No abstract

Experts recommend reporting environmental exposure results back to research participants and communities, yet environmental health researchers need further guidance to improve the practice of reporting back. We present the results of a workshop developed to identify pertinent issues and areas for action in reporting back environmental health research results. Thirty-five attendees participated, brainstorming responses to the prompt: “What are some specific issues that are relevant to reporting back research results to individuals or the larger community?”, and then grouping responses by similarity and rating their importance. Based on a combined theoretical foundation of grounded theory and qualitative content analysis, we used concept mapping to develop a collective understanding of the issues. Visual maps of the participants’ responses were created using nonmetric multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis. The resulting concept map provided a spatial depiction of five issue areas: Effective Communication Strategies, Community Knowledge and Concerns, Uncertainty, Empowering Action, and Institutional Review and Oversight (listed from highest to lowest rating). Through these efforts, we disentangled the complex issues affecting how and whether environmental health research results are reported back to participants and communities, by identifying five distinct themes to guide recommendations and action. Engaging community partners in the process of reporting back emerged as a unifying global theme, which could improve how researchers report back research results by understanding community context to develop effective communication methods and address uncertainty, the ability to act, and institutional concerns about beneficence and justice.

Despite lakes being a key part of the global water cycle and a crucial water resource, there is limited understanding of whether regional or lake-specific factors control water storage variations in small lakes. Here, we study groups of small, unregulated lakes in North Carolina, Washington, Illinois, and Wisconsin, USA using lake level measurements gathered by citizen scientists and lake surface area measurements from optical satellite imagery. We show the lake level measurements to be highly accurate when compared to automated gauges (mean absolute error = 1.6 cm). We compare variations in lake water storage between pairs of lakes within these four states. On average, water storage variations in lake pairs across all study regions are moderately positively correlated (ρ = 0.49) with substantial spread in the degree of correlation. The distance between lake pairs and the extent to which their changes in volume are correlated show a weak but statistically significant negative relationship. Our results indicate that, on regional scales, distance is not a primary factor governing lake water storage patterns, which suggests that other, perhaps lakes-specific, factors must also play important roles.

The volume of water stored in seasonal wetlands is a fundamental but difficult to measure variable for developing a physical understanding of wetland behavior. For seasonal wetlands that are a major source of water for rice and fish production, this physical understanding is key to planning for water-food security and ecosystem services. This study quantified variations in volumetric storage for the numerous seasonal wetlands of northeastern Bangladesh, locally known as "haors." These haors receive transboundary runoff from densely vegetated and mountainous terrain in India and face persistent monsoonal cloud cover as they become full. We estimated volumetric storage for 13 haors by using extensive remote sensing data on water surface extent and elevation that was complemented with citizen-contributed gauge data. Assuming a trapezoidal bathymetry, an area-volume relationship was developed for selected haors. This relationship was assumed to be valid for extrapolating volumetric estimations over all the haors in the region. Results suggested that as haors get filled with the onset of monsoon rains, total estimated storage relative to the lowest observable level varied from 6.5 (±0.4) km 3 in May to 30.9 (±2.0) km 3 in July (peak of monsoon). Choosing a rectangular bathymetry can lead to 47% higher estimates compared to trapezoidal cross section. Estimating this intra-annual/interannual increase in storage is important for the region to plan water management policies that balance the human and ecosystem needs. Our analytical approach has potential for application to wetlands worldwide in light of the upcoming Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission.