About the Environmental Hazard Adaptation Atlas
The Environmental Hazard Adaptation Atlas is the work of the Stanford Environmental Change and Human Outcomes Lab and a growing set of collaborators. Marshall Burke and Andrew Wilson co-lead the development and upkeep of the Atlas. Our aspiration is to continue to expand the set of exposures and outcomes for which we provide data, the set of interventions that we analyze, and the geographic and temporal coverage of our data. Please check back as things will likely have changed. If you are interested in helping us scale this effort, please get in touch. All provided datasets are subject to potential revision, based on the best evolving data and science.
Funding
We thank the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and the Stanford Impact Labs for initial funding.
Methodology
All data and outcomes are based on published or pre-printed methods. To measure exposures, we rely on published datasets. To measure outcomes of these exposures, we rely on approaches that can isolate the causal impact of exposures on outcomes. To evaluate interventions, we synthesize work that similarly attempts to isolate the casual impact of an intervention on an outcome. We provide an overview of our methodology here. Additional details can be obtained in the papers listed below.
Updates and revisions
Data on exposures, outcomes, and interventions improve over time, and our goal is to continue to improve the Atlas as data allow. Continuing evaluation of interventions is particularly important, as new evidence arrives frequently, and relevant evidence that we might have missed surfaces. If you have evidence on an intervention that you think is not well represented, please contact Marshall and Andrew, including the relevant pre-print or published paper; we only summarize research that is in the public domain.
How to cite
If you are citing the website in a general way, please cite as:
Environmental Hazard Adaptation Atlas (2025). Retrieved [date retrieved], from adaptationatlas.org.
If you are citing a specific estimate or insight shown on the website, please cite the website as well as the relevant academic publication below:
For temperature exposures
Hersbach, H., Bell, B., Berrisford, P., … & Thépaut, J-N. (2020). The ERA5 global reanalysis. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 146(730), 1999–2049.
For wildfire smoke exposures
Childs, M., Martins, M., Wilson, A., Qiu, M., Heft-Neal, S., & Burke, M. (2024). Growing wildfire-derived PM2. 5 across the contiguous US and implications for air quality regulation. Eartharxiv preprint, doi.org/10.31223/X57H95
For temperature-mortality:
Burke, M., Wilson, A., Avirmed, K., Wallstein, J., Martins, M., Behrer, P., Callahan, C. W., Childs, M., Choi, J., French, K., Gould, C. F., Heft-Neal, S., Jing, R., Qiu, M., Rennels, L., & Southworth, E. (2025). Understanding and addressing temperature impacts on mortality. Working Paper.
For temperature-ED visits:
Gould, C. F., Heft-Neal, S., Heaney, A. K., Bendavid, E., Callahan, C. W., Kiang, M. V., ... & Burke, M. (2025). Temperature extremes impact mortality and morbidity differently. Science Advances, 11(31).
For wildfire smoke-mortality:
Qiu, M., Li, J., Gould, C. F., Jing, R., Kelp, M., Childs, M., ... & Burke, M. (2024). Mortality burden from wildfire smoke under climate change (No. w32307). National Bureau of Economic Research.
For wildfire smoke-ED visits
Heft-Neal, S., Gould, C. F., Childs, M. L., Kiang, M. V., Nadeau, K. C., Duggan, M., ... & Burke, M. (2023). Emergency department visits respond nonlinearly to wildfire smoke. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(39).