Gillian L. Galford

CONTEXT: Food systems support the nutritional needs and livelihoods of a growing population. Sustainably managing food systems within social and ecological bounds requires accessible and accurate data. Sustainability indicator frameworks provide a structure for curating these data, and regional approaches are particularly relevant for decision making at the state and local levels. OBJECTIVE: To assess data availability, quality, and trends in the Northeast food system, we conducted an inventory and analysis of publicly available datasets representing five dimensions of sustainability. METHODS: Data were sourced from federal, academic, and non-profit repositories, and metrics were selected to best represent the region at the county level. We used correlations and spatial regressions to assess interactions among metrics and trends over time. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: We found key gaps in the Economic, Production, and Social dimensions. Some data were only available at state level, while monitoring for some metrics began recently, precluding analysis of trends over time. We identified 62 metrics to represent the framework indicators, but only 31 were available at the county level with multiple time points. Of these, half were improving, and one third were declining. Trends in the Production and Economic dimensions were neutral to positive, while the other dimensions were mixed.SIGNIFICANCE: Access to data is critical in improving regional food system sustainability. The gaps we identified should serve as a road map in developing monitoring programs. The curation of datasets that are consistent, interoperable, and accessible, is crucial in monitoring food systems and developing policies and interventions to support sustainability.

Remotely sensed Earth science information (ESI) has become increasingly central to addressing global challenges, yet its societal value, i.e., the difference ESI makes in real-world decisions and outcomes, is rarely quantified. In this study, we systematically map peer-reviewed literature that explicitly assesses the societal value of ESI across instrumental, intrinsic, and relational value types, and the diversity of approaches used to assess those values. Drawing from 13,823 publications across Scopus, Web of Science, and a curated library of ESI valuation studies, we identify 171 studies that applied ESI in a decision context and used a valuation method to compare outcomes with and without ESI. The majority of these studies employed decision analysis methods (e.g., Value of Information, Cost–Benefit Analysis), focusing primarily on quantitative instrumental values (e.g., profit, crop yield, lives saved), particularly in agricultural contexts. A smaller set of studies applied preference elicitation methods (e.g., stated preference, surveys, interviews, focus groups) to capture qualitative benefits and relational values including quality of life improvements, empowerment, and procedural justice. Many excluded studies demonstrated scientific value of ESI but did not explicitly translate that into societal value, revealing the need for a more systematic approach to ESI valuation. By promoting a more inclusive, interdisciplinary, and flexible portfolio of valuation methods, we aim to expand our understanding of the societal benefits of ESI to help guide investment in future missions, enhance public support, and ensure that science and policy goals are well aligned.

With rising global temperatures come greater temperature and precipitation variability, contributing to more frequent and severe climate hazards that can upend lives and displace families. Lower-income households are often disproportionately impacted, so it is important to understand how climate hazards influence human migration patterns across income levels. There has been limited research on climate migration within the United States (US), particularly with respect to its economic impacts, like the associated transfer of household resources and incomes, or “income migration.” Here, we investigate spatial and temporal patterns of US domestic migration across income brackets between 2011 and 2021. We then investigate the role of climate hazards in shaping migration and income migration across US counties using panel data for the years 1995–2021. We found that lower-income households moved at higher rates overall but had less net migration across state lines, while higher-income households moved in a more directed fashion towards the most popular migration destinations. We also found an uptick in migration and income migration after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly among higher income brackets. Property damage from climate hazards had small but significant relationships with migration. More destructive hurricanes were associated with reduced net migration and income migration nationally and in the South and Northeast. Flood damage was associated with reduced net income migration (greater outflow and/or reduced inflow of aggregate household income from migration) but had minimal effects on net migration overall, suggesting higher-income households (whose moves have a larger impact on net income migration) may be more likely to leave or avoid counties impacted by flooding. This work provides valuable new insights on the roles of both climate hazards and income levels in shaping domestic migration.

