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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 271 records · Page 15
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Self-Organizing Map-Based Resilience Quantification and Resilient Control of Distribution Systems Under Extreme Events

Due to climate change, extreme weather events are occurring more frequently and with increasing impact. This trend poses a significant challenge for distribution system operators (DSO) to ensure that there is uninterrupted power supply to critical loads in their networks. To embed resilience into DSO's decision-making, resilience needs to be first quantified and then integrated into the system-level optimization. Therefore, this paper first develops a novel self-organizing map (SOM) based method (called SomRes) to quantify the time-varying resilience index of a system that can leverage the powerful classification property of SOMs and removes some of the disadvantages of subjective weight assignment methods. Using SomRes, a resilient resource allocation and operational dispatch algorithm is further developed to enhance system resilience against extreme events by considering the SomRes resilience index directly as the feedback. Here, the proposed resilience quantification approach is benchmarked with a state-of-the-art approach and the efficacy of the proposed resilient dispatch algorithm is demonstrated through several deterministic and statistical case studies on the IEEE 123-bus distribution system. Simulation studies show that the proposed SomRes quantification method is an appropriate indicator of system resilience, and the resilient resource allocation and dispatch strategy can significantly reduce critical load shedding under varying event propagation scenarios.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2021

Redefining Net-Zero Water for Resilient Aquifers

Groundwater has long been a critical source of potable water, supplying one-third of all global water withdrawals and providing strategic reserves in times of drought (Konikow, 2012; Famiglietti, 2014). The risk in relying on groundwater is that it is often pumped at rates far greater than it can be naturally replenished. With increasing population and a changing climate, the depletion of potable water supplies has become an ever-growing concern (Srinivasan et al., 2012). Recently, the concept of “resilience” has been applied to groundwater, leaving many questions to be explored in terms of what resilience should mean for aquifers (Foster and MacDonald, 2014; Grönwall and Oduro-Kwarteng, 2017). The term is commonly used to indicate resilience to impacts of climate change specifically, but here we consider resilience in the context of more general water insecurity. Relatedly, the concept of “sustainable yield” has emerged in an attempt to determine a metric that can ensure the long-term resilience of groundwater systems, but the definition is fraught with inherent uncertainties and its quantification poses challenges (Rudestam and Langridge, 2014; Grönwall and Oduro-Kwarteng, 2017). At the heart of these concepts is a focus on sustainable management of aquifers. A sustainable approach to managing groundwater resources usually involves balancing long-term abstraction with the long-term recharge taking into account the needs for environmental flows and implementing drought-preparedness measures (Robins et al. 2006; Foster and MacDonald, 2014). At a high level, a sustainable balance of groundwater abstraction versus aquifer recharge may be considered “Net Zero” (NZ) or “Net Positive” (NP) in cases where recharge is equal to or in excess of abstraction, respectively. However, NZ/NP water management programs that address these concerns have varied definitions of compliance, which include considerations for the application at hand (ILFI, 2020; USGBC, 2020). Locations with high risk of low or poor water supply may be particularly interested in pursuing NZ/NP water. The AQUEDUCT Water Risk Atlas (World Resources Institute, 2019) indicates long-term availability, providing risk levels for quantity and quality of water at specific locations across the globe, for existing and predicted future conditions. This paper follows the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) NZ water definition adopted by the U.S. Army for use at their installations, including Army Reserve Centers (ARCs). This definition also relates to the U.S. Army’s current focus on water resilience, which includes short-term and long-term availability of water resources.

net zero water, HUC12, Saipan, American Samoa, Mau↗
DOE OSTI2025

Airborne imaging spectroscopy surveys of Arctic and boreal Alaska and northwestern Canada 2017–2023

