Like many communities, the Tule River Tribe in the western foothills of California's Sierra Nevada mountain range faces mounting environmental hazards like wildfire, drought, and flooding. A new study led by Stanford researchers, in collaboration with the Tribe, sheds light on how a range of strategies can address these compounding hazards and achieve the community's goals to strengthen its physical, mental, spiritual, and environmental health.
The paper, published recently in Environmental Research Health, focuses on the perspectives of local emergency managers and health care practitioners on the reservation and offers lessons for communities everywhere.
"Incremental solutions, like portable air purifiers and clean air centers, are needed to address immediate needs, but they don't tackle the systemic vulnerabilities that make these environmental conditions so hazardous to communities," said study lead author Natalie Herbert , a research scientist in Earth system science at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability . "We need to think bigger."
Understanding the challenge
The research, supported by a Human and Planetary Health Early Career Award from the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and a grant from Stanford's Sustainability Accelerator , is part of a broader initiative to co-develop data-driven, culturally grounded solutions with tribal partners.
About 1,600 of the Tule River Indian Tribe's 2,000 members live on the reservation, and about a third of the community lives below the federal poverty line. The valley where the reservation is located traps wildfire smoke and air pollution, and the nearby South Fork Tule River – an important water source – is alternately prone to running low and flooding. These and other vulnerabilities are amplified by limited access to reliable transportation, fresh groceries, and housing infrastructure to filter air pollutants.
The researchers interviewed health care and emergency response professionals to understand how they characterize the threats and vulnerabilities the community faces, what adaptation strategies could support public health, and how those strategies could be implemented.
Toward transformative resilience
Based on these interviews, the research team developed a conceptual framework illustrating how hazards like wildfire smoke and extreme heat intersect with social vulnerabilities. This framework highlights pathways from short-term fixes to transformative actions, such as upgrading housing stock to include smoke-resistant ventilation and establishing green energy grids to reduce reliance on costly, polluting power sources.
"Our partnership with Stanford researchers has led to a valuable effort in understanding and addressing our Tribal community's challenges and needs during and prior to environmental hazard events, such as drought, catastrophic fires, impaired air quality, flooding, and virus outbreaks," said Kerri Vera, director of the Tule River Tribe's Department of Environmental Protection, a member of the Tribe, and a co-author of the paper. "Our collaboration in data collection and assessment, at a technical and personal level, has helped craft our efforts as we move forward with planning and mitigation in response to a changing climate and future environmental hazards."
The research underscores the importance of community-led initiatives and the potential of transformative adaptation to create a more equitable and sustainable future for the Tule River Tribe and other tribal nations.
"The lessons we learn here can inform resilience strategies for communities worldwide facing similar compounding hazards," said study senior author Gabrielle Wong-Parodi , an assistant professor of Earth system science at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and a center fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.
Acknowledgements
Wong-Parodi is also an assistant professor of environmental social sciences in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. Other co-authors are from the University of Michigan, the Tule River Indian Health Center Inc., the California Rural Indian Health Board Inc., and RTI International.