Kate A Brauman - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Kate A Brauman
Environmental Research Letters, 2013
Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, 2016
Oxford Bibliographies Online Datasets, 2015
Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management, 2015
To understand the possible hydrologic impacts of interconversion between forest and pasture in a ... more To understand the possible hydrologic impacts of interconversion between forest and pasture in a tropical ecosystem, we looked at vegetation interactions with precipitation and at comparative water use by forest and pasture plants. We gathered micrometeorological data from four sites in the mountains on the leeward side of Hawai'i Island over 20 months. Throughfall varied dramatically within and between sites; at some locations it was greater than rainfall, suggesting an important role for cloud interception. Stemflow played a small but measurable role in water input, also likely a result of cloud interception. Because of very high relative humidity and low wind speeds in this convective rainfall system, solar radiation is the main driver of evapotranspiration and the water-use characteristics of vegetation play a decisive role. The stomatal conductance of Meterosideros polymorpha, the dominant forest tree, is low compared to that of the pasture grass, so forests are estimated t...
Ecosystem services, the benefits people receive from ecosystems, provide a framework for organizi... more Ecosystem services, the benefits people receive from ecosystems, provide a framework for organizing and reinterpreting biophysical processes, often ones scientists are already studying, in the context of impacts on people. Thus, the nutrient retention provided by an agricultural buffer strip is evaluated by the improvement to drinking water in a downstream community or the increased swimability of a local lake. Hydrologic ecosystem services relate to the impacts on people that stem from ecosystem effects on water flow. In many ways, hydrologic ecosystem services are a reframing of agricultural best management practices and other techniques conceived by agronomists and soil scientists. The exciting and novel aspect of the ecosystem services framework, especially for hydrologic services, is the focus on specific beneficiaries. Ecosystem services assessments evaluate who is affected by an action, and how much. In addition, ecosystem services facilitate bundling and comparison among ser...
Background/Question/Methods Human activity has increased massively in the last century, including... more Background/Question/Methods Human activity has increased massively in the last century, including a quadrupling of human population and a 40-fold increase in economic activity. By 2050 we expect the population to increase to over 9 billion and incomes to rise. To 'make it fit' we need to sufficient economic growth to provide a decent standard of living to all people, and we need to maintain the ecosystem processes and environmental quality that support human well-being. Water quality is one environmental quality that has been heavily impacted through the last century and is intimately tied to the goals of sustainable development through the production of food, energy and consumable goods. We have developed a relatively simple but spatially explicit and interconnected model to evaluate development scenarios for trade-offs in our attempts to 'make it fit' by providing a decent quality of life for all while maintaining environmental quality. In particular, the water qua...
Background/Question/Methods Changes in ecosystems have the potential to exert significant pressur... more Background/Question/Methods Changes in ecosystems have the potential to exert significant pressures on human health. Attributing morbidity and mortality impacts to specific ecological processes and functions, however, has proven difficult. Research efforts in both the ecological and health sciences have provided evidence for many elements linking ecosystem change and human health. Here, we connect these often disconnected, but intrinsically interrelated, research efforts into a comprehensive framework that allows us to assign human health impacts to specific ecosystem changes. There is a strong desire to link health effects of ecosystem change into ecosystem service assessments, but this has seldom been done. Our framework allows health impacts to be integrated into ecosystem service assessments. This work is a product of a multi-disciplinary working group sponsored by the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative. Results/Conclusions Our framework connects empirical research acros...
Pressure from the major users and traders of sugarcane derived products led to the formation of B... more Pressure from the major users and traders of sugarcane derived products led to the formation of Bonsucro, a multi-stakeholder organisation which acts in promoting the sustainable production of sugarcane. Bonsucro developed an international standard which sets legal, environmental, social and technical criteria to which operators must conform to achieve certification. The standard is made up of a series of metric indicators which allows to measure whether practices in place meet sustainability levels. To date, 31 mills have been certified, representing an area of ca. 700 000 ha. After two years of activity, it was decided that some indicators needed improvement as experience showed either their limit or their imperfection. The Bonsucro sustainable water usage indicator was reconsidered because it addressed only irrigation water use and did not take climatic conditions into account. In its place, a new, innovative, multi-part indicator was developed that addresses both water use in re...
Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water, 2015
ABSTRACT Background/Question/Methods Agriculture consumes on average 70% of the almost 4,000 cubi... more ABSTRACT Background/Question/Methods Agriculture consumes on average 70% of the almost 4,000 cubic kilometers of water extracted worldwide from surface and groundwater for human use. Irrigation is instrumental to worldwide food production, allowing agriculture in arid areas and mitigating the effects of drought. Water diversion also has environmental impacts, reducing available water for ecosystems downstream. However, global statistics, and even country specific statistics, often do not provide information about the impacts of irrigation on agricultural productivity and on the environment at a scale at which interventions are possible. Using existing global data sets of crop yield, irrigation, and agricultural water use, we identify regions where irrigation has a disproportionate impact on agricultural productivity. By identifying where and how water is used in irrigation, we can pinpoint places where interventions will have maximum impact, increasing the benefits of agriculture while reducing its harms. Results/Conclusions When water extraction exceeds 40% of local water resources, human and natural systems can become stressed and vulnerable to small variations in water availability. Of all irrigated areas worldwide, 29% exceed the 40% threshold; those areas constitute just 7% of all agricultural land. Where water is scarce, growing crops with higher intrinsic water use efficiency can reduce strain on water resources. However, total water efficiency is low in Africa because of nutrient deficiency: ensuring that irrigated yields are as high as possible by helping farmers engage in good management practices can dramatically increase the value of water applied. A substantial fraction of food production in the developed world is irrigated. In many of these places, however, irrigation is used to subsidize rainfall and counteract dry spells, so only a small fraction of a crops’ total water use comes from irrigation. For example, while China and India both irrigate extensively, multiple cropping in India means crops are grown in the dry season, lowering water efficiency. Reducing high intensity water use is important not only for environmental protection: Food production is particularly vulnerable to drought and precipitation variability in places where agricultural water use dominates available water resources.
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 2013
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012
The Handbook of Environmental Chemistry, 2013
Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 2007
Environmental Research Letters, 2013
Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, 2016
Oxford Bibliographies Online Datasets, 2015
Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management, 2015
To understand the possible hydrologic impacts of interconversion between forest and pasture in a ... more To understand the possible hydrologic impacts of interconversion between forest and pasture in a tropical ecosystem, we looked at vegetation interactions with precipitation and at comparative water use by forest and pasture plants. We gathered micrometeorological data from four sites in the mountains on the leeward side of Hawai'i Island over 20 months. Throughfall varied dramatically within and between sites; at some locations it was greater than rainfall, suggesting an important role for cloud interception. Stemflow played a small but measurable role in water input, also likely a result of cloud interception. Because of very high relative humidity and low wind speeds in this convective rainfall system, solar radiation is the main driver of evapotranspiration and the water-use characteristics of vegetation play a decisive role. The stomatal conductance of Meterosideros polymorpha, the dominant forest tree, is low compared to that of the pasture grass, so forests are estimated t...
Ecosystem services, the benefits people receive from ecosystems, provide a framework for organizi... more Ecosystem services, the benefits people receive from ecosystems, provide a framework for organizing and reinterpreting biophysical processes, often ones scientists are already studying, in the context of impacts on people. Thus, the nutrient retention provided by an agricultural buffer strip is evaluated by the improvement to drinking water in a downstream community or the increased swimability of a local lake. Hydrologic ecosystem services relate to the impacts on people that stem from ecosystem effects on water flow. In many ways, hydrologic ecosystem services are a reframing of agricultural best management practices and other techniques conceived by agronomists and soil scientists. The exciting and novel aspect of the ecosystem services framework, especially for hydrologic services, is the focus on specific beneficiaries. Ecosystem services assessments evaluate who is affected by an action, and how much. In addition, ecosystem services facilitate bundling and comparison among ser...