To understand the erosivity of the eastern portion of the Laurentide Ice Sheet and the isotopic characteristics of the sediment it transported, we sampled buried sand from deglacial features (eskers and deltas) across eastern Canada (n = 10), a landscape repeatedly covered by the Quebec-Labrador Ice Dome. We measured concentrations of ¹⁰Be and ²⁶Al in quartz isolated from the sediment and, after correcting for sub-surface cosmic-ray exposure after Holocene deglaciation, used these results to determine nuclide concentrations at the time the ice sheet deposited the sediment. To determine what percentage of sediment moving through streams and rivers currently draining the field area was derived from incision of thick glacial deposits as opposed to surface erosion, we used ¹⁰Be and ²⁶Al as tracers by collecting and analyzing modern river sand sourced from Holocene-exposed landscapes (n = 11). We find that all ten deglacial sediment samples contain measurable concentrations of ¹⁰Be and ²⁶Al equivalent on average to several thousand years of surface exposure – after correction, based on sampling depth, for Holocene nuclide production after deposition. Error-weighted averages (1 standard deviation errors) of measured ²⁶Al/¹⁰Be ratios for both corrected deglacial (6.1 ± 1.2) and modern sediment samples (6.6 ± 0.5) are slightly lower than the production ratio at high latitudes (7.3 ± 0.3) implying burial and preferential decay of ²⁶Al, the shorter-lived nuclide. However, five deglacial samples collected closer to the center of the former Quebec-Labrador Ice Dome have much lower corrected ²⁶Al/¹⁰Be ratios (5.2 ± 0.8) than five samples collected closer to the former ice margins (7.0 ± 0.7). Modern river sand contains on average about 1.75 times the concentration of both nuclides compared to deglacial sediment corrected for Holocene exposure. The ubiquitous presence of ¹⁰Be and ²⁶Al in eastern Quebec deglacial sediment is consistent with many older-than-expected exposure ages, reported here and by others, for bedrock outcrops and boulders once covered by the Quebec-Labrador Ice Dome. Together, these data suggest that glacial erosion and sediment transport in eastern Canada were insufficient to remove material containing cosmogenic nuclides produced during prior interglacial periods both from at least some bedrock outcrops and from all glacially transported sediment we sampled. Near the center of the Quebec-Labrador Ice Dome, ratios of ²⁶Al/¹⁰Be are below those characteristic of surface production at high latitude. This suggests burial of the glacially transported sediment for at least many hundreds of thousands of years and the possibility that ice at the center of the Quebec-Labrador Ice Dome survived many interglacials when more distal ice melted away.

