once the climate-focused ART programs become well-established, we hope to extend this model to support the translation of research into practice in other sustainability domains as well.”

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Celso Ferreira

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Limiting leaking leachate

Nathan Kahl — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 17:42:27 +0000

Limiting leaking leachate Nathan Kahl Mon, 01/22/2024 - 12:42

Most Americans don’t think much about their trash once they’ve taken it outside of their home, which is a testament to our country’s efficient garbage management system.

Once that garbage truck rolls down the street, there’s a chance your trash is headed to one of the country’s roughly 3,000 operational landfills. And although it’s gone from your kitchen, the potential for that trash to then contaminate and harm people is something that must be carefully managed.

Kuo Tian, an assistant professor in the Sid and Reva Dewberry Department of Civil, Environmental, and Infrastructure Engineering at ��AV, recently received a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to look at solid waste management service in rural locations, focusing on the potential health threats to groundwater in those areas.

Modern landfills have a composite liner system to collect leachate, a liquid that starts as rainfall (or melted snow) and that pools at the bottom of the landfill after filtering through waste, pulling out chemicals and pollutants from the material. Leachate is held by a liner system, comprising a geomembrane—which is very resistant to puncture and is usually black in color because of carbon added for strength—on top of a layer of clay or geosynthetic clay liner, which serves as a containment redundancy. Small punctures in the membrane are inevitable, but leak detection techniques allow operators to examine the liner as it is put in place, identifying even tiny holes, which can be fixed before waste is layered on top.

Mason researcher Kuon Tian and doctoral student Benjamin Matthew Stark collect leachate for analysis at the Berkeley County Landfill in West Virginia. Photo provided

Tian and his team will specifically examine the potential for PFAS leaking through the landfill liner system and contaminating nearby groundwater. PFAS—per- and polyfluorinated substances—are a group of chemicals used to make coatings for a variety of products and are commonly referred to as forever chemicals because they are persistent in the environment and in human bodies. Some evidence suggests they cause significant health problems.

The researchers will test both the types and concentrations of PFAS in leachate. “We want to assess the PFAS concentration over a year, looking at precipitation conditions, age of the landfill, and other factors,” Tian said.

The timing of the project is important, he says, because the EPA only recently created PFAS standards for drinking water, though there are currently no regulations to check PFAS concentrations in landfill leachates. Understanding how landfills may contribute to groundwater contamination will aid with landfill management moving forward.

According to Tian, a quality liner is critical. “A good liner will keep the leachate from migrating to the groundwater for hundreds or thousands of years.” So even if high PFAS levels are found, they may not pose an immediate risk. Further, he is concerned about PFAS migration to groundwater in older landfills, built prior to the early 1990s, which only use clay liners or in some cases lack liners entirely.

In addition to the research component, the grant contains funding for teaching elements. Once results from the research are confirmed, findings will be shared with local landfill operators and stakeholders.

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Bioblitz helps capture Mason’s biodiversity

Colleen Rich — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 15:32:07 +0000

Bioblitz helps capture Mason’s biodiversity Colleen Rich Wed, 11/08/2023 - 10:32

��AV students are running around the campuses taking pictures of the flora, fauna, and fungi with their smartphones—sometimes in the dark—to capture the university’s biodiversity. They are trying to record as many species as possible with a focus on endangered species.

Mason student Sarah Jadlowski (right) helps out at a Bioblitz event on Wilkins Plaza.
Photo by Cristian Torres/��AV

It is all part of Bioblitz 2023, which is an assessment project that began during Sustainability Month in October and continues through Nov. 19. For the project, Mason is using the iNaturalist app, which helps streamline the documenting process and even drops a pin of the discovery on a campus map.

So far, more than 800 observations have been made by 84 observers documenting 385 species. There are 155 “identifiers” in the app, subject matter experts and others who assist with confirming species identifications.

“What's great about the iNaturalist app is you post a photo, and it suggests identifications,” said Doni Nolan, Greenhouse and Gardens program manager in the University Sustainability office, who is leading the project. “Then [the app] also has folks confirm the identification to make it research-grade level.”

Bioblitz is another way Mason is using its campuses as a Living Lab. Working with Nolan are environmental and sustainability studies majors Eden Anderson and Sarah Jadlowski.

A student documents a persimmon tree in the Innovation Food Forest on the Fairfax Campus. Photo by Cristian Torres/��AV

Anderson has used the app before. A huge fan of fungi, she first started capturing mushroom species on campus for an Environmental Science and Policy class, EVPP 408 Mushrooms, Molds, and Society, she took a few semesters ago.

