When you think of drylands, what first comes to mind? A field of zebras galloping across the savannas of Africa. Or, perhaps, a rattlesnake slithering past cacti in the deserts of Arizona. Maybe you think of a herd of cattle, munching their way through the Great Plains of the United States.

Dryland ecosystems make up around 40% of the land in the United States, including the vast desert of the Southwest and the Great Plains. Similarly, drylands comprise 40% of the entire Earth’s land surface. With this in mind, a better understanding of such a vast area of the globe proves necessary.

Indiana University professor Natasha MacBean shares a similar sentiment. She was recently awarded a grant from the NASA Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences Carbon Cycle Science program to do just that, to understand more about drylands and specifically their role in the carbon cycle and how climate change could affect the ecosystem. Last week, Professor MacBean spoke with WFHB news about her work.

“My research into dry lands is primarily to understand the kind of ecosystem scale processes, that is the interaction between vegetation and water and carbon cycling and how that is responding to climate change and to land management change as well. Mostly that’s driven or motivated by a wider research theme of mine which is to understand global carbon cycling. We are obviously emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and the land and the ocean are taking up, their absorbing about 50 percent of those emissions so we know that kind of global scale number but what we don’t know is really which ecosystems, which regions, and which processes are driving that, sort of what we call a sink of carbon. We also don’t know if we’re going to sort of maintain that 50 percent reduction on our emissions into the future or not. So we need to understand that better and it has been highlighted in the past decade or so that semi-arid ecosystems, even in dryland ecosystems more broadly, are playing a big role in that sort of year to year variability in global carbon cycling and so we want to understand that a bit better. There are lots of people working in the field in dryland ecosystems and understanding processes and that work has been going on for a while but where my research comes in is really scaling that up to broader scales, sort of regional to continental scales and then up to the globe as well and then for the second component of that is making sure that our process of understanding of the carbon, water, and vegetation dynamics is implemented into the kinds of global Earth system models that we are using for climate change projections for the I. P. C. C. for example.”

With this broad overview of Professor MacBean’s work in mind, the expert shared more about drylands themselves and some of their characteristics.

“Dry lands are inherently water limited. Most of the ecosystem processes are driven by moisture availability. So that means that there’s less rainfall on average and there is a potential for evaporation and evapotranspiration. There are lots of different strategies in these ecosystems, a lot of different vegetation types. There are strategies for dealing with that kind of seasonal water stress and year to year changes in water availability. Drylands cover about 40% of our land surface, some of that is the desert. So that takes up about 7%. So I think, 1/3 of the land surfaces are the semi arid, sub humid, dry land ecosystems that have quite a bit of vegetation and include savannas or grasslands, etc. And they have a lot of ecosystem services. They support about just over a third of the world’s population. So they have tons of ecosystem services for that population such as often these regions are used for grazing for livestock production. There’s obviously water availability issues and in those ecosystems for the populations that need water. We actually, in the US, I can’t remember now the number but we grow a lot of our crops in the US in the southwest and West, where it’s actually water limited, which I don’t think always makes that much sense. Especially for some of the crops that need a lot of water and therefore irrigated a lot. So these are the kinds of ecosystem services that come from these ecosystems. They’re also really diverse and they’ve got a lot of different flora and fauna that are often beneficial for foods, culture and medicines, etc. There are lots of different purposes and supporting a lot of the world’s population.”

Dryland ecosystems are extremely complex and important for many key species that depend on them as well as humans who depend on them for their livelihood and survival. A key part of MacBean’s research is to understand how climate change, and other human effects, could impact the drylands.

