Research Publications

Achieving a U.S. circular economy would reduce environmental impacts and increase material independence. This article calculates maximum recycled contents (RCs) and recycling rates (RRs) in an inde...

The effects of global warming are becoming more apparent in major cities and are requiring adaptive and mitigative efforts. Many cities across the country are working towards becoming more efficient a...

Lighting waste represents a significant source of rare earth elements (REE) and critical metals (CM), which are vital to low-carbon technologies. This research examines the environmental impacts of re...

Residential energy use accounts for roughly 20% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the United States. Using data on 93 million individual households, we estimate these GHGs across the contiguous ...

Evaluating potentially hazardous effects of chemicals on ecosystems has always been an important research topic traditionally studied using laboratory or field experiments. Experiment-based ecotoxi...

The authors developed a Hydrologic Engineering Center–River Analysis System (HEC–RAS) model to serve as the key component of a new, first-of-its-kind, short-term operational flow forecasting system fo...

Decarbonization may require the efficient electrification of applications, like natural gas furnaces for space heating, that currently involve burning fossil fuels. The environmental consequences o...

Context Urban sprawl typically consists of low-density urban development dominated by single-family housing and automobile-oriented land use patterns. Sprawl impacts landscape structure and compo...

Resource multiple-life-cycle (MLC) recycling process is a complex system with closed-loop and open-loop recycling interwoven with each other, which has recieved vast attention in recent years. Reso...

Weight, computing load, sensor load and possibly higher drag may increase the energy use of automated electric vehicles relative to human-driven electric vehicles, although this increase may be off...

Community-based nongovernmental organizations have emerged as leaders in local economic development, with a growing capacity for undertaking community sustainability projects in distressed neighbor...

Seasonal water supply forecasts are a critical component of regional water resources management planning. Across the United States, multiple modeling tools and operational protocols have evolved over ...

Accurate accounting of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions considering interregional trade are important for developing regional-specific strategies for climate mitigation in countries like China where ...

Increasing renewable energy penetrations and low natural gas prices have increased the reliance of U.S. power systems on natural gas-fired generation. Increased reliance has sparked concerns over a...

As technological advancements progress, the automotive industry is getting closer to producing Level 4 connected and automated vehicles (CAVs). Market trends show personal vehicle sales moving towards...

Current lithium-ion battery (LiB) recycling infrastructure is limited for strategic metals such as lithium and cobalt, despite projections that millions of electric vehicles (EVs) will hit the road in...

Purpose The environmental impact of a product may change according to who adopts it, where it is adopted, and how it is used. Market forces are an inherent part of consequential LCA and the pract...

There are a number of U.S. cities making and implementing ambitious commitments to transition to 100% renewable energy; however, many of them are unsure of how to meet their commitments. This research...

Developing localized climate mitigation strategies needs an understanding of how global consumption drives local carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions with a fine spatial resolution. There is no study tha...

Precipitation impacts on ice cover and water temperature in the Laurentian Great Lakes were examined using state-of-the-art coupled ice-hydrodynamic models. Numerical experiments were conducted for th...

With cities producing 80% of global GDP and housing more than half of the world's population (United Nations Human Settlements Programme UN-Habitat 2016, p. 264), urban processes now drive global f...

In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria and other natural disasters, an environmental community organization, Casa Pueblo, in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico decided to increase their social and economic resilience...

This project focused on identifying carbon emission abatement strategies for Meijer, specifically addressing lighting, space cooling and heating, and refrigeration, which constitute Meijer’s largest d...

As water scarcity becomes more and more severe, to recover and reuse water in the industrial systems attracts much attention all over the world. Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD), an ambitious industrial wa...