“It’s been a really good mushroom season,” said Anderson, referring to some of the rain the area received in October. In the days after a rain, Anderson takes “mushroom walks” around the Fairfax Campus to see what fungi may have popped up.

“They can pop up quick, especially if it is humid,” said Anderson, who also forages mushrooms.

Anderson says the most unusual Bioblitz observation so far are jack-o-lantern mushrooms (omphalotus olearius), which are bioluminescent—with gills that glow green in the dark—and very poisonous.

Jadlowski is doing a moth survey of the Fairfax Campus as a project for her EVPP 480 Sustainability in Action class. She has attempted to lure moths out for a photo op in a variety of ways, including soaking a sheet in a diluted wine solution and hanging it near the Mason Pond with the hopes of capturing a moth “party.”

The survey is an attempt to see which parts of campus moths prefer with a longer-term goal—building a moth garden. But Jadlowski said campus bats will be the ultimate beneficiaries of any garden as they consume moths and other insects for their diets, and they are vulnerable pollinators.

Of 17 species of bats that have been recorded in Virginia, six are endangered, according to the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, with two of those species predicted to live in habitats near the Fairfax Campus. Protecting endangered species and their environments is a big part of the inventory. Nolan has made a list of Northern Virginia-specific endangered species they are keeping an eye out for, including the monarch butterfly.

The biodiversity assessment also ties into Mason’s Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System (STARS) rating. In 2011, Mason began reporting its sustainability progress to the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education and earned a Silver rating. By 2014, Mason was the first university in Virginia to achieve a Gold STARS rating. Conducting the assessment helps Mason maintain its Gold rating and helps the university track the effectiveness of its sustainability efforts.

“We found monarch butterfly caterpillars on campus in several locations. Every year we have several patches in our gardens protected for them with the milkweed they prefer to eat,” said Nolan. “It was a focus [of Bioblitz] to identify endangered and vulnerable species and how the campus promotes those. So that was a big win for us.”

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This content appears in the Spring 2024 print edition of the Mason Spirit Magazine.

Mason’s Virginia Climate Center delivers vital research knowledge and resources for Mason and the commonwealth

Colleen Rich — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 18:50:56 +0000

Mason’s Virginia Climate Center delivers vital research knowledge and resources for Mason and the commonwealth Colleen Rich Thu, 10/12/2023 - 14:50

The new Virginia Climate Center (VCC) at ��AV is leading research on tackling climate-related challenges, such as energy, vector-borne illnesses, and extreme weather and flooding in Northern Virginia and throughout the commonwealth. Funded through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and sponsored by U.S. Representative Gerry Connolly (D-VA), this two-year, congressionally directed community project seeks to increase Virginia’s resiliency to the impacts of climate changes and variability.

Mason researcher Jim Kinter presenting at the Resilient Virginia Conference. Photo by Sophia Whitaker/VCC

“We have high hopes that the Virginia Climate Center will become the go-to resource for communities in the commonwealth to understand their climate risks and find more resilient ways to protect themselves from threats to human health, life, livelihood, and property,” said Jim Kinter, a VCC principal investigator and director of the Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies (COLA), a research center within Mason’s College of Science.

“Mason’s VCC has a powerful vision for resilient communities that is catalyzed by the university, advanced through partnerships, and powered by community engagement,” said Andre Marshall, vice president of research, innovation, and economic impact. “This boundary-spanning center is bringing together academic disciplines, municipalities, and the business community to form a new university-based cooperative framework that not only addresses the challenge of resilience, but also establishes a community-engaged model for universities to tackle the grand challenges of our time.”

One of VCC’s current projects is with the City of Alexandria staff to address extreme heat in the region through case studies and data collection of successful adaptation strategies in urban settings, such as cooling centers. Mason experts leading these tasks are Luis Ortiz, Marybeth “MB” Mitcham, Ed Maibach, and Dan Vecellio.

“[This project] will provide my students with the opportunity to explore and contribute to real-time work, as part of exploring public health community assessment and partnership strategies,” said Mitcham, director of Mason’s online master of public health (MPH) program and assistant professor in the Department of Global and Community Health. “Ultimately, our MPH students will help to improve the quality of life of local community members and help promote an awareness of the relationship between climate change and adverse health outcomes.”

The VCC is also working closely with Mason’s College of Engineering and Computing and the Northern Virginia Regional Commission (NVRC) to support the installation of flood sensors and the development of a real-time flood forecasting system for the region. Flooding and extreme weather have devastating impacts on our communities and Virginia’s infrastructure and economy. Studies by Mason researchers predict more intense and stronger storms in our region, stressing our infrastructure and likely increasing the impacts of extreme weather in our area.

P Ruess, a postdoctoral research fellow on the VCC team, is investigating the relationship of road closures and water rescues. “I am excited to work closely with stakeholders in an advisory relationship reliant on direct and intentional stakeholder involvement,” Ruess said.

"My work on the NVRC project holds the potential to greatly benefit our region, the Northern Virginia community, and my own education,” said Zeeshan Khalid, a master’s student in data analytics engineering. “By proactively identifying and addressing road closures during flash floods, we aim to minimize disruption, reduce property losses, and enhance community safety. This project underscores Mason's commitment to contributing positively to the well-being of our community.”

Looking ahead, the VCC will remain in its partnerships with municipalities in Northern Virginia, including the NVRC, City of Fairfax, and Fairfax County, and will continue to work with them to address climate risks and codevelop adaptation solutions.

With the aid of funding from Mason’s Strategic Investment Fund, the VCC team in collaboration with Mason’s Local Climate Action Planning Initiative and the Institute for a Sustainable Earth, is expanding beyond Northern Virginia to aid Virginia’s rural communities in their climate resiliency and, now also, mitigation planning.

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Cool lessons from Utqiaġvik, Alaska

Rena Malai — Wed, 23 Aug 2023 17:21:32 +0000

Cool lessons from Utqiaġvik, Alaska Rena Malai Wed, 08/23/2023 - 13:21

This summer, computer modeling and the Arctic ecosystem converged at the top of the world. Professor Elise Miller-Hooks and a team of National Science Foundation (NSF) researchers convened at the Barrow Arctic Research Center. These NSF Navigating the New Arctic researchers traveled to the remote location to attend the Permafrost and Infrastructure Symposium in Utqiaġvik, Alaska, some 320 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

The symposium brought together scientists, regional planners, village leaders, project managers, and federal and local policy makers. The team attended to learn and grow their research–and to share. Miller-Hooks described what she learned as massive.

“It was nothing like I expected. When I entered Utqiaġvik, I found myself in a tough environment with mostly dirt roads. The other researchers told me these roadways are built on permafrost,” she said. “Later on, they convinced me to lower myself into a cave underground to see 16,000-year-old permafrost.”

Elise Miller-Hooks analyzes permafrost in Utqiaġvik.

The people of Utqiaġvik live on the permafrost and they still fish and whale in the surrounding seas, as they have for centuries. Whaling is not a hobby, or for profit. They whale to survive. It is their food supply and more.

“It [whaling] is their culture. It is what they raise their kids to do. It's what their songs and dances are about. It's truly everything. They say that if you take that away from them, it's like killing them,” said Miller-Hooks. All of this could be threatened by more shipping traffic as the polar ice caps shrink and Arctic sea ice diminishes.

Most of the researchers at the symposium were there to study the permafrost which is thawing because of human-made climate change; when the permafrost thaws, the land under the structures that have been built on it sinks. Miller-Hooks described the situation as the base falling out from under them and said that they need to find solutions now, not tomorrow. With very limited access to materials, finding a solution is especially challenging.

Miller-Hooks’ research focuses on forecasting and modeling shipping and maritime transportation changes that will come as the permafrost thaws and the sea-level rises. She said she doesn’t get out in the field much in her line of work but found the experience life changing.

“What I learned from the community and tribal leaders was invaluable. I learned that they really want co-production. They want to be heard. They want us to understand what they know and bring it into our research. We must not ignore their experience and try to push research findings on them, but instead, learn together and jointly develop solutions.”

This idea crystalized after Miller-Hooks presented her research at the symposium. After her presentation, one of the village leaders expressed concern and skepticism about the math.

He said he thought she was looking at the wrong thing. He told her that more shipping in the Arctic would harm the whales and could harm whaling.

Miller-Hooks explained that her research creates the tools that can help forecast changing Arctic traffic, and how these projections and analyses can be used to help make cases to mitigate the impact on the whales and their breeding, other marine life, whale hunting, and indigenous people’s subsistence way of life.

“Now I have a much better understanding of the power of the results that we will get, and how they can be used from many new angles that I hadn't thought of,” she said. Miller-Hooks hopes to collaborate with the communities and work with them to uncover how increased maritime traffic and related industrial activity in the region will impact their way of life, and how the U.S. and other Arctic nations can prepare to do the right thing.

Research Sponsors: Funding for the symposium came from the NSF Arctic Sciences program, the U.S. Department of Transportation's Center for Safety Equity in Transportation, and UIC Science, a subsidiary of the Ukpeaġvik Iñupiat Corporation providing logistical support to scientists and researchers working in Alaska's Arctic.