Since 2015, NASA’s Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) has investigated how climate change impacts the vulnerability and/or resilience of the permafrost-affected ecosystems of Alaska and northwestern Canada. ABoVE conducted extensive surveys with the Next Generation Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS-NG) during 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2022 and with AVIRIS-3 in 2023 to characterize tundra, taiga, peatlands, and wetlands in unprecedented detail. The ABoVE AVIRIS dataset comprises ~1700 individual flight lines covering ~120,000 km 2 with nominal 5 m × 5 m spatial resolution. Data include individual transects to capture important gradients like the tundra-taiga ecotone and maps of up to 10,000 km 2 for key study areas like the Mackenzie Delta. The ABoVE AVIRIS surveys enable diverse ecosystem science, provide crucial benchmark data for validating retrievals from the PACE, PRISMA, and EnMAP satellite sensors and help prepare for the SBG and CHIME missions. This paper guides interested researchers to fully explore the ABoVE AVIRIS spectral imagery and complements our guide to the ABoVE airborne synthetic aperture radar surveys.

Miller, Charles E. [California Institute of Techno↗
DOE OSTI2025

Short-term experimental flooding impacts soil biogeochemistry but not aboveground vegetation in a coastal forest

Rising sea levels and intensifying storms increase flooding pressure on coastal forests, triggering tree mortality, ecosystem transitions, and changes to the coastal carbon cycle. However, the mechanisms that drive coastal forest mortality remain elusive due to the complex interplay between belowground and aboveground processes during flooding disturbances and limitations of observations typically reported in coastal forest mortality studies. We used an ecosystem-scale manipulation to simulate hurricane-level flooding of a coastal forest and explore the individual and interactive impacts of inundation and salinity. Monitoring real-time soil conditions and tree physiological responses, we observed consistent impacts on soil biogeochemistry aligned with belowground drivers of tree mortality, but no consistent responses in aboveground vegetation immediately following flooding. Our findings provide empirically based insight into the earliest stages of a hypothesized forest mortality spiral and offer critical benchmarks for predicting coastal forest resilience in the face of accelerating climate change.

coastal forests↗
DOE OSTI2020

Soil Microbiomes Under Climate Change and Implications for Carbon Cycling

Communities of soil microorganisms (soil microbiomes) play a major role in biogeochemical cycles and support of plant growth. Here we focus primarily on the roles that the soil microbiome plays in cycling soil organic carbon and the impact of climate change on the soil carbon cycle. We first discuss current challenges in understanding the roles carried out by highly diverse and heterogeneous soil microbiomes and review existing knowledge gaps in understanding how climate change will impact soil carbon cycling by the soil microbiome. Because soil microbiome stability is a key metric to understand as the climate changes, we discuss different aspects of stability, including resistance, resilience, and functional redundancy. We then review recent research pertaining to the impact of major climate perturbations on the soil microbiome and the functions that they carry out. Finally, we review new experimental methodologies and modeling approaches under development that should facilitate our understanding of the complex nature of the soil microbiome to better predict its future responses to climate change.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Deployment Readiness Framework Subtask 1.2 Outreach Report: Common Themes Among Clean Energy Transition Technical Assistance Projects

Island and remote coastal communities face an uncertain energy future. These communities build, operate, and maintain energy infrastructure in extremely challenging environments and pay the highest prices for electricity and fuels. Moreover, climate change increasingly affects grid reliability, resiliency, and, ultimately, the cost of energy. Marine energy could address many of the challenges faced by island and remote coastal communities, but these communities often have limited resources and capacity to invest in complex energy and coastal resilience issues. The Deployment Readiness Framework (DRF) is being developed to support community-driven energy transitions in these coastal communities and to better understand the readiness of communities for marine energy demonstration and operation. Led by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the DRF builds on the Energy Transitions Initiative Partnership Project (ETIPP) supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy's Water Power Technologies Office. This report details the results from the stakeholder outreach and engagement effort linked to the previously reported literature review.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗
DOE OSTI2024

Accelerating Residential Building Decarbonization: Market Guidance to Scale Zero-Carbon-Aligned Buildings

