Timothy J. Downs

Effectiveness of natural treatment in a wastewater irrigation district of the Mexico City region : A synoptic field survey

Untreated wastewater from Mexico City has been used for decades to irrigate the Mezquital Valley, Hidalgo, Mexico. A synoptic survey of the natural treatment systems was carried out using the criteria of 24 trace metals, 67 target base/neutral/acid (BNA) semivolatile organic compounds, nontarget BNA semivolatile organics, nitrate, 23 chlorinated pesticides, and a 20 congener polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) suite. Data suggest the irrigation region is acting as a huge open-system slow sand filter, the main reservoir as a large waste stabilization lagoon, and the canals as extremely long, narrow stabilization channels. The BNA levels in surface water (SW) after reservoir retention were much lower than before it, while levels in groundwater (GW) were significantly lower than SW. All GW nitrate levels exceeded drinking water standards and were greater than those in SW. Metal levels in GW were below drinking water standards, and SW levels exceeded them for only a few metals. Low to moderate levels of organochlorine pesticides and PCBs were found.

Vulnerability-based spatial sampling stratification for the National Children's Study, Worcester County, Massachusetts: capturing health-relevant environmental and sociodemographic variability

Background The National Children’s Study is the most ambitious study ever attempted in the United States to assess how environmental factors impact child health and development. It aims to follow 100,000 children from gestation until 21 years of age. Success requires breaking new interdisciplinary ground, starting with how to select the sample of > 1,000 children in each of 105 study sites; no standardized protocol exists for stratification of the target population by factoring in the diverse environments it inhabits. Worcester County, Massachusetts, like other sites, stratifies according to local conditions and local knowledge, subject to probability sampling rules. Objectives We answer the following questions: How do we divide Worcester County into viable strata that represent its health-relevant environmental and sociodemographic heterogeneity, subject to sampling rules? What potential does our approach have to inform stratification at other sites? Results We developed a multivariable, vulnerability-based method for spatial sampling consisting of two descriptive indices: a hazards/stressors exposure index (comprising three proxy variables), and an adaptive capacity/sociodemographic character index (five variables). Multivariable, health-relevant stratification at the start of the study may improve detection power for environment–child health associations down the line. Eighteen strata capture countywide heterogeneity in the indices and have optimal relative homogeneity within each. They achieve comparable expected birth counts and conform to local concepts of space. Conclusion The approach offers moderate to high potential to inform other sites, limited by intersite differences in data availability, geodemographics, and technical capacity. Energetic community engagement from the start promotes local stratification coherence, plus vital researcher–community trust and co-ownership for sustainability.

Sustainable Health Risk Management and the Role of Cross-Disciplinary Professionals in Developing Countries: Mexican Experience

The paper argues health risk management in Developing Countries cannot be sustainable unless it is conceived, planned, implemented and maintained by community-led multi-stakeholder groups using an integrated capacity building process with five components: (1) education and awareness raising; (2) strengthening information resources and decision making; (3) strengthening regulations and compliance; (4) improving basic sanitation infrastructure; and (5) stimulating the market for support products and services for health and environment sectors. Occupational and environmental health professionals with cross-disciplinary understanding are uniquely qualified to build much-needed bridges between stakeholders, risk science and policy. They should adopt a cost-effective mentality, adapting models/methods used in developed countries to developing country contexts, negotiating political obstacles and understanding cultural differences in risk sources, exposures and perceptions. Stakeholders – health professionals, community representatives, officials, NGOs/advocacy groups, industries, and providers of products/services – collaborate to detect needs, mobilize resources, design, develop, implement, consolidate and maintain interventions to priority problems. Field experience in Mexico supports the argument. This sustainability process is adaptable to other keystone development sectors like soil and water resources stewardship, biodiversity conservation, agriculture and energy.

Vulnerability, Risk Perception, and Health Profile of Marginalized People Exposed to Multiple Built-Environment Stressors in Worcester, Massachusetts: A Pilot Project

Millions of low-income people of diverse ethnicities inhabit stressful old urban industrial neighborhoods. Yet we know little about the health impacts of built-environment stressors and risk perceptions in such settings; we lack even basic health profiles. Difficult access is one reason (it took us 30 months to survey 80 households); the lack of multifaceted survey tools is another. We designed and implemented a pilot vulnerability assessment tool in Worcester, Massachusetts. We answer: (1) How can we assess vulnerability to multiple stressors? (2) What is the nature of complex vulnerability-including risk perceptions and health profiles? (3) How can findings be used by our wider community, and what lessons did we learn? (4) What implications arise for science and policy? We sought a holistic picture of neighborhood life. A reasonably representative sample of 80 respondents captured data for 254 people about: demographics, community concerns and resources, time-activity patterns, health information, risk/stress perceptions, and resources/capacities for coping. Our key findings derive partly from the survey data and partly from our experience in obtaining those data. Data strongly suggest complex vulnerability dominated by psychosocial stress. Unexpected significant gender and ethnic disease disparities emerged: notably, females have twice the disease burden of males, and white females twice the burden of females of color (p < 0.01). Self-reported depression differentiated by gender and age is illustrative. Community based participatory research (CBPR) approaches require active engagement with marginalized populations, including representatives as funded partners. Complex vulnerability necessitates holistic, participatory approaches to improve scientific understanding and societal responses.

Re-imagining environmental science and policy graduate education for the twenty-first century using an integrative frame

To meet society’s need to better understand and respond to ever-more complex, interwoven problems of environment, development, and society—including environmental health risks, climate change adaptation, and sustainable development—we applied an integrative frame to re-imagine, re-design, and deploy a professionally oriented, academically rigorous 2-year/12-unit Master of Science program. Our scholar–practitioner faculty uses the framework to tackle complex, real-world problems, emerging from a strong interdisciplinary ethos. It thus acts as a pragmatic system to guide pedagogy, curriculum, research and practice, and student experience. The frame weaves together six domains (6-D): (1) project framing, concept, and design; (2) development topics and sectors; (3) stakeholder interests, assets, and relationships; (4) knowledge types, disciplines, models, and methods; (5) variable temporal and spatial scales and networks; and (6) socio-technical capacities. At our institution, the need to replace 2.0 of 3.5 tenure/tenure-track program faculty posed both a challenge and an opportunity to re-think one of the oldest environmental science and policy programs in the USA which began in 1971. We pose and answer: What kinds of integrative educational experience, curriculum, and research practicum can best prepare environmental MS students in the twenty-first century? Two examples—one domestic, one international—illustrate the practicum.

Integrative education for climate change resilience x sustainable development transformations

To meet societys need to better understand and respond to complex, interwoven problems of climate and sustainability, we herein introduce an integrative framework being applied in a US university setting for conceptualising, designing and deploying educational programs that interconnect climate change resilience (CCR) with sustainable development (SD). The framework weaves together five main strands of integration: 1) socio-political stakeholder interests and influences; 2) development sectors; 3) knowledge types; 4) socio-technical capacities, including education; 5) the smart networking of project sites across varying geographical scales. We pose and answer: what kinds of integrative educational programs, curricula and project practicums can enable transformations in CCRxSD practice? A philosophical foundation undergirds the knowledge and skills base of the suggested programming. Two collaborative case studies illustrate integrative practicums: 1) Fisherville Mill Site, Grafton, Massachusetts, USA - a showcase in urban sustainability; 2) Fijian Islands - a prospective case study in integrative CCRxSD program design.

An Integrative Framework for Re-thinking 2nd Generation Sustainable Development (SD2.0) Projects, Education and the University as Catalyst

The University is poised to serve as the catalyst for an integrated, multi-sectoral, multi-scale approach that builds the requisite collective social and technical capacities of primary stakeholders to enable 2nd generation sustainable development (SD2.0). A synthesis of empirical evidence will be used to inform and justify a new integrative framework to design local and regional-scale projects, informed by the UN’s SD21 Sustainable Development for the 21st Century report and the post-Millennium Development Goals (2000–2015) era. It will also be used to situate “education for sustainable development”—the theme of this book—in the integrative framework, to navigate the degree to which other additional components/aspects need to be considered for education to be impactful at the systems level. The framework involves five main axes of integration within which the University’s role is shown to be central and catalytic: (1) socio-political stakeholder interests and influences; (2) development sectors (e.g. water, energy, health, food, the economy and climate resilience); (3) knowledge types (scientific and indigenous); (4) socio-technical capacities, including—but not limited to—education, research and information resources; and (5) connections among sites with SD2.0 projects, forming an innovation network. This process recognizes integration and social innovation to be primary for success, technology secondary, and education to be but one key component. We argue that this integrative approach does not require a reshaping of the University’s primary role—as others have argued—rather an amplification of its commitments and responsibilities. By integrating within and across these five dimensions during the design phase for projects, programs, and formal curricula, a new path to transformational sustainability emerges practical and compelling. Three illustrative examples of SD2.0 work are given.