Ecological restoration programs increasingly aim to provide socioeconomic and environmental benefits. However, monitoring of socioeconomic outcomes of these programs lags behind monitoring of ecological outcomes. Socioeconomic methods are less established, managers have less experience, and metrics used vary, stymieing evaluation and adaptive management. Here we demonstrate that logic models and stakeholder engagement can be used to identify core socioeconomic metrics across various types of restoration, focusing on coastal restoration in the Gulf of Mexico.

Increasing temperature will impact future outdoor worker safety but quantifying this impact to develop local adaptations is challenging. Wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) is the preferred thermal index for regulating outdoor activities in occupational health, athletic, and military settings, but global circulation models have coarse spatiotemporal resolution and do not always provide outputs required to project the full diurnal range of WBGT. This article presents a novel method to project WBGT at local spatial and hourly temporal resolutions without many assumptions inherent in previous research.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) invited Tyler H. Norris, J.B. Duke Fellow and Duke University PhD student, to serve as a panelist at FERC’s Staff-Led Workshop on Innovations and Efficiencies in Generator Interconnection in September 2024. Specifically, Norris was invited to provide analysis and comments related to “connect and manage” and potential improvements to flexible energy-only interconnection options.

This study develops a unique and comprehensive household and plot-level dataset covering ten districts of Ethiopia complemented with remotely sensed data and qualitative information collected from the study sites. The econometric results show that compared to open-access plots equipped with pump irrigation, other irrigated configurations—especially private groundwater-based systems—have higher vegetation cover and show less susceptibility to the most common environmental concerns mentioned in the survey regions: water logging, soil salinity, and erosion externalities.

This paper provides a high-level overview of chaining, an emerging concept that marries two highly consequential provisions of the tax code established by the passage of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA): Transferability of tax credits and direct (also known as elective) pay to nonprofit or public entities in lieu of tax credits.

Besides unlocking additional capital, chaining could reduce the cost of capital, ease cash flow, and allow for different parties to share risk. The US Department of the Treasury is actively accepting comments on chaining until December 1, 2024. Through those comments, Treasury is seeking to ascertain, in part, how much more capital chaining can enable and how chaining would be executed.

Concentrated animal feeding operations, particularly hog and poultry farms, have expanded rapidly in North Carolina in recent decades. The air pollution and water contamination they generate cause many environmental and health problems for local communities. Using the universe of farm characteristic and housing transaction data in North Carolina, the authors recover hedonic estimates of property value impacts from exposure to these industrial livestock operations.

Nature-based solutions (NBS) address societal challenges by managing ecosystems to provide environmental and human benefits. This report assesses 27 publicly accessible databases on NBS research and projects, highlighting their utility as well as limitations and gaps in coverage. Key recommendations include making databases downloadable, adding standardized geographic and project attributes, and improving measurement of effectiveness. Better data accessibility and consistency are essential for developing design standards and scaling up NBS implementation.

"The challenge for any writer taking on the Mississippi is balancing scope with readability, and this is where Upholt's book makes a real contribution," writes Martin Doyle, director of the Water Policy Program, in this review of Boyce Upholt's The Great River. Doyle discusses the book's place among the many volumes about the river's impact and history.

Electric vehicle (EV) market share is increasing and substantial public and private investment in EV charging infrastructure is rising to meet demand. This report examines recent developments across a dozen states in the Southeast.

Addressing climate change requires urgent and innovative action aimed at both mitigating its effects and addressing its most severe impacts. However, current investment levels are insufficient to match the escalating climate risks and damages. Despite the annual target of $100 billion established at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference/Conference of Parties, climate finance directed to low- and middle-income countries continues to lag behind stated goals.