The US buildings sector faces a confluence of challenges, including a clear necessity to decarbonize the built environment to mitigate climate change, a need for greater resilience in the face of more frequent extreme weather events, a dearth of affordable housing, and flat or declining construction productivity that hinders the sector’s ability to adapt. Better data and guidance on new and existing residential buildings can outline paths forward for the market. These can help clarify stakeholder priorities and highlight applications for new (or newly relevant) technologies and approaches that have the potential to break traditional barriers, bridge technical gaps, reduce costs, create added value, and enable decarbonization of the national residential building stock. Decarbonizing the national building stock before 2050 will require massive increases in zero-carbon retrofits and new construction in this decade. By 2030, whole-home retrofit activity must increase several fold, and virtually all new construction will need to be zero carbon. It is difficult to imagine achieving this transformation without substantial changes in how buildings are constructed and retrofitted.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2024

NREL in Alaska [Slides]

This publication provides an overview of NREL's active projects in Alaska.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Synergies and Entanglement in Secondary Cell Wall Development and Abiotic Stress Response in Trees

A major challenge for sustainable food, fuel, and fiber production is simultaneous genetic improvement of yield, biomass quality, and resilience to episodic environmental stress and climate change. For Populus and other forest trees, quality traits involve alterations in the secondary cell wall (SCW) of wood for traditional uses, as well as for a growing diversity of biofuels and bioproducts. Alterations in wood properties that are desirable for specific end uses can have negative effects on growth and stress tolerance. Understanding of the diverse roles of SCW genes is necessary for the genetic improvement of fast-growing, short-rotation trees that face perennial challenges in their growth and development. Here, we review recent progress into the synergies and antagonisms of SCW development and abiotic stress responses, particularly, the roles of transcription factors, SCW biogenesis genes, and paralog evolution.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Amazon drought resilience – emerging results point to new empirical needs

Will climate change turn tropical forests from a carbon sink to a source (Pan et al., 2011)? Tropical forests cycle more carbon, water, and energy than any other biome (Bonan, 2008). The Amazon is the largest tropical forest, spanning one-third of South America, and any perturbation in its function has repercussions on the global climate. Mild and severe droughts in the Amazon are predicted to double and triple in area, respectively, by 2100, while the area under wet extremes will increase (Duffy et al., 2015). Our understanding of the role of plants' hydrological environments in determining their drought response, however, is limited (Chitra-Tarak et al., 2018, 2021). An important review by Costa et al. (2023; pp. 714–733) published in this issue of New Phytologist highlights that shallow-water table (WT) forests constitute c. 50% of the Amazon and may act as hydrological refugia during droughts, yet they have been neglected in Amazon forest research to date. Emerging results suggest that the shallow-WT forests that dominate the Amazon basin may increase in productivity under moderate droughts due to relief from hypoxia, suggesting a potential buffer from drought relative to deeper WT forests (Fig. 1). During severe droughts, however, shallow-WT forests may be vulnerable to collapse due to drought-intolerant traits. Addressing the underrepresentation of relatively drought-resilient shallow-WT forests in the Amazon's forest inventories may help resolve the much-debated incongruence in recent studies of the Amazon's drought resilience. Data from forest inventories (biased toward deep-WT forests) indicate that the Amazon's carbon sink is declining, partially because of drought impacts (Phillips et al., 2009; Brienen et al., 2015), whereas basin-wide satellite-based measures of gross primary productivity, which include shallow-WT forests, indicate varied regional responses to droughts (Saleska et al., 2007; Brando et al., 2010). Costa et al.'s (2023) descriptive insights of the intricate balance of geology, topography, hydrology, vegetation, and drought on ecosystem function, as well as their conceptual predictive framework, are useful for developing new empirical research in these understudied ecosystems and improving Earth system models.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Building Envelope Characteristics in Cold Climates

