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1. Review: biological engineering for nature-based climate solutions

   https://doi.org/10.1186/s13036-022-00287-8  

   Runkle, Benjamin R. (December 2022, Journal of Biological Engineering)

   Abstract Nature-based Climate Solutions are landscape stewardship techniques to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase soil or biomass carbon sequestration. These mitigation approaches to climate change present an opportunity to supplement energy sector decarbonization and provide co-benefits in terms of ecosystem services and landscape productivity. The biological engineering profession must be involved in the research and implementation of these solutions—developing new tools to aid in decision-making, methods to optimize across different objectives, and new messaging frameworks to assist in prioritizing among different options. Furthermore, the biological engineering curriculum should be redesigned to reflect the needs of carbon-based landscape management. While doing so, the biological engineering community has an opportunity to embed justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion within both the classroom and the profession. Together these transformations will enhance our capacity to use sustainable landscape management as an active tool to mitigate the risks of climate change. 

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2. Research Analytics: A Systematic Literature Review

   https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4363262  

   Robershaw, Katherine; Wolf, Baron (February 2023, SSRN Electronic Journal)

   As data-informed decision-making continues to evolve across multiple disciplines in higher education institutions, and as the role of research administration continues to expand from proposal submissions, compliance, and managing research and development expenditures to a profession of an active partnership with investigators to support institutional research, it becomes necessary to have a strategy or model to inform best practices in both strategic planning and business operations within research administration. As numerous research evaluation frameworks and assessment models were proposed to improve the administrative processes of institutional research, this project proposes a data-analytics approach to enhance the services provided by research administrators to minimize risks, maximize efficiencies, and better support researchers and other research and development (R&D) personnel in higher education. This article documents the process of conducting a systematic literature review on leveraging research administration data-analytics in higher education to provide evidence-based practices to inform decision-making regarding strategic advancement in institutional research. The literature review examines current works on how data can be effectively used in process operations, control, and provides new perspectives on how research administration process systems might evolve into a new paradigm of data enhanced operations and control. 

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3. Risk-aware electricity dispatch with large-scale distributed renewable integration under climate extremes

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2426620122  

   Xu, Luo; Zeng, Hongtai; Lin, Ning; Yang, Yue; Guo, Qinglai; Poor, H Vincent (May 2025, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   Distribution networks, with large-scale integration of distributed renewable resources, particularly rooftop solar photovoltaic systems, represent the most extensive yet vulnerable components of modern electric power systems during climate extremes such as hurricanes. However, existing day-ahead electricity dispatch approaches primarily focus on the transmission network and lack the capability to manage the spatiotemporal risks associated with the vast distribution networks, which can potentially lead to significant power imbalances due to the mismatches between scheduled generation and actual demand. To address this increasingly critical gap under intensifying climate extremes and growing distributed renewable integration, we introduce Risk-aware Electricity Dispatch under Climate Extremes with Renewable integration (REDUCER), a risk-aware day-ahead electricity dispatch model that incorporates high-resolution spatiotemporal risk analysis for distribution networks with large-scale distributed renewable integration into an Entropic Value-at-Risk-constrained mixed-integer convex optimization framework. Applied to the 2022 Puerto Rico power grid under Hurricane Fiona, the proposed REDUCER model is seen to effectively manage these risks with substantially less reliance on additional flexibility resources to cope with power imbalances, reducing overall operational costs by about 30% under extreme cases compared to standard unit commitment strategies already informed by average demand loss. Also, the proposed REDUCER model consistently demonstrates its effectiveness in managing the increasing temporal net demand variability introduced by growing large-scale distributed solar integration while maintaining minimal operational costs. This model offers a practical solution for cost-effective and resilient electricity dispatch of modern power systems with large-scale renewable integration facing intensifying climate risks. 

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4. Water quality–fisheries tradeoffs in a changing climate underscore the need for adaptive ecosystem–based management

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2322595121  

   Scavia, Donald; Ludsin, Stuart_A; Michalak, Anna_M; Obenour, Daniel_R; Han, Mingyu; Johnson, Laura_T; Wang, Yu-Chen; Zhao, Gang; Zhou, Yuntao (October 2024, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   Changes driven by both unanticipated human activities and management actions are creating wicked management landscapes in freshwater and marine ecosystems that require new approaches to support decision-making. By linking a predictive model of nutrient- and temperature-driven bottom hypoxia with observed commercial fishery harvest data from Lake Erie (United States–Canada) over the past century (1928–2022) and climate projections (2030–2099), we show how simple, yet robust models and routine monitoring data can be used to identify tradeoffs associated with nutrient management and guide decision-making in even the largest of aquatic ecosystems now and in the future. Our approach enabled us to assess planned nutrient load reduction targets designed to mitigate nutrient-driven hypoxia and show why they appear overly restrictive based on current fishery needs, indicating tradeoffs between water quality and fisheries management goals. At the same time, our temperature results show that projected climate change impacts on hypoxic extent will require more stringent nutrient regulations in the future. Beyond providing a rare example of bottom hypoxia driving changes in fishery harvests at an ecosystem scale, our study illustrates the need for adaptive ecosystem–based management, which can be informed by simple predictive models that can be readily applied over long time periods, account for tradeoffs across multiple management sectors (e.g., water quality, fisheries), and address ecosystem nonstationarity (e.g., climate change impacts on management targets). Such approaches will be critical for maintaining valued ecosystem services in the many aquatic systems worldwide that are vulnerable to multiple drivers of environmental change. 

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5. Visualizing a Local Food Bank’s Chronic Health Disease Population

   Hamilton, M.; Jiang, S.; Davis, L. (July 2023, Proceedings of the 8th North American International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management, Houston, Texas, USA, June 13-16, 2023)

   Food insecurity hinders individuals from the healthy and sustainable life they truly deserve. Unfortunately, food insecurity and chronic health diseases affect millions of people across the United States. Food banks are constantly fighting the uphill battle against food insecurity to supply adequate, relevant, healthy meals to those who need them. Oftentimes hunger relief organizations lack data and software tools that could aid strategic decision-making. A local food bank faces this exact problem and is struggling to find clients that face chronic health diseases in their service area. This study uses data from the local food bank to develop visualizations that investigate the health considerations of the population they serve. The results easily found a specific county with the largest number of health considerations and a zip code with the highest number of individuals facing hypertension. Dominant chronic health considerations highlight the importance for food banks to diversify their food selections. It is important for the local food bank to know what foods are essential within each county and zip code area to provide services that will be valuable to those who need them. This study benefits food banks so they can yield better service to the community. 

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