Pamela Templer Gives Pardee Center Seminar on Atmospheric Pollution in Urban Areas

The Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future recently hosted a seminar lecture and discussion with Pamela Templer, a Professor in the Department of Biology and a Pardee Center Faculty Research Fellow.

In her talk, Prof. Templer explored the implications of nitrogen deposition and carbon dioxide losses from soil respiration in urban areas. She and her research team established a series of nitrogen deposition measuring sites both within Boston and across the 60-mile stretch west to Harvard Forest. They found that nitrogen deposition is spatially variable, and correlated with vehicle emissions and fertilizer use. She concluded by stressing the need to account for both fossil fuel emissions and biological fluxes to fully understand the environmental impacts of climate change and urbanization.

This research is part of Prof. Templer’s project with Prof. Lucy Hutyra as Pardee Center Faculty Research Fellows, which established the first urban nitrogen monitoring stations (in the City of Boston) as part of the National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP).

Prof. Templer is the Director of the Ph.D. Program in Biogeoscience at BU. She is a biogeochemist who has published widely on the effects of air pollution, climate change, and urbanization on forest ecosystems, water and air quality. She and members of her lab currently work in temperate forests of the northeastern United States, redwood forests of California, and tropical forests of Mexico and Puerto Rico. Additional information about Pamela and her lab can be found on her website.

The full presentation and discussion can be viewed in the video above.