Prescriptive guidelines for thermal insulation in the design of buildings in cold climates have traditionally been derived by a holistic consideration of climatic factors, energy policy, environmental policy, and economics. The differences in thermal barrier requirements in buildings across the arctic and subarctic regions of the world are influenced as much by the differing priorities of the governing bodies that set these requirements as by actual physical demands and conditions. Usually, national requirements for building envelope characteristics such as thermal insulation values, building envelope airtightness, vapor permeability, building mass, and detailing are based on economics, durability, and environmental considerations. Consideration of thermal energy system resilience provides a new paradigm through which to view the optimization of these parameters. The paper describes specifics of construction in cold climates; summarizes best practice requirements for the building envelope characteristics for buildings located in cold and arctic climate of the United States, Canada, and Scandinavian countries; provides some details illustrating how to implement these requirements; and compares the effects of different levels of building envelope efficiency and building mass on indoor air temperature decay when heat supply is interrupted. The paper also presents results from experts' discussions during the consultation forum "Thermal Energy Systems Resilience in Cold/Arctic Climates" (ERDC 2020) and research conducted under the IEA EBC Annex 73, the Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP) Project "Technologies Integration to Achieve Resilient, Low-Energy Military Installations," and U.S. Army Program project 633734T1500 under Military Engineering Technology Demonstration. The paper complements the Cold-Climate Design Guide (ASHRAE 2015) with a focus on the resilience of thermal energy systems.

Arctic↗
DOE OSTI2022

Valuing Resilience Benefits of Microgrids for an Interconnected Island Distribution System

Extreme climate-driven events such as hurricanes, floods, and wildfires are becoming more intense in areas exposed to these threats, requiring approaches to improve the resilience of the electrical infrastructure serving these communities. Long-duration outages caused by such high impact events propagate to economic, health, and social consequences for communities. As essential service providers, electric utilities are mandated to provide safe, economical and reliable electricity to their customers. The public is becoming less tolerant to these more frequent disruptions, especially in view of technological advances that are intended to improve power quality, reliability and resilience. One promising solution is state-of-the-art microgrids and the advanced controls employed therein. This paper presents and demonstrates an approach to technoeconomic analysis that can be used to value the avoided economic consequences of grid resilience investments, as applied to the islands of Vieques and Culebra in Puerto Rico. This valuation methodology can support policies to incorporate resilience value into any investment decision-making process, especially those which serve the public interest.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2020

Ecosystem-Level Energy and Water Budgets Are Resilient to Canopy Mortality in Sparse Semiarid Biomes

Climate-driven woody vegetation mortality is a defining feature of semiarid biomes that drives fundamental changes in ecosystem structure. However, the observed impacts of woody mortality on ecosystem-scale energy and water budgets and the responses of surviving vegetation are highly variable among studies in water-limited environments. A previous girdling manipulation experiment in a piñon-juniper woodland suggested that although ecosystem-scale evapotranspiration was not altered by large-scale piñon mortality, soil water content decreased and the surviving juniper experienced greater water stress than juniper in an undisturbed woodland. Here we experimentally explored to what extent mortality-induced changes in energy balance components can explain these results. We compared energy fluxes measured above two adjacent piñon-juniper woodlands where piñon girdling was implemented at one site and the other subsequently experienced large-scale natural piñon mortality. We found that the mortality-induced decrease in canopy area was not sufficient to alter surface reflectance, roughness, and partitioning between energy budget components at both sites. A radiative transfer model estimated that because of the sparse premortality canopy, surface reflectance is more sensitive to a large increase in understory leaf area than further loss of crown area. Increased water stress in the remaining juniper following both mortality events can be explained by an increase in radiation on the ground that promoted higher soil temperature and evaporation. We found similar responses of ecosystem and tree-level functions to both girdling and natural mortality. This suggests that girdling is an appropriate approach to explore the impact of tree mortality on ecosystem structure, function, and energy balance.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Water Temperature, Prey Concentration and Salmonid Density Influence Daily Growth of Wild Juvenile Salmonids in Tributaries of the Upper Salmon River, Idaho ( USA )

