Extreme Weather, Chemical Facilities, and Vulnerable Communities in the U.S. Gulf Coast: A Disastrous Combination

Anenberg, Susan C.; Kalman, Casey

doi:10.1029/2019gh000197

Cited by 19 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Health impacts from flooding can be physical or psychological. Physical outcomes include gastrointestinal illnesses, respiratory illnesses, skin rashes and infections and poisoning from exposure to chemical irritants [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 ]. Psychological distress and trauma are common among people who have experienced sudden flooding as a result of extreme weather events [ 8 , 9 , 10 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recurrent Home Flooding in Detroit, MI 2012–2020: Results of a Household Survey

Larson

Gronlund

Thompson

et al. 2021

IJERPH

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Household flooding has wide ranging social, economic and public health impacts particularly for people in resource poor communities. The determinants and public health outcomes of recurrent home flooding in urban contexts, however, are not well understood. A household survey was used to assess neighborhood and household level determinants of recurrent home flooding in Detroit, MI. Survey activities were conducted from 2012 to 2020. Researchers collected information on past flooding, housing conditions and public health outcomes. Using the locations of homes, a “hot spot” analysis of flooding was performed to find areas of high and low risk. Survey data were linked to environmental and neighborhood data and associations were tested using regression methods. 4803 households participated in the survey. Flooding information was available for 3842 homes. Among these, 2085 (54.26%) reported experiencing pluvial flooding. Rental occupied units were more likely to report flooding than owner occupied homes (Odd ratio (OR) 1.72 [95% Confidence interval (CI) 1.49, 1.98]). Housing conditions such as poor roof quality and cracks in basement walls influenced home flooding risk. Homes located in census tracts with increased percentages of owner occupied units (vs. rentals) had a lower odds of flooding (OR 0.92 [95% (CI) 0.86, 0.98]). Household factors were found the be more predictive of flooding than neighborhood factors in both univariate and multivariate analyses. Flooding and housing conditions associated with home flooding were associated with asthma cases. Recurrent home flooding is far more prevalent than previously thought. Programs that support recovery and which focus on home improvement to prevent flooding, particularly by landlords, might benefit the public health. These results draw awareness and urgency to problems of urban flooding and public health in other areas of the country confronting the compounding challenges of aging infrastructure, disinvestment and climate change.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recurrent Home Flooding in Detroit, MI 2012–2020: Results of a Household Survey

Larson

Gronlund

Thompson

et al. 2021

IJERPH

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“…Mental impacts from flooding and extreme precipitation include psychological distress and trauma [23][24][25]. Physical outcomes are numerous but include gastrointestinal illnesses, skin rashes, infections, and poisoning from exposure to chemical irritants dispersed by flood events [26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. Extreme weather and flood events have also been shown to increase transmission of bacterial respiratory infections through inhalation of waterborne bacteria such as Legionella [33] and zoonotic pathogen infections as a result of increased rat populations [34].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate Change Related Catastrophic Rainfall Events and Non-Communicable Respiratory Disease: A Systematic Review of the Literature

Peirce

Espira

Larson

2022

Climate

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Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation events, the impacts of which disproportionately impact urban populations. Pluvial flooding and flooding related sewer backups are thought to result in an increase in potentially hazardous human-pathogen encounters. However, the extent and nature of associations between flooding events and non-communicable respiratory diseases such as chronic bronchitis, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are not well understood. This research seeks to characterize the state of research on flooding and NCRDs through a systematic review of the scientific literature. We conducted a systematic search of PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus for published scholarly research papers using the terms flooding, monsoon, and tropical storm with terms for common NCRDs such as asthma, COPD, and chronic bronchitis. Papers were included if they covered research studies on individuals with defined outcomes of flooding events. We excluded review papers, case studies, and opinion pieces. We retrieved 200 articles from PubMed, 268 from Web of Science and 203 from Scopus which comprised 345 unique papers. An initial review of abstracts yielded 38 candidate papers. A full text review of each left 16 papers which were included for the review. All papers except for one found a significant association between a severe weather event and increased risk for at least one of the NCRDs included in this research. Our findings further suggest that extreme weather events may worsen pre-existing respiratory conditions and increase the risk of development of asthma. Future work should focus on more precisely defining measure of health outcomes using validated tools to describe asthma and COPD exacerbations. Research efforts should also work to collect granular data on patients’ health status and family history and assess possible confounding and mediating factors such as neighborhood water mitigation infrastructure, housing conditions, pollen counts, and other environmental variables.

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“…Aquatic systems sustain a multitude of fundamental ecosystem services that are vulnerable to perturbations. Drinking water supply, irrigation, and recreation are known to be temporarily disrupted by pulse perturbations of different natures as caused by extreme weather events (Khan et al, 2015 ; Ummenhofer & Meehl, 2017 ; WHO, 2011 ), waterborne diseases (Cann et al, 2013 ), and chemical spills (Anenberg & Kalman, 2019 ; Sengul et al, 2012 ). Although the most variate stochastic events have always impacted ecosystems, the frequency, intensity, and duration of weather‐related pulse perturbations are predicted to increase in a changing world (Bell et al, 2018 ; Harris et al, 2018 ; Woolway et al, 2021 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phytoplankton responses to repeated pulse perturbations imposed on a trend of increasing eutrophication

Stelzer

Mesman

Gsell

et al. 2022

Ecology and Evolution

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While eutrophication remains one of the main pressures acting on freshwater ecosystems, the prevalence of anthropogenic and nature‐induced stochastic pulse perturbations is predicted to increase due to climate change. Despite all our knowledge on the effects of eutrophication and stochastic events operating in isolation, we know little about how eutrophication may affect the response and recovery of aquatic ecosystems to pulse perturbations. There are multiple ways in which eutrophication and pulse perturbations may interact to induce potentially synergic changes in the system, for instance, by increasing the amount of nutrients released after a pulse perturbation. Here, we performed a controlled press and pulse perturbation experiment using mesocosms filled with natural lake water to address how eutrophication modulates the phytoplankton response to sequential mortality pulse perturbations; and what is the combined effect of press and pulse perturbations on the resistance and resilience of the phytoplankton community. Our experiment showed that eutrophication increased the absolute scale of the chlorophyll‐ a response to pulse perturbations but did not change the proportion of the response relative to its pre‐event condition (resistance). Moreover, the capacity of the community to recover from pulse perturbations was significantly affected by the cumulative effect of sequential pulse perturbations but not by eutrophication itself. By the end of the experiment, some mesocosms could not recover from pulse perturbations, irrespective of the trophic state induced by the press perturbation. While not resisting or recovering any less from pulse perturbations, phytoplankton communities from eutrophying systems showed chlorophyll‐ a levels much higher than non‐eutrophying ones. This implies that the higher absolute response to stochastic pulse perturbations in a eutrophying system may increase the already significant risks for water quality (e.g., algal blooms in drinking water supplies), even if the relative scale of the response to pulse perturbations between eutrophying and non‐eutrophying systems remains the same.

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Extreme Weather, Chemical Facilities, and Vulnerable Communities in the U.S. Gulf Coast: A Disastrous Combination

Cited by 19 publications

References 17 publications

Recurrent Home Flooding in Detroit, MI 2012–2020: Results of a Household Survey

Recurrent Home Flooding in Detroit, MI 2012–2020: Results of a Household Survey

Climate Change Related Catastrophic Rainfall Events and Non-Communicable Respiratory Disease: A Systematic Review of the Literature

Phytoplankton responses to repeated pulse perturbations imposed on a trend of increasing eutrophication

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