This week, CEU hosted an event featuring Senior Scientist Andrew Gillespie from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as part of the Hungarian Sustainable University Network (HUSUN) program. HUSUN is a collaboration between student activist groups and the U.S. Department of State’s Regional Environmental, Science & Technology, and Health (ESTH) Hub for Central and Eastern Europe. The questions below posed to Andrew were compiled by students currently involved in the development of the HUSUN.
Please note that views expressed here are my own and may not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the United States government. No official US Government endorsement should be inferred.
Could you describe the responsibilities associated with your role as the Associate Director of the EPA’s National Exposure Research Laboratory? What impactful research projects have you initiated in cooperation with your team in the past few months?
As the Associate Director for the National Exposure Research laboratory (NERL), I am the senior science leader for the laboratory which consists of approximately 225 scientists in a variety of disciplines. We study how and where stressors (chemicals, invasive species, etc.) originate, move through the environment, and impact humans and ecosystems. Working with the Laboratory Director and six Division Directors, we prioritize different lines of research and provide oversight to ensure that projects are completed and research products delivered. A large part of my role has to do with scientific quality control, overseeing the peer review process to ensure that our products meet the highest standards of scientific integrity.
We have a full work plan underway and as such have not initiated any new major projects in the past few months. Some examples of impactful research projects currently underway include:
- Continued development of the EnviroAtlas, a web-based tool for enabling communities to consider ecosystem goods and services when planning development activities. For example, one project involves analyzing the costs/benefits of urban trees for improving the quality of life in poor communities.
- Assessment of the potential impacts on water quality of hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas extraction.
- Continued development of the Community Multi-Scale Air Quality (CMAQ) model, a large system model used to predict and understand changes in air quality at the national, regional and local scale. Among other projects we are applying CMAQ to improve our understanding of future climate change impacts.
One of the focus areas of your research is the impact of climate change on forest ecosystems. Could you explain briefly the connection between climate change and the health of forest ecosystems?
Forest health and sustainability are intimately tied to climate. Climate consists of long term trends in basic atmospheric parameters such as temperature, precipitation, wind patterns, storm frequency and intensity, and other attributes. These parameters (along with biophysical parameters such as soil quality, nutrient availability elevation, quantity of sunlight, etc) are key in determining ecological niches, or places where certain tree species have adapted to thrive. If the parameters change – warmer or colder temperatures, higher or lower precipitation levels, etc. - then the niches change, and existing forests may find themselves under increased stress. If the stress levels get too high, forests become more susceptible to other stressors such as insects, diseases, or forest fires, leading to a decline in forest health.The connection is part of a system which also operates in the other direction: forests can affect climate, e.g. by moderating the storage and evapotranspiration of water, and by sequestering carbon in biomass which removes CO2 from the atmosphere. In summary it is a dynamic system. Climate is always changing, and forests are resilient and can adapt to changes given sufficient time. However, sudden changes in climate – for example associated with recent human use of fossil fuels – may push some forests beyond a stable equilibrium, causing rapid negative changes in forest health.
Most of us have become quite familiar with campaigns encouraging us to plant trees and protect forest ecosystems, especially in vital locations such as rainforests. Globally, are we in better shape now than we were 10 or 20 years ago with regards to the health of forests?
I don’t think there is a single universal answer for this. I believe the level of global awareness about the link between climate, forests, and human well-being is higher than it was 20 years ago, which is helpful. Our level of scientific understanding of the linkages between these things is also much higher, which is good because it can help us devise strategies to mitigate or adapt to climate change.
But there is still much stress being applied to the landscape, in many places, due to many different drivers such as growing populations, desire for economic development, and the effects of climate change itself. So bottom line, I think things are better in some places and worse in others. Because forest health and climate change are issues that transcend national boundaries, the challenge is to figure out a way to get countries to work together, in a way that allows each country to advance their interests while also advancing (or at least not hurting) common global interests.
With regards to the protection and enhancement of forest ecosystems in the United States, what is the role of the EPA?
In the US system, the EPA is charged with protecting human health and the environment from environmental threats. It is a broad mission which has its roots some 45 years ago, as a response to terrible water and air pollution problems which existed at that time. Our primary role is to make and enforce rules and policies to implement the environmental laws passed by the US Congress and signed by the President. We do not have authority to make rules and regulations outside this framework; everything we do has to be under a law such as the Clean Air Act or the Safe Drinking Water Act. EPA conducts research primarily to support the EPA work of formulating good, effective policies and regulations.
So while EPA has an indirect role in protecting forests by protecting air and water quality, direct management of forests in the US is regulated through a variety of other Agencies, depending primarily on the ownership of the forest. For example management and protection of government-owned forests is under the direction of the owning government Agency (which may be federal or state). However, 2/3 of the forest estate in the US is owned by private individuals. Protection and enhancement of those forests falls under the jurisdiction of state (not federal) forest management regulations, which vary greatly from state to state.
Does the EPA cooperate with any European or other foreign environmental institutions in research and policy development?
The US EPA has extensive international cooperation and collaborations. In fact we have an entire branch of our Agency, the Office of International and Tribal Affairs, which focuses on promoting international collaboration. We recognize that many other countries including Hungary have excellent researchers in many areas of common interest, and we seek to collaborate whenever possible.
In my Office of Research and Development, our scientists participate in many international activities both with individual countries as well as international organizations such as the World Health Organization and the EU Joint Research Centre. Many examples of cooperation with Europe can be found at http://www2.epa.gov/international-cooperation/epas-efforts-europe
Can you comment on any similar trends regarding forestry issues in the U.S. and Central Europe, specifically in Hungary, and what can we learn from each other?
I will probably be better positioned to discuss this after I have a few months experience in Central Europe, but I can offer a few hypotheses about similarities which I hope to test during my visit:
- People in both countries value their forests, and they value them for many reasons: economic (e.g. timber production as an enterprise), environmental (e.g. providing clean water), and spiritual (places to experience nature).
- All of our forests are at some risk from rapid climate change. We have some ideas about the nature of that change in the near term (probably higher average temperatures, more extreme temperatures, changes in precipitation patterns) but there is still substantial uncertainty about the timing and magnitude of the change, as well as the likely response on the ground.
- Both countries have substantial scientific expertise in the area of forestry, ecology, climate science, and other disciplines which can help inform good policies to mitigate or adapt to climate change.
- Dealing with climate change is going to require many adaptive management experiments – trying different strategies, measuring the results, and adjusting the strategy. So one thing we can learn from each other is what works, where, and maybe why – and then see if we can replicate successful results in other places.
Lastly, what insights are you hoping to gain from your time spent visiting Universities and teaching in Hungary?
Hungary has been inhabited by humans for much, much longer than North America, so one thing I am interested in is seeing is whether there are any noticeable, measurable differences in the forest as a result of this longer association.
Secondly, I am aware that Hungary has a very different social-political history from the US. Since forest management depends very much on people and their values, I am interested in seeing what that might mean in terms of Hungarian’s values and attitudes towards forests – and what that implies for possible forest management solutions, including solutions to climate adaptation. I have traveled in many countries and seen many different approaches to forest management – some of them would not work very well in the US, but sometimes I encounter people who have solved a common problem in an innovative (to me) way, and that is what I find very exciting.
Logan Strenchock
Environmental Sciences, US
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