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Elise Miller-Hooks

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Engineering with nature: Exploring Mason's contribution to water conservation

Shayla Brown — Tue, 01 Aug 2023 14:17:13 +0000

Engineering with nature: Exploring Mason's contribution to water conservation Shayla Brown Tue, 08/01/2023 - 10:17

In This Story

Celso Ferreira

Jennifer Sklarew

Many people at ��AV do not realize that Mason Pond is actually there for stormwater management.

That bit of news was delivered by Mason researcher Jennifer Sklarew during her talk at the recent Head Above the Water event in Washington, D.C.

Planned by Mason Exhibitions in the School of Art, with collaborators including the DC Department of Energy and Environment, City as Living Laboratory, local artists, and guest speakers, Head Above the Water included a walk along D.C.’s Watts Branch and Oxon Run streams to raise awareness about flooding in those neighborhoods and the flood mitigation programs available to residents.

Stream Restoration project by Facilities runs from Patriot Circle/Aquia Creek Lane to Mason Pond. Photo by Cristian Torres/Office of University Branding

Mason is deeply committed to pioneering processes that can answer the grand challenges of water, its responsible management, and sustainability. In fact, the university’s interdisciplinary approach and cutting-edge research as part of its strategic direction, has turned Mason’s campuses into a Living Lab.

Take what Sklarew, an assistant professor in Mason’s Department of Environmental Science and Policy, said about Mason Pond.

“The stormwater channels that look like streams are components of the actual stormwater system,” she said. “The pipes outflow into those streams, and then everything goes into the pond.”

But that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what Mason is doing and accomplishing when it comes to handling water resources on its campuses, using research and technologies that can be applied beyond to the broader community.

At Mason Square, Mason Innovation Partners encountered a serious infrastructure issue that posed a frequent stormwater challenge for the surrounding area of the new Fuse at Mason Square in the heart of Arlington’s Rosslyn-Ballston corridor.

Replacing the culvert required precise coordination with the future building foundation design and intricate sequencing to control the constant flow of stormwater as it was diverted from the old culvert pipes to a new 12 feet wide, 6 feet high box culvert.

Facilities also has an extensive list of mitigation protocols it applies to remove pollutants and control storm runoff flow rates, including Illicit discharge detection and elimination, and construction site runoff control.

Mason’s stormwater system is monitored by Facilities, which can prohibit projects that might interfere with the system. The university recently completed a stream restoration project on the Fairfax Campus that not only improved the flow of the waterways but added asphalt sidewalks and some lighting so the campus community can enjoy the paths.

Stream Restoration project by Facilities runs from Patriot Circle/Aquia Creek Lane to Mason Pond. Photo by Cristian Torres/Office of University Branding

Also on the Fairfax Campus, the irrigation system has sensors that register rainfall to control landscape watering. The irrigation system on the Science and Technology Campus evaluates local weather data. Additionally, the campus strives to create more vegetated regions, with green roofs, vegetated gardens and swales. There are also plans to design additional dry and wet retention ponds to reduce stormwater runoff and pollution in our waterways.

Celso Ferreira, an associate professor in Mason’s Sid and Reva Dewberry Department of Civil, Environmental, and Infrastructure Engineering, calls the approach engineering with nature—taking advantage of what nature already provides and using it efficiently in engineering.

“How can we use nature in a way that benefits society for flood protection other than being detrimental to causing more floods,” said Ferreira, who also heads Mason’s Flood Hazards Research Lab, a collaboration between multiple Mason colleges and the university’s Institute for Sustainable Earth. “We’re trying to investigate natural features that can help us in engineering design that we can use to smartly prevent flooding.”

Ferreira also co-directs the Virginia Climate Center, which works with local communities across the commonwealth to support climate resilience, action, and planning for communities. Ferreira said he tries to bring those concepts into the classroom “to make sure that the future engineering workforce that we’re graduating design and implement infrastructure in a way that they’re mindful of natural processes. Then we can use them smartly to prevent flooding.”

For Sklarew, the Head Above the Water event was a natural extension of the outreach work she does as a Mason faculty member.

Participants during the Head Above the Water walk in D.C. Photo by Shayla Brown/Office of University Branding

“I go into rural communities and talk with them about what they think their challenges are for food, energy, water, and climate, and how to develop solutions that emerge from within the community rather than outside the community,” said Sklarew, who connects her research with environmental justice. “The walk on Oxon Run and Watts Branch is a great example of something like that.”