“Climate change, I’d say, is one of the big pressures, other pressures include population increase, and land management, you know, like I just mentioned are we really managing the land well, and these ecosystems, so often we are over grazing them, and over cultivating them and maybe not growing the right crops, etc. That’s one thing. And climate change interacts with that. The biggest thing that climate change is going to do in these ecosystems is change the water availability. And so that includes a couple of things. One is changing rainfall variability, so sometimes that means more intense storms. For example, the Southwest US is driven by the North American monsoon, which provides water availability, and that’s not necessarily going to go away, but the characteristics of it might change. If they’re more intense storms, then that’s not necessarily a good thing, we might lose a lot of that water as runoff. It’s just too intense for ecosystems to manage. But with climate change a lot of drought, most of the west and southwest of the US, for example, have been in a mega drought for most of the century. We think that can be exacerbated with climate change. So these ecosystems really rely on water availability, they’re adapted to the kind of seasonal changes in water availability. And as that changes, potentially more extreme droughts in the future climate change, the plants, and all the ecosystem processes are going to have to adapt to that. And the second thing I’d say with climate change that I think we’re seeing a lot now is potentially increased risk of wildfire. There is an interplay there with land management, and building, and sort of urban expansion and how we’ve managed fires in the past. But we think that, you know, one of the reasons why wildfires might be increasing is increasing temperatures and, again, dry land ecosystems, well adapted to deal with fire over, you know, 1000s, 10s of 1000s, 100s of 1000s of years. But, as these changes are sort of accelerating, the vegetation will have to adapt to that as well.”

Dryland ecosystems and how they relate to global carbon cycle and global climate is a topic that requires more understanding. As mentioned before, Professor MacBean was recently awarded a $900,000 dollar grant from NASA to provide funding for more research into drylands. MacBean described how this grant came about and what her team’s research will do to improve the mapping of drylands and better understand the potential environmental effects on the environment.

“So NASA has a bunch of different calls on different topics. And they have a carbon cycle science program, it’s specifically about understanding the carbon cycle of terrestrial ecosystems. It can be any type of ecosystem. And so, I’d been already doing research in dryland carbon cycling, and through my work and when I was at the University of Arizona and my collaborators there. So I got together with a few different collaborators who were working in the southwest, and working on dry lands, to put in a grant that was aimed at really improving our understanding of carbon cycling in dry land. And, and what we’re trying to do is a mixture of different things. So we’re trying to improve our mapping of different plant types, vegetation types, and soil cover in these regions, because they’re often very spatially heterogeneous. If you think of savannas, you know, you’ve got shrubs dotted everywhere, and it’s very difficult to map those types of ecosystems. And then once we hopefully can do that a little bit better, we’re going to take a lot of other measurements in the field, remote sensing measurements, and link the plant cover type to the function and their responses to changing rainfall, etc. And then the third part is to implement that into a model. So it’s really a kind of bringing together people working on different things, modeling, remote sensing, field measurement, working across scales, you know, scaling up from understanding ecosystem processes at the field scale to modeling at the regional to global scale, with remote sensing and satellite data. You know, that’s how it came about, just a meeting of collaborators who wanted to continue working on that.”

With an uncertain future, MacBean’s research offers a chance for scientists to understand and perhaps predict the future of drylands through the use of modeling. MacBean provided insight as to how this project will help in this endeavor.

“What we really want to do, and that’s, you know, one of the goals of this project is to make sure that we have the sort of right process, understanding in the kinds of models that we use to make (future) predictions like that. And then hopefully, by the end of this project, we wouldn’t have developed everything that we need in the model to look at those kinds of questions, but I think we’ll be able to run future simulations under climate change scenarios, and see whether we are seeing, for example, like an expansion of dry on vegetation, but that’s a real overall goal, but I’d say we want to really test and develop the models a little bit better, but before we say that more definitively”

With hard work and dedication, Professor Natasha MacBean’s work is being recognized for its immense importance and is now funded by NASA. With research just beginning, there are limitless amounts of information to still be learned about our world’s drylands.

*Interview was edited for brevity and clarity.

Resident Reports Lead Contaminated Ash and Debris After Prescribed Burn

On Friday, the Bloomington Fire Department conducted a prescribed burning of a home at 1213 South High Street as a training exercise.

Matt Murphy, owner of Foursquare Construction and local landlord who lives in the area, says he felt a burning in his throat as he smelled what he suspected was lead-based paint.

