Research Publications

Transition of the current gasoline-based transportation system into a renewable fuel-based clean vehicle system has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve national energy secu...

Twenty-nine states have binding Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), which have served as key drivers for renewable energy development. In 2008, Michigan adopted the Clean, Renewable, and Efficient En...

Micro-grid system management considering air pollutant control and carbon dioxide (CO2) mitigation is a challenging task, since many system parameters such as electric demand, resource availability...

The use of renewable energies for electricity generation is necessary to reach the US government goals for reducing their CO2 emissions. One of the key technologies is wind energy. It is an abundant r...

This thesis is organized into two chapters, which will be submitted separately for publication. The abstracts for each chapter are given below. Chapter 1: Many state-level Renewable Portfolio Stand...

This paper considers the limits and potential of ‘urban metabolism’ to conceptualize city processes. Three ‘ecologies’ of urban metabolism have emerged. Each privileges a particular dimension of ...

Charging infrastructure is critical to the development of electric vehicle (EV) system. While many countries have implemented great policy efforts to promote EVs, how to build charging infrastructu...

This paper develops a political–industrial ecology approach to explore the urban water metabolism of Los Angeles, which sprawls for thousands of miles across the American West. Conventional approaches...

Although essential to understand the overall health impact of a food or diet, nutrition is not usually considered in food-related life cycle assessments (LCAs). As a case study to demonstrate comparin...

The EAT Stockholm Food Forum seeks to marry food, health and environment into an irresistible movement across science, business and policy.  Local researcher and farming activist Marty Heller was...

After a fourteen year decimating civil war, the country of Liberia was left with the challenge of rebuilding its human and institutional capacity, particularly at the higher education level. The Un...

Environmental Life Cycle Assessment is an introductory college level textbook on the science of Life Cycle Assessment. It provides materials for a full year of study. Over thirty LCA experts were b...

Introduction Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time. Since the 1970s, the Great Lakes region has been warming at a rate of 0.4°F per decade and average winter temperatures are...

Land use change resulting from bioenergy production has the potential to affect regional water quality. Water quality impacts associated with bioenergy production have been extensively modeled in t...

Residential buildings account for 22 percent of the primary energy consumption in the U.S. Over half of this home energy requirement comes from heating and cooling demands. The geothermal heat pump (G...

This paper proposes a new land-change model, the Geographic Emission Benchmark (GEB), as an approach to quantify land-cover changes associated with deforestation and forest degradation. The GEB is des...

To address food security in a food abundant world requires a new paradigm that walks away from a strict production perspective. While research on agriculture and food security has increased significan...

China’s CO2 emissions have sharply increased in recent years with soaring economic development and urbanization. Consumption-based accounting of CO2 emissions could provide new insights for allocating...

Despite widespread media coverage of livestock-related issues and growing scientific evidence linking meat production and climate change, systematic content analysis of this relationship in media c...

An audit of recreation programs with moderate or higher levels of physical activity (PA) in Los Angeles area cities (N=82) was conducted using internet, telephone, and survey methods. Metabolic Equ...

The forests of Russia comprise roughly one-fifth of Earth’s total forest cover and one-quarter of its remaining “frontier” forests. The quality (i.e. natural productivity) of these forests continue...

The Elgar Companion to Sustainable Cities provides a comprehensive framework for understanding and applying the methods and strategies for cities to attain a more sustainable future. Against a ...

Dietary choices – the overall food consumption patterns displayed by a population – can, and do, influence greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) of the food system. Here, we consider the GHGE associated ...