The Urban Adaptation Assessment is an open-source, free measurement and analysis tool that explores a city’s ability to adapt and readiness for adaptation to climate change.

Notre Dame researchers have created an integrated framework to identify which neighborhoods would benefit most from green roofs – and provide city officials with a strategic approach to ensure the best return on their investment to beat the heat.

If there is a formula for how an internship should strike a balance between too little boss oversight and too much over-your-shoulder scrutiny, then Matt Lupo may have found it.    “It should be structured enough to tell you what to do,” said Lupo, of his internship with the Notre Dame Global...

As residents in Indiana continue to clean up from areas of extreme flooding, a new report focusing on how climate change is expected to affect the state shows Hoosiers should expect to see a significant increase in temperatures and precipitation.

Just because he’s an Environmental Science major doesn’t mean that Jorge Daura likes dirt. Daura worked for a time in a Notre Dame lab where he analyzed soil samples, yet it wasn’t for him. But ask him to research the emergency traffic capacity for a large city and he’s on it.  ...

To understand the pivotal role that Big Data plays in the career dreams of a ND-GAIN intern, consider what Carolyn Yvellez wants for her next birthday: a four-terabyte hard drive. It’s an essential computing tool should you want to store climate data for 278 large U.S. cities. “I need more...

Three continents, five countries, and countless hours spent traveling by boat, plane, train, and car. To say Alejandra Cartagena-Sierra's research is her passion project is an understatement. The past year has been a wild ride for the Ph.D. candidate as she studies sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) during the Pliocene and Pleistocene...

As island nations prepare for a lead role in the 23rd annual Conference of Parties (COP23) in Bonn, Germany, Nov. 6-17, the latest data released by the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative (ND-GAIN) shows that small island states face increasing challenges to address the impact of climate change.

During the four-year study, researchers will work to develop improved storm surge models that incorporate fine-scale data to increase the accuracy of forecasts, while also maintaining reduced computer time and reasonable computational costs.

“But how can you be sure that climate change is caused by humans?”   I stared at my dad– the smartest man I knew, my rock, and my role model– in disbelief. He was testing me, I thought. He wanted to see just how much I knew about the topic....

Bad news for humans about the spread of mosquito-borne disease as climate change continues to worsen. New research from the University of Notre Dame, recently published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, proposes a new way that climate change could contribute to mosquitos’ capacity to drive disease epidemics. As climate change...

When Hurricane Matthew hit Haiti in October 2016, Kellogg Faculty Fellows Tracy Kijewski-Correa and Alexandros Taflanidis, structural engineers who had been working to develop disaster-resistant housing on the island since Haiti’s massive 2010 earthquake, knew their team had to get on the ground immediately.…

Notre Dame has announced a collaboration with Mayo Clinic, the Belize Ministry of Health and the Belize Vector and Ecology Center aimed at strengthening the country’s ability to respond to Zika virus and other arboviruses.

Dr. Sharma explains the many environmental benefits that green roofs provide, as well as the importance of green roofs in urban settings to mitigate the urban heat island effect.

By Chen Chen, Research Scientist, Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative (ND-GAIN) Funded by a two-year Partnership Development Grant from Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, McGill University-based Adaptation Tracking Collaborative gathers partners from Wageningen University, UCLA, and ND-GAIN to develop conceptual, methodological, and empirical approaches for tracking adaptation across scales....

Words are confusing, often wrought with varying connotations and intangible ideas. But no matter what they’re called, floods and droughts are concrete events, which can be fought with concrete action. The New York Times article, “In America’s Heartland, Discussing Climate Change Without Saying ‘Climate Change…

In her academic research, Debra Javeline leads two lives. She is passionate about sustainability—and how post-Communist Russia is perceived. She is focused on coastal adaptation to climate change—and on the response to political violence in a small Russian town. An associate professor in Notre Dame’s Department of Political Science, Javeline...

A chance meeting a decade ago in a graduate school hallway led paleoecologist Jason McLachlan to create a Jurassic Park-like wonder in Notre Dame’s greenhouse, where rows of salt marsh bulrushes have germinated from 100-year-old seeds.

Mendoza's signature annual lecture series, Ten Years Hence, will focus on the topic of the “Climate of Opportunity,” considering the implications of climate change for innovators, designers and entrepreneurs.

The top five countries showing the biggest amount of improvement in preparedness over the last year were Ghana, Solomon Islands, Cape Verde, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.

As climate changes in the decades ahead, nations all over the world will invest billions to make themselves more resilient to rising sea levels, hurricanes, droughts, floods and heat waves.

The University of Notre Dame’s Global Adaptation Initiative has announced it will assess the climate vulnerability and readiness of every U.S. city with a population over 100,000.

David Medvigy is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame.  Your research focuses understanding interactions between terrestrial ecosystems and climate. Can you give us an overview of the major projects you are currently working on? I am interested in a wide range...

From the depths of Lake Malawi, Melissa Berke has helped uncover evidence that offers new insights into a long-held theory about Africa’s climate history.

As populations rise, cities grow and the Earth heats up due to global warming, urban heat island (UHI) effects are expected to increase. These occur because city walls, streets and roofs hold in the sun’s warmth, making cities warmer than the land surrounding them. Large cities such as Chicago have...

More than half of the world’s population lives in cities, and the United Nations projects that this share will rise to 70 percent by 2050. During the daytime, these expanding urban areas absorb more solar energy than the surrounding countryside. At night they radiate the heat back to the atmosphere. Higher temperatures...