Research Publications

The problem of accessibility to public transit is well-documented in transportation theory and network literature, and is known as the last mile problem. A lack of first and last mile transit services...

Final project report to the Center for Packaging Innovation and Sustainability Food waste is a critical contemporary issue, both in the U.S. and internationally, in terms of food security and food ...

Cities are expanding green infrastructure to enhance resilience and ecosystem services. Although green infrastructure is promoted for its multifunctionality, projects are typically sited based on a...

Integrating carbon capture and storage into biomass power plants (BioCCS) can reduce carbon emissions, but its ecological performance associated with natural resources consumption remains unexamine...

In the 25 years since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, sweeping political, economic, and social changes have profoundly influenced environmental protection in Russia, the world’s largest coun...

Energy planners in regions with low rates of electrification face complex and high-risk challenges in selecting appropriate generating technologies and grid centralization. To better inform such proce...

Intra-national electricity transmission drives virtual water transfer from electricity production regions to electricity consumption regions. In China, the water-intensive thermoelectric power indu...

The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) requires production of cellulosic biofuel, such as ethanol produced from switchgrass. However, the bioenergy industry faces a well-established “chicken...

This paper addresses water use impacts of agriculture, developing a spatially explicit approach tracing the location of water use and water scarcity related to feed production, transport, and livestoc...

Mercury (Hg) pollution control has become an urgent need at global and national scales. This study, for the first time, comprehensively examines Hg flows in Mainland China and uncovers domestic and...

Accounting for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of nations is essential to understanding their importance to global climate change and help inform the policymaking on global GHG mitigation. Previous ...

According to previous studies, the life cycle energy intensity of an offshore wind farm (OWF) varies between 0.03 and 0.13 megawatt-hours (MWh) of primary energy for each MWh of electricity generat...

Data gaps in life cycle inventory (LCI) are stumbling blocks for investigating the life cycle performance and impact of emerging technologies. It can be tedious, expensive and time consuming for LCI p...

Electricity trade among power grids leads to difficulties in measuring greenhouse gas (GHG) emission factors of purchased electricity. Traditional methods assume either electricity purchased from a...

The recent recommendation to include sustainability considerations in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans has raised interest in the environmental impact of diets in a U.S. context. A few aggregat...

Food packaging has long served a role in protecting and preserving both perishable and shelf-stable foods, but sustainability efforts aimed at reducing the environmental impact of packaging often o...

The unbroken global refrigerated supply chain, or cold chain, is rapidly expanding in developing countries. In addition to increasing the energy intensity of the food system, the expanded cold chai...

Investment and view damage costs are important determinants in siting locations for offshore wind farms (OWF) in the Lake Michigan region. This study is limited to the Michigan state boundary for t...

Wireless power transfer (WPT), which transmits power by an electromagnetic field across an intervening space, provides the prospect of new opportunities for electric vehicles (EVs) to enhance susta...

This report assesses the opportunities within Ann Arbor for the deployment of fully autonomous vehicles (AV) and provides recommendations on which AV systems can potentially enhance sustainability of ...

Ground source heat pump (GSHP) systems are significantly more energy efficient than conventional heating and cooling systems, but they have suffered from low market penetration. This study analyzes...

Taxis play important roles in modern urban transportation systems, especially in mega cities. While providing necessary amenities, taxis also significantly contribute to traffic congestion, urban e...

Due to decreasing solar module prices, some solar developers are increasing their projects’ inverter loading ratio (ILR), defined as the ratio of DC module capacity to AC inverter capacity. In this...

In a power system, having a high level of renewable energy penetration requires a large amount of ancillary services to balance the supply and demand in real time. Commercial buildings have signifi...