Murphy then bought several lead paint test kits at Bloomington Paint. He says all of the tests came back positive for lead.

“I think I sort of assumed that in tandem with all that other prep work that they would have tested for lead, but it would appear that they did not,” said Murphy.

Murphy lives about 150 yards directly west of the burn site on the corner of Ruby Lane and Nancy Street. He says he noticed ash and debris from the burn in his garden. He also spoke with his neighbors who saw similar debris.

“They’re quite concerned and upset and hoping for some direction and communication from the city of Bloomington,” said Murphy.

The city has since responded to the possible lead contamination. A Google form was organized for residents to request remediation in the area at no cost.

“Local health officials recommend keeping kids and pets away from the ash until testing indicates if it is hazardous,” says Fire Chief Jason Moore in a press release.

City officials say the fire department will contract with Servpro, a company that specializes in biohazard cleanup. The cleanup process will consist of using a HEPA filtered vacuum which the city says experts consider the best way to conduct this kind of cleanup.

The Indiana Department of Environmental Management, who approved the permits required for the training, will take ash samples to measure the extent of the contamination.

Murphy called a representative from IDEM, a few city officials and the mayor’s office. He described what he heard back after contacting them.

“IDEM did indeed sign off in this and they were the ones who suggested or requested the removal of the vinyl siding and some of the other materials, and I think they had to check for mercury and various fluorescent lights and switches that are common in older homes, but bizarrely did not have anybody check for lead paint,” said Murphy.

The home was built in 1951 – wherein, lead paint was commonly used for homes of that period. It wasn’t until 1978 that federal regulations banned the use of lead paint in residential homes.

Lead paint can have devastating impacts on the human body, according to Gabriel Filippelli, the executive director for the Environmental Resilience Institute and researcher at IUPUI.

“It’s particularly dangerous for children,” says Filippelli. “And that’s because they absorb a lot of the lead that they’re exposed to. Adults don’t absorb quite as much. Not only do they absorb a lot of lead, but their neurological systems are developing. And lead is a neurotoxin, so it becomes particularly problematic.”

According to the World Health Organization, once lead enters the body – it is distributed to organs such as the brain, kidneys, liver and bones.

At high levels of exposure, lead attacks the brain and central nervous system, causing coma, convulsions and even death.

Children who survive severe lead poisoning may be left with intellectual disability and behavioral disorders. Even at lower levels of contamination, lead can affect brain development in children.

It’s worth noting that there is no safe exposure level when it comes to lead. The WHO outlines that as lead exposure increases, the range and severity of symptoms and effects also increase.

“It can be safer if you’re an adult, but even adults can experience neurological and physical issues with a lot of lead exposure,” said Fillippelli.

Matt Murphy sent a few of the paint chips off for testing to Filippelli. Murphy says he’s hopeful for immediate results. He says that he and his neighbors are furious they may face contamination of lead near their homes.

“Well, I think we’re all pretty furious would be an accurate word. And like I said previously, I am hoping that by some stroke of luck, I drop these materials off at the lab and they test them and say ‘nothing to worry about, carry on.’ But so far, the three lead test kits that we have used, have indicated a positive result for every single chip we’ve tested,” he said.

Murphy says he hopes the incident leads to some sort of positive change in policy, so that this does not happen again in the future.

“I hope some good comes of this incident. I hope that whether it be local or state rules, regulations and laws that govern these types of so called controlled burns – I hope perhaps they can be changed because it does not make any sense to burn a structure like this in a core residential neighborhood, and really anywhere, if it’s going to release toxins,” said Murphy.

WFHB News reached out to the fire department but were unable to reach them before broadcast.

The Sunrise Movement Rises over Bloomington

“When the people rise up, the power comes down,” chant demonstrators at a recent protest from the nation-wide climate change organization called the Sunrise Movement.

