News - Katie Warnell

In the first post of a series on the Latitude blog, PLOS is highlighting how peer-reviewed research in its journals is helping to fill knowledge gaps identified by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Featured articles include a June 2022 study, by Nicholas Institute experts Katie Warnell and Lydia Olander and coauthor Carolyn Currin, that models how sea level rise in mid-Atlantic states could drive coastal marshes inland and release carbon in the process.

The Conservation Trust for North Carolina and the Nicholas Institute have designed a pair of online tools for conservation organizations and land trusts to evaluate the benefits of North Carolina's natural and working lands to climate resilience, adaptation and mitigation.

Little attention has been paid to the economic benefits of natural systems beyond basic measures of GDP. Katie Warnell spoke with Context about how quantifying their value could help drive conservation and preservation policy making.

NESP engages more than 2,000 public and private sector stakeholders to enhance collaboration within the ecosystem services community and strengthen coordination of policy, market implementation, and research at the national level. NESP’s research, products, and regular webinars help advance innovative, sustainable approaches to managing natural resources.

As rising sea levels cause marshes to move inland in six mid-Atlantic states, the coastal zone will not continue to serve as a carbon sink but release more carbon into the atmosphere, a new modeling study led by researchers at Duke University finds.

On Earth Day, the Biden Administration announced an initiative to develop national measures called natural capital accounts that connect the value of ecosystem services to economic performance. In a Q&A, Warnell offered some insights into natural capital accounting: what exactly it measures, how it can help decision makers, and the work that lies ahead to implement a national system.

The Nicholas Institute has developed three online dashboards that make detailed data about North Carolina's forests, farmlands, and wetlands easily accessible to communities, land managers, non-governmental organizations, and the general public.

The Ashley National Forest has implemented and refined novel approaches to evaluate ecosystem services in a pilot project with Forest Service Research and Development, the Washington Office, Duke University and Environmental Management and Planning Solutions, Inc. as part of the forest plan revision process.

In a webinar hosted by The Pew Charitable Trusts, Lydia Olander and Katie Warnell discussed a model to map coastal carbon capture and storage—known as blue carbon—and existing coastal protection, which was then applied in states from New York to North Carolina.

The Nicholas Institute is applying the expertise of its professionals to rapidly evolving environmental and energy issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Read four stories about how Nicholas Institute projects are meeting the moment.