To understand the erosivity of the eastern portion of the Laurentide Ice Sheet and the isotopic characteristics of the sediment it transported, we sampled buried sand from deglacial features (eskers and deltas) across eastern Canada (n = 10), a landscape repeatedly covered by the Quebec-Labrador Ice Dome. We measured concentrations of ¹⁰Be and ²⁶Al in quartz isolated from the sediment and, after correcting for sub-surface cosmic-ray exposure after Holocene deglaciation, used these results to determine nuclide concentrations at the time the ice sheet deposited the sediment. To determine what percentage of sediment moving through streams and rivers currently draining the field area was derived from incision of thick glacial deposits as opposed to surface erosion, we used ¹⁰Be and ²⁶Al as tracers by collecting and analyzing modern river sand sourced from Holocene-exposed landscapes (n = 11). We find that all ten deglacial sediment samples contain measurable concentrations of ¹⁰Be and ²⁶Al equivalent on average to several thousand years of surface exposure – after correction, based on sampling depth, for Holocene nuclide production after deposition. Error-weighted averages (1 standard deviation errors) of measured ²⁶Al/¹⁰Be ratios for both corrected deglacial (6.1 ± 1.2) and modern sediment samples (6.6 ± 0.5) are slightly lower than the production ratio at high latitudes (7.3 ± 0.3) implying burial and preferential decay of ²⁶Al, the shorter-lived nuclide. However, five deglacial samples collected closer to the center of the former Quebec-Labrador Ice Dome have much lower corrected ²⁶Al/¹⁰Be ratios (5.2 ± 0.8) than five samples collected closer to the former ice margins (7.0 ± 0.7). Modern river sand contains on average about 1.75 times the concentration of both nuclides compared to deglacial sediment corrected for Holocene exposure. The ubiquitous presence of ¹⁰Be and ²⁶Al in eastern Quebec deglacial sediment is consistent with many older-than-expected exposure ages, reported here and by others, for bedrock outcrops and boulders once covered by the Quebec-Labrador Ice Dome. Together, these data suggest that glacial erosion and sediment transport in eastern Canada were insufficient to remove material containing cosmogenic nuclides produced during prior interglacial periods both from at least some bedrock outcrops and from all glacially transported sediment we sampled. Near the center of the Quebec-Labrador Ice Dome, ratios of ²⁶Al/¹⁰Be are below those characteristic of surface production at high latitude. This suggests burial of the glacially transported sediment for at least many hundreds of thousands of years and the possibility that ice at the center of the Quebec-Labrador Ice Dome survived many interglacials when more distal ice melted away.

To understand the erosivity of the eastern portion of the Laurentide Ice Sheet and the isotopic characteristics of the sediment it transported, we sampled buried sand from deglacial features (eskers and deltas) across eastern Canada (n = 10), a landscape repeatedly covered by the Quebec-Labrador Ice Dome. We measured concentrations of ¹⁰Be and ²⁶Al in quartz isolated from the sediment and, after correcting for sub-surface cosmic-ray exposure after Holocene deglaciation, used these results to determine nuclide concentrations at the time the ice sheet deposited the sediment. To determine what percentage of sediment moving through streams and rivers currently draining the field area was derived from incision of thick glacial deposits as opposed to surface erosion, we used ¹⁰Be and ²⁶Al as tracers by collecting and analyzing modern river sand sourced from Holocene-exposed landscapes (n = 11). We find that all ten deglacial sediment samples contain measurable concentrations of ¹⁰Be and ²⁶Al equivalent on average to several thousand years of surface exposure – after correction, based on sampling depth, for Holocene nuclide production after deposition. Error-weighted averages (1 standard deviation errors) of measured ²⁶Al/¹⁰Be ratios for both corrected deglacial (6.1 ± 1.2) and modern sediment samples (6.6 ± 0.5) are slightly lower than the production ratio at high latitudes (7.3 ± 0.3) implying burial and preferential decay of ²⁶Al, the shorter-lived nuclide. However, five deglacial samples collected closer to the center of the former Quebec-Labrador Ice Dome have much lower corrected ²⁶Al/¹⁰Be ratios (5.2 ± 0.8) than five samples collected closer to the former ice margins (7.0 ± 0.7). Modern river sand contains on average about 1.75 times the concentration of both nuclides compared to deglacial sediment corrected for Holocene exposure. The ubiquitous presence of ¹⁰Be and ²⁶Al in eastern Quebec deglacial sediment is consistent with many older-than-expected exposure ages, reported here and by others, for bedrock outcrops and boulders once covered by the Quebec-Labrador Ice Dome. Together, these data suggest that glacial erosion and sediment transport in eastern Canada were insufficient to remove material containing cosmogenic nuclides produced during prior interglacial periods both from at least some bedrock outcrops and from all glacially transported sediment we sampled. Near the center of the Quebec-Labrador Ice Dome, ratios of ²⁶Al/¹⁰Be are below those characteristic of surface production at high latitude. This suggests burial of the glacially transported sediment for at least many hundreds of thousands of years and the possibility that ice at the center of the Quebec-Labrador Ice Dome survived many interglacials when more distal ice melted away.