Environmental Impacts in Urban Neighborhoods

Before coming to Johns Hopkins, Benjamin Zaitchik, PhD, concentrated on big-picture climate and environmental changes. Here he met collaborators who saw applications for this work closer to home, addressing related health problems showing up in Baltimore’s underserved neighborhoods. 

“I was able to take some of my expertise, connect it with the health expertise at Hopkins, and really start working with communities on their health outcomes as a response to the weather,” says Zaitchik, who is the Morton K. Blaustein Chair and Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. 

Zaitchik became the principal investigator for the Baltimore Social-Environmental Collaborative (BSEC), an initiative that brings together universities, city agencies, and community groups to build what he calls “the most meaningful urban climate and energy monitoring system in the world.” Weather stations measure temperature, humidity, wind, and sunlight in neighborhoods, and the community decides what actions should be taken because of that data. 

“We ask them what exactly they are trying to solve and how they want to solve it,” Zaitchik says. “With the measurement and modeling system, we can say here are some potential pathways in the future.” 

Through their work, members of BSEC found that during heat waves, emergency room visits for asthma spike across Baltimore; neighborhoods with little tree cover can be 10 degrees hotter than greener areas; and life expectancy varies by decades between neighborhoods just a mile apart. 

In the Broadway East neighborhood, where aging infrastructure and heavy rainstorms mean stormwater rushes through drains and sometimes into rowhomes, BSEC is testing drain blocks and permeable pavers to absorb the water before it reaches homes. In Old Goucher, a decade of community-driven greening efforts has already transformed the streetscape, and BSEC’s weather stations are measuring that impact. Zaitchik says philanthropy was vital for helping to start BSEC’s fieldwork in these neighborhoods.  

“Philanthropy from department alumni and other donors helped us get students into the field and integrate the project into their coursework,” Zaitchik adds. “Once we had that work going, we were in a position to ask bigger questions and bring in more resources, but without that initial funding, it would’ve been very difficult to do that.” His endowed chair supports the department’s ability to bring in speakers and offer student fellowships. 

Bringing science outside the lab and to the public was also the mission of Krieger School alumna Rachel Carson, who graduated in 1932 with a master’s degree in zoology. With that scientific foundation, Carson built a career as a science writer best known for her 1962 book Silent Spring, which exposed the ecological and health consequences of the pesticide DDT. While the chemical industry challenged her findings, she persisted in spreading her knowledge of DDT’s harms. The EPA banned most uses of DDT in the United States in 1972, and Carson’s work is widely credited with helping launch the modern environmental movement. 

“She’s been a real inspiration for taking science to the public to achieve health benefits and environmental benefits,” Zaitchik says. “The work that she was able to do, fundamentally, is as a translator. She took science to the public by telling stories, and she told those stories in a way that really changed the world.” 

Carson’s legacy shaped how Zaitchik thinks about communicating his own research today. In Baltimore, that means partnering with schools, educators, and neighborhood associations so the science reaches people in ways that are useful to them. 

“The legacy of Rachel Carson is something we almost take for granted because at this point we all know that it’s important to get outside the lab and communicate your results,” Zaitchik says. “In Baltimore, we have the opportunity to partner with the community so that we are learning from them how to best communicate. That’s something we all appreciate now, in part because of the successes that people like Rachel Carson made possible.”