Background/Question/Methods Human activity has increased massively in the last century, including... more Background/Question/Methods Human activity has increased massively in the last century, including a quadrupling of human population and a 40-fold increase in economic activity. By 2050 we expect the population to increase to over 9 billion and incomes to rise. To 'make it fit' we need to sufficient economic growth to provide a decent standard of living to all people, and we need to maintain the ecosystem processes and environmental quality that support human well-being. Water quality is one environmental quality that has been heavily impacted through the last century and is intimately tied to the goals of sustainable development through the production of food, energy and consumable goods. We have developed a relatively simple but spatially explicit and interconnected model to evaluate development scenarios for trade-offs in our attempts to 'make it fit' by providing a decent quality of life for all while maintaining environmental quality. In particular, the water qua...
Background/Question/Methods Changes in ecosystems have the potential to exert significant pressur... more Background/Question/Methods Changes in ecosystems have the potential to exert significant pressures on human health. Attributing morbidity and mortality impacts to specific ecological processes and functions, however, has proven difficult. Research efforts in both the ecological and health sciences have provided evidence for many elements linking ecosystem change and human health. Here, we connect these often disconnected, but intrinsically interrelated, research efforts into a comprehensive framework that allows us to assign human health impacts to specific ecosystem changes. There is a strong desire to link health effects of ecosystem change into ecosystem service assessments, but this has seldom been done. Our framework allows health impacts to be integrated into ecosystem service assessments. This work is a product of a multi-disciplinary working group sponsored by the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative. Results/Conclusions Our framework connects empirical research acros...
Pressure from the major users and traders of sugarcane derived products led to the formation of B... more Pressure from the major users and traders of sugarcane derived products led to the formation of Bonsucro, a multi-stakeholder organisation which acts in promoting the sustainable production of sugarcane. Bonsucro developed an international standard which sets legal, environmental, social and technical criteria to which operators must conform to achieve certification. The standard is made up of a series of metric indicators which allows to measure whether practices in place meet sustainability levels. To date, 31 mills have been certified, representing an area of ca. 700 000 ha. After two years of activity, it was decided that some indicators needed improvement as experience showed either their limit or their imperfection. The Bonsucro sustainable water usage indicator was reconsidered because it addressed only irrigation water use and did not take climatic conditions into account. In its place, a new, innovative, multi-part indicator was developed that addresses both water use in re...
Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water, 2015
ABSTRACT Background/Question/Methods Agriculture consumes on average 70% of the almost 4,000 cubi... more ABSTRACT Background/Question/Methods Agriculture consumes on average 70% of the almost 4,000 cubic kilometers of water extracted worldwide from surface and groundwater for human use. Irrigation is instrumental to worldwide food production, allowing agriculture in arid areas and mitigating the effects of drought. Water diversion also has environmental impacts, reducing available water for ecosystems downstream. However, global statistics, and even country specific statistics, often do not provide information about the impacts of irrigation on agricultural productivity and on the environment at a scale at which interventions are possible. Using existing global data sets of crop yield, irrigation, and agricultural water use, we identify regions where irrigation has a disproportionate impact on agricultural productivity. By identifying where and how water is used in irrigation, we can pinpoint places where interventions will have maximum impact, increasing the benefits of agriculture while reducing its harms. Results/Conclusions When water extraction exceeds 40% of local water resources, human and natural systems can become stressed and vulnerable to small variations in water availability. Of all irrigated areas worldwide, 29% exceed the 40% threshold; those areas constitute just 7% of all agricultural land. Where water is scarce, growing crops with higher intrinsic water use efficiency can reduce strain on water resources. However, total water efficiency is low in Africa because of nutrient deficiency: ensuring that irrigated yields are as high as possible by helping farmers engage in good management practices can dramatically increase the value of water applied. A substantial fraction of food production in the developed world is irrigated. In many of these places, however, irrigation is used to subsidize rainfall and counteract dry spells, so only a small fraction of a crops’ total water use comes from irrigation. For example, while China and India both irrigate extensively, multiple cropping in India means crops are grown in the dry season, lowering water efficiency. Reducing high intensity water use is important not only for environmental protection: Food production is particularly vulnerable to drought and precipitation variability in places where agricultural water use dominates available water resources.
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 2013
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012
The Handbook of Environmental Chemistry, 2013
Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 2007