ABSTRACT Theory, experiments and field studies indicate that the somatic growth rate of freshwater consumers is shaped by the individual, additive and multiplicative effects of multiple factors, including consumer size and condition, temperature, prey resources and biotic interactions. While our understanding of how these factors affect wild populations of freshwater consumers is improving, the topic remains poorly studied, especially with respect to mobile species. Here, we report on an 8‐year, seven‐stream ( n = 49 stream‐year combinations) observational study examining the individual and interactive effects of invertebrate prey concentration (F, mg/m 3 ), mean daily water temperature (T, °C) and juvenile Chinook salmon ( Oncorhynchus tshawytscha ) density (D, fish/100 m 2 ) on summer daily growth rates (%/d) of mobile, anadromous, juvenile Chinook salmon (age‐0+, n = 382) and sub‐yearling (age‐0+, n = 61) and yearling (age‐1+) steelhead trout ( O. mykiss , n = 70) rearing in cold (mean daily summer: 12.1°C, range: 4.2°C–16.7°C) mountain tributaries of the Salmon River basin in central Idaho (USA). AIC c model selection indicated that daily juvenile salmonid growth positively correlated with water temperature, prey biomass concentration, local juvenile Chinook density and the interaction between water temperature and food but with species and age‐specific differences. Water temperature was a covariate in all top‐ranked models, with daily growth (%/day) rate increasing (0.05%–0.23%/d) linearly with mean daily summer water temperature. In addition to a direct positive relationship with daily growth rate, there was evidence that prey concentration positively interacted with water temperature to accelerate daily growth (F × T). The positive relationship between juvenile salmonid daily growth rate and juvenile Chinook density is difficult to explain and could result from confounding factors. The individual success observed in these streams may contribute to population‐level benefits for the focal consumers, as prey‐rich, warm summers may result in larger individuals with higher energy reserves at the end of the summer/autumn growing season, contributing to improved overwinter survival. Our results, taken in combination with evidence from models, experiments and observational studies, have climate change implications. Current and predicted increases in water temperature will necessitate higher rates of prey consumption by aquatic ectothermic consumers to offset accelerated metabolic demands. Thus, to improve the resilience of mobile freshwater consumers in a warming climate, we suggest that natural resource managers not only consider physical and chemical habitat conditions but also biotic conditions, including the spatiotemporal quantity and quality of prey resources.

Kiffney, Peter. M. [Fish Ecology, Northwest Fisher↗
DOE OSTI2025

Using supervised machine-learning approaches to understand abiotic stress tolerance and design resilient crops

Abiotic stresses such as drought, heat, cold, salinity and flooding significantly impact plant growth, development and productivity. As the planet has warmed, these abiotic stresses have increased in frequency and intensity, affecting the global food supply and making it imperative to develop stress-resilient crops. In the past 20 years, the development of omics technologies has contributed to the growth of datasets for plants grown under a wide range of abiotic environments. Integration of these rapidly growing data using machine-learning (ML) approaches can complement existing breeding efforts by providing insights into the mechanisms underlying plant responses to stressful conditions, which can be used to guide the design of resilient crops. In this review, we introduce ML approaches and provide examples of how researchers use these approaches to predict molecular activities, gene functions and genotype responses under stressful conditions. Finally, we consider the potential and challenges of using such approaches to enable the design of crops that are better suited to a changing environment. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Crops under stress: can we mitigate the impacts of climate change on agriculture and launch the ‘Resilience Revolution’?’.

abiotic stress↗
DOE OSTI2025

Non-stationary precipitation design standards for stormwater infrastructure modernization at USAF installations

The resilience of defense infrastructure systems to a changing climate is critical for national security. Climate induced recurrent flooding is already impacting over 20 U.S. Air Force installations, underscoring the urgency of revisiting precipitation standards and stormwater infrastructure design. Despite growing scientific knowledge and an expanding set of tools for updating outdated precipitation standards based on the assumption of climate stationarity, the adoption of climate informed analyses remain limited in practice. This study utilizes an existing framework to update Intensity (or Depth)-Duration-Frequency (DDF) curves using an ensemble of future climate projections. Change factors in precipitation estimates are derived and applied to six USAF installations across the U.S. The analysis is further extended to evaluate the implications of climate-informed DDFs on stormwater infrastructure performance and flood analysis at Tyndall AFB. Results indicate that the current design precipitation estimates are likely to become obsolete in all six USAF bases by the end of the century. The wide range of change factors across 32 GCM ensembles highlights the need to integrate uncertainty and evolving scientific data into infrastructure planning. The study also finds that the impacts of a changing climate vary spatially and temporally, emphasizing the value of localized analysis for infrastructure decision-making. The work advances ongoing DoD and societal efforts to implement adaptation strategies aimed at enhancing infrastructure resilience.

