Project Page

DWH Project Funding

$1,499,990

Known Leveraged Funding

$0

Project Description

This project will develop fine-scaled databases, models, and tools to predict near-, mid-, and long-term impacts of climate change-intensified air pollution and water insecurity on health disparities in overburdened Texas communities along the Gulf Coast. Southeast Texas Communities have long borne the brunt of poor localized air and water quality, partially due to emissions from petrochemical facilities and frequent coastal hazards. Ongoing climate change will cause more extreme events, exacerbating environmental hazards and health crises in these already overburdened communities. This necessitates an urgent effort to quantify future environmental health disparities under climate change in these communities to inform mitigation strategies. This project brings together a multi-disciplinary team of junior, mid-career, and senior researchers to address five objectives: (1) integrating existing and simulated data to derive high-resolution databases on current and future climatic impacts on environmental hazards exposure and health outcomes; (2) developing mathematical models of regional climate, air quality, water security, and facility resilience to delineate the interacting effects of multiple natural and anthropogenic hazards on local air pollution and water insecurity; (3) leveraging toxicology-informed modeling and geospatial simulation to predict risks of asthma, cancer, life expectancy, birth outcomes, and gastrointestinal illness, in near-, mid-, and long-term timeframes; (4) developing interactive WebGIS to visualize and simulate climate change and environmental hazard effects on health; (5) designing policy, infrastructural, and individual interventions to curtail future environmental health impacts in targeted communities. The databases, models, webGIS, and strategies will guide stakeholders to strengthen health resilience to environmental hazards under climate change.