Launched in 2017, the Sunrise Movement was founded to, “shift the Overton window on climate policy” and promote strong environmental policies such as the Green New Deal. The movement organizes multiple protests for this cause and has many hubs throughout the country, including in Bloomington, Indiana.

Sunrise Bloomington member Alyson Alde, a student at Indiana University studying Environmental Health, recently spoke with WFHB to help better explain what the Sunrise Movement is and how the Bloomington movement differs:

“The sunrise movement is a nationwide movement led by climate activists. And our goals are to promote sustainability and climate justice. Specifically for our Bloomington hub, we have the goal right now to encourage IU to disclose how much they have invested in fossil fuels, to divest and then to reinvest into sustainable organizations,” says Alde.

As Alyson stated, Sunrise Bloomington seeks to have Indiana University “Disclose, Divest, and Reinvest” and Alyson provides an understanding of what that means.

“Indiana University is a public institution. Where their investments are, is not public information. So our first demand is to disclose. So we want Indiana University to disclose how much money they have invested in fossil fuels. Once we’ve reached that goal. Our next goal is to demand that Indiana University divest from any fossil fuel industries, and then with that money that they have divested we want them to reinvest into sustainable companies and sustainable organizations rather than organizations that are causing the destruction of our planet,” said Alde.

Over the past few years, Sunrise Bloomington and other organizations have sought to have meetings with the Indiana University Foundation to help further their cause. Alyson explained what purpose the meetings hold in the overall goals of Sunrise Bloomington:

“With our meetings we are hoping to meet with the IU Foundation. And by we I don’t just mean the sunrise movement, Bloomington hub. I mean the entire community, the IU community, the Bloomington community, the Indiana community. We want to have an open dialogue with the IU foundation to make sure that the money that we pay with our tuition is going to sustainable organizations rather than to fossil fuel industries. And we want that conversation to be an open and public conversation,” she said.

Back in October, the Indiana University Foundation and Sunrise Bloomington had actually organized a face-to-face meeting to discuss these goals. However, the meeting was cancelled by the IU Foundation due Sunrise’s call for the meeting to be public and for the community to participate. Sunrise was motivated by the need for transparency, with IU hoping for a more private meeting. Despite this setback, Alyson is hopeful for a future meeting:

“I think that the Indiana University Foundation, based off what they’re saying publicly about their goals for sustainability. I think that they are taking the climate crisis seriously. And the next step to prove to us that they are taking the climate crisis seriously is to divest from fossil fuels,” said Alde.

Early this year, Indiana University named Pamela Whitten as the 19th president of the university. After years of unsuccessful calls for the university to divest from fossil fuels, Sunrise Bloomington is optimistic that the change in leadership will finally bring them the opportunity they were looking for:

“You know, I’m really hopeful. President Pamela Whitten recently made a statement about Indiana University’s promise to sustainability, mentioning some things, including IUPUI and how we rank with sustainability worldwide. And like I kind of mentioned earlier, I think that the next step to really fulfilling that promise to sustainability and to climate justice is to divest from fossil fuels. So I personally feel like Indiana University wants to do this,” she said.

While Sunrise Bloomington may seem extremely critical of Indiana University, Alyson explains that this is not the case, and that their concerns come from a place of appreciation for the University as a whole.

“I am really proud to be a Hoosier. I myself am a student at Indiana University, studying environmental health and I’m really proud to be a part of this educational institution. But I do really encourage that Indiana University disclose if they want to stick to their promise of sustainability. The best way to do that is to divest from fossil fuels, nothing can go wrong by divesting from fossil fuels. And in fact, not divesting is going to have a bigger impact on the lives of not only Hoosiers but the rest of the world,” said Alde.

If any listener supports Sunrise Bloomington or wants to support, Alyson states that:

“You can find us on Instagram at SunriseBTown. On Twitter at SunriseBTown and on Facebook at Sunrise Bloomington”

Credits:

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Our features were produced by Nathaniel Weinzapfel and Kade Young.
Our theme music is provided by Mark Bingham and the Social Climbers.
Engineer and Executive producer is Kade Young.