Intensity-duration-frequency curves↗
DOE OSTI2022

Linking soil phosphorus with forest litterfall resistance and resilience to cyclone disturbance: A pantropical meta-analysis

While tropical cyclone regimes are shifting with climate change, the mechanisms underpinning the resistance (ability to withstand disturbance-induced change) and resilience (capacity to return to pre-disturbance reference) of tropical forest litterfall to cyclones remain largely unexplored pantropically. Single-site studies in Australia and Hawaii suggest that litterfall on low-phosphorus (P) soils is more resistant and less resilient to cyclones. Here, we conducted a meta-analysis to investigate the pantropical importance of total soil P in mediating forest litterfall resistance and resilience to 22 tropical cyclones. We evaluated cyclone-induced and post-cyclone litterfall mass (g/m 2 /day), and P and nitrogen (N) fluxes (mg/m 2 /day) and concentrations (mg/g), all indicators of ecosystem function and essential for nutrient cycling. Across 73 case studies in Australia, Guadeloupe, Hawaii, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Taiwan, total litterfall mass flux increased from ~2.5 ± 0.3 to 22.5 ± 3 g/m 2 /day due to cyclones, with large variation among studies. Litterfall P and N fluxes post-cyclone represented ~5% and 10% of the average annual fluxes, respectively. Post-cyclone leaf litterfall N and P concentrations were 21.6 ± 1.2% and 58.6 ± 2.3% higher than pre-cyclone means. Mixed-effects models determined that soil P negatively moderated the pantropical litterfall resistance to cyclones, with a 100 mg P/kg increase in soil P corresponding to a 32% to 38% decrease in resistance. Based on 33% of the resistance case studies, total litterfall mass flux reached pre-disturbance levels within one-year post-disturbance. A GAMM indicated that soil P, gale wind duration and time post-cyclone jointly moderate the short-term resilience of total litterfall, with the nature of the relationship between resilience and soil P contingent on time and wind duration. Across pantropical forests observed to date, our results indicate that litterfall resistance and resilience in the face of intensifying cyclones will be partially determined by total soil P.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Multi-dimensional resilience: A quantitative exploration of disease outcomes and economic, political, and social resilience to the COVID-19 pandemic in six countries

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted a need for better understanding of countries’ vulnerability and resilience to not only pandemics but also disasters, climate change, and other systemic shocks. A comprehensive characterization of vulnerability can inform efforts to improve infrastructure and guide disaster response in the future. In this paper, we propose a data-driven framework for studying countries’ vulnerability and resilience to incident disasters across multiple dimensions of society. To illustrate this methodology, we leverage the rich data landscape surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic to characterize observed resilience for several countries (USA, Brazil, India, Sweden, New Zealand, and Israel) as measured by pandemic impacts across a variety of social, economic, and political domains. We also assess how observed responses and outcomes (i.e., resilience) of the COVID-19 pandemic are associated with pre-pandemic characteristics or vulnerabilities, including (1) prior risk for adverse pandemic outcomes due to population density and age and (2) the systems in place prior to the pandemic that may impact the ability to respond to the crisis, including health infrastructure and economic capacity. Our work demonstrates the importance of viewing vulnerability and resilience in a multi-dimensional way, where a country’s resources and outcomes related to vulnerability and resilience can differ dramatically across economic, political, and social domains. This work also highlights key gaps in our current understanding about vulnerability and resilience and a need for data-driven, context-specific assessments of disaster vulnerability in the future.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