Xander Huggins
Bio
Bio
Xander is a Killam, NSERC, and Canadian Space Agency Postdoctoral Fellow at IRES working with Mark Johnson. He is also a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the High Meadows Environmental Institute at Princeton University where he works with Simon Levin.
Broadly, his work couples geospatial data science methods with social-ecological system frameworks and focuses on global groundwater science and sustainability topics. His research aims to foreground groundwater sustainability as a transformative process that can underpin broader goals of social well-being, ecological integrity, social and environmental justice, and Earth system stability.
During his PhD at the University of Victoria and the Global Institute for Water Security, he developed the conceptual framing of groundwater-connected systems to center and better represent social-ecological system interactions with groundwater. Global-scale applications of the framing developed new landscape classes of groundwater systems, highlighted the role of groundwater in ecosystem protection, and identified global hotspots of freshwater change.
At IRES, Xander is primarily working to evaluate the resilience of groundwater-dependent ecosystems to trends in groundwater storage across land use and policy contexts at the global scale. He also co-leads an international research collective on large-scale freshwater resilience.
Featured publications
Huggins, X., Gleeson, T., Villholth, K. et al. Groundwaterscapes: A global classification and mapping of groundwater’s large-scale socioeconomic, ecological, and Earth system functions. Water Resources Research (2024 – in press).
Rohde, M.M., Albano, C.M., Huggins, X. et al. Groundwater-dependent ecosystem map exposes global dryland protection needs. Nature 632, 101–107 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07702-8
Huggins, X., Gleeson, T., Serrano, D. et al. Overlooked risks and opportunities in groundwatersheds of the world’s protected areas. Nature Sustainability 6, 855–864 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01086-9
Huggins, X., Gleeson, T., Castilla-Rho, J., et al. Groundwater Connections and Sustainability in Social-Ecological Systems. Groundwater 61, 463-478 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1111/gwat.13305
Chloë Chang
Chloë Chang
MSc Student
Contact Details
cchang54 [at] student [dot] ubc [dot] ca
Bio
Chloë Chang (she/her/elle) is in the IRES MSc program in the Three E’s Lab, supervised by Dr. Joséphine Gantois. Chloë completed a BSc honours in Wildlife Biology and Conservation with a minor in Agriculture at the University of Guelph. After working and researching within wildlife conservation and ecology, as well as diverse agricultural production systems, Chloë is passionate about aligning these two disciplines. Chloë’s research at IRES explores how farmers’ field management decisions may be impacted by profit-mapping, a precision agriculture innovation. In her free time, Chloë is a board member for the Jane Goodall Institute of Canada, an avid forager/naturalist, and artist.
November 21, 2024: IRES Professional Development Seminar with Dr. Karl Zimmermann
A Recipe for Safe Water : Information + Ownership + Resources
Location: Beaty Museum Allan Yap Theatre (Basement, 2212 Main Mall). Please check in at front desk on main floor before going downstairs.
No food or drinks allowed in the Beaty Museum.
Time: 12:30pm to 1:20pm
View Recording.
Talk summary:
Community-level organizations and international actors alike support a Partnership Approach to accelerate progress towards SDG6. A Water Partnerships approach facilitates involvement from stakeholders including households, village leaders, teachers, NGOs, and water committees. This presentation shares recommendations from 400 water leaders on four continents to inform a partnership approach: who are the important stakeholders, what are their roles and what tools enable participation by all? Specifically, we share a three-step process to empower participation in water management: 1. Awareness of water contaminants and their connection to health, 2. Education of the options, and 3. Resources for water action. These lessons will inform future safely managed water solutions.
Bio:
Dr. Karl Zimmermann is a water researcher and water lover. As part of his PhD studies at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada), Zimmermann began with research on biological ion exchange drinking water filters before wading into the WASH sector. His Tools for Water Partnerships study learned from water leaders on five continents about what, in addition to innovative technologies themselves, are important for the long-term success of drinking water and sanitation solutions. Karl now works as a Water Treatment Engineer with WSP Canada in Vancouver.
December 5, 2024: IRES Student Seminar with Ted Scott (Last Seminar of Term 1)
What is happening to summer? A global and multi-scale analysis of the changing summer season length under global warming
Time: 12:30pm to 1:20pm
Location: Beaty Museum Allan Yap Theatre (Basement, 2212 Main Mall). Please check in at front desk on main floor before going downstairs.
No food or drinks allowed in the Beaty Museum.
Zoom Recording.
Talk summary:
Summer is changing dramatically in our lifetimes. The increasing frequency and severity of extreme events under global warming has been connected to changes in the timing of summer onset, duration, and withdrawal, which impact phenology, economic cycles, and energy demand. My work updates and expands prior studies of summer timing and duration by separately considering midlatitude land, ocean, and coastal margins, where many of the global population resides. I find that each of those areas has seen a substantial increase in summer length since 1990, and compared with previous work, the average rate of growth has doubled to nine days per decade when including more recent data. While changes to summer are not uniformly distributed, in most areas the onset of summer is rapidly moving earlier. If the length of summer continues increasing even under an apparent linear warming rate, associated impacts can increase non-linearly, exceeding thresholds for human health, ecosystems, and infrastructure.
Bio:
Ted Scott is a 2nd year PhD student in Geography in the Climate and Coastal Ecosystems Lab and the Climate Dynamics Group, co-advised by Simon Donner and Rachel White (EOAS). His current research investigates multi-scale patterns in surface temperature and heat accumulation since the late 20th century. Prior to his study at UBC, he earned a PhD in Geophysics at the University of Minnesota, has worked as a data scientist at Microsoft, and more recently taught high school math and science.
November 14, 2024: IRES Faculty Seminar with Dr. Jonathan Proctor
Estimating local socioeconomic vulnerability to climate shocks using satellite imagery
Location: Beaty Museum Allan Yap Theatre (Basement, 2212 Main Mall). Please check in at front desk on main floor before going downstairs.
No food or drinks allowed in venue.
Time: 12:30pm to 1:20pm
No recording available.
Talk summary:
Understanding how climate hazards like extreme heat and flooding influence human wellbeing is critical for preparing societies for climate change. Yet empirical estimates of how vulnerability to climate hazards differs across space is limited by both a lack of knowledge about and data on determinants of climate adaptation. Here, we leverage the rich and diverse information within satellite imagery to predict local climate vulnerability in the U.S. and globally. Including imagery information into empirical models of how temperature and moisture influence agricultural productivity, how temperature influences human mortality and how flood depth damages buildings, improves model predictions of historic damages from climate hazards and reveals substantial local differences in climate vulnerability and resilience.
Bio:
Jonathan Proctor is an environmental economist with a background in agronomy, climate science, remote sensing, and machine learning. He is currently an assistant professor in Food and Resource Economics at the University of British Columbia. He was previously a postdoctoral fellow jointly at the Harvard Data Science Initiative and the Center for the Environment. He earned his PhD in Agriculture and Resource Economics from UC Berkeley in 2019.
IBioS Seminar Invitation
This year, the Interdisciplinary Biodiversity Solutions Collaboratory (IBioS) launched a Graduate Student Seminar series for students interested in social, ethical, and ecological issues and dilemmas surrounding biodiversity conservation, restoration, management, and governance.
The series aims to provide a community across faculties, disciplines, and labs. Students can present their research, meet faculty, and hear from partners in conservation about their career paths.
Please join and enjoy the planned series while meeting like-minded people (and enjoying some free food).