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Earth Sciences

Report

Community Citizen Science Could Transform Science and Society

Citizen science, public participation in research and scientific endeavors, isn't new. But community citizen science—where volunteers actively lead and conduct research, taking control and ownership—is on the rise. What promise does this phenomenon hold? And what are the risks?

Sep 27, 2017
Research Brief

Mapping Vulnerability to Heat Waves in India

Using district-level data on demographic, social, economic, health, and environmental factors, RAND researchers created the first-ever tool for measuring and mapping India's population's vulnerability to heat waves: the Heat Vulnerability Index.

Sep 15, 2017
Commentary

When It Comes to Climate, Look for Vulnerabilities in Policy, Not Science

Federal policymakers have picked up on the concept of red teaming — actively seeking out one's own vulnerabilities. While red teaming may not make sense for climate science, it does offer great benefits when weighing climate policy options.

Aug 4, 2017
Journal Article

Advancing Alternative Analysis: Integration of Decision Science

Incorporating decision science into alternatives analysis would help companies and regulators to select alternatives to environmentally harmful ingredients.

Aug 1, 2017
Commentary

Where Are India's Heat Hotspots?

Poverty, poor sanitation, a precarious water and electricity supply, and limited access to health care make India vulnerable to heat waves. Rural and urban districts could improve their preparedness by developing and targeting local adaptation strategies.

May 17, 2017
Commentary

Mining the Moon for Rocket Fuel to Get Us to Mars

Students from around the world participated in the 2017 Caltech Space Challenge. They proposed designs of what a lunar launch and supply station for deep space missions might look like, and how it would work.

May 16, 2017
Journal Article

Heat Wave Vulnerability Mapping for India

Indexing relative variation in heat-related vulnerability across all of India can help planners, policy makers, and disaster mitigation experts target climate adaptation efforts.

Apr 4, 2017
Dissertation

Directed International Technological Change and Climate Policy: New Methods for Identifying Robust Policies Under Conditions of Deep Uncertainty

Explores new methods to the study of international technological change and climate policy providing useful insights that can be used for designing a robust architecture of international technological cooperation for climate change mitigation.

Mar 11, 2016
Journal Article

An Open Source Framework for Many-Objective Robust Decision Making

This study introduces a new open source software framework to support bottom-up environmental systems planning under deep uncertainty with a focus on many-objective robust decision making (MORDM), called OpenMORDM.

Nov 6, 2015
Commentary

Debris Poses Increased Threat to Exploration

Every satellite launch and maneuver is carefully coordinated because some orbits are strewn with the space-based equivalent of blown tires, abandoned vehicles, loose gravel and, of course, other traffic. Earth's orbit is littered with hundreds of thousands of debris objects.

May 16, 2014
Commentary

Weather Forecasts, and Our Trust in Them, Need to Improve

When scientists predict extreme weather that never materializes, lay people tend to wonder what went wrong. This is a natural tendency that is not tied to a failure of the science, but rather to differences in the way scientists and lay people view predictions about extreme events.

Oct 8, 2013
Commentary

Removing Road Blocks to Climate Change Adaptation Planning

Despite increasing interest and investments in climate adaptation science, the implementation of adaptation plans through institutional policies or other actions designed to reduce health vulnerabilities has been slow. Institutionalized assumptions are an important roadblock.

Oct 3, 2013
Journal Article

Using Scenario Elicitation Methodology to Map Possible Future Challenges to Mitigation and Adaptation

A new set of scenarios, referred to as Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs), examines challenges to mitigation and challenges to adaptation. Developing SSPs with a "backwards" approach could help inform the development of SSPs to ensure the storylines focus on the driving forces most relevant to distinguishing between the SSPs.

Sep 1, 2013
Journal Article

Managing Risk with Climate Vulnerability Science

Climate information alone cannot be sufficient for anticipating and reducing climate impacts.

Jul 1, 2013
Report

The Industrial Base for Carbon Dioxide Storage: Status and Prospects

If policies aimed at large reductions of carbon dioxide emissions are enacted, more carbon capture and storage will be needed. RAND researchers explored the ability of the industrial base to support the expansion of carbon storage.

Mar 18, 2013
Commentary

Satellite Collision Is a Reminder of Challenges Posed by Space Debris

Solving the problem of space debris isn't going to be easy because, like spilled petroleum products, debris can spend years lurking in an environment that is foreign to most people's daily lives, write Dave Baiocchi and William Welser.

Mar 15, 2013
Report

Outcome Evaluation of U.S. Department of State Support for the Global Methane Initiative

A RAND study evaluated U.S. Department of State contributions to the Global Methane Initiative, an international partnership to promote methane recovery and reuse. The study focused on the strategic contributions and program activities and outcomes.

Jan 30, 2013
Journal Article

Quantifying the Azimuthal Plasmaspheric Density Structure and Dynamics Inferred from IMAGE EUV

This study is the first to systematically analyze global images of the density structure of the inner plasmasphere by using data from the EUV imager on the IMAGE satellite.

Dec 1, 2012
Report

SMART TRASH: Study on RFID tags and the recycling industry: Executive Summary of Final Report (D6) in English, with German and French translations

Executive Summary in English, with French, and German translations. The study aims to assess the environmental impact of the RFID tags themselves as well as the environmental advantages that the use of RFID can provide to product lifecycle management.

Jul 11, 2012
Report

How the Recycling Industry Can Manage RFID Tags and Other 'Smart Trash'

This assessment of the environmental impact of Radio Frequency ID (RFID) tags, which are increasingly embedded in a wide range of products, as well as the environmental advantages that the use of RFID can provide to product lifecycle management, aims to inform policymaking in the European Union.

Jul 3, 2012

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RAND Topic:
Earth Sciences

Topic Synonyms:
Geochemistry;
Geosciences

Research conducted by

RAND Social and Economic Well-Being