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Dr. Nora Alvarez-Berríos, Caribbean Climate Hub Fellow

Dr. Nora Álvarez-Berríos is an environmental scientist with research interests in human and environment interactions in tropical forests, and land use and land cover changes. She has expertise in natural resource management, spatial analysis, climate change, geographic information systems and remote sensing, and vulnerability to extreme events in tropical agricultural systems. She currently serves as a Research Fellow with the USDA Caribbean Climate Hub. Her current research involves examining how drought and hurricanes affect forest and farmlands, and developing adaptability scenarios for climate change mitigation in the Caribbean.

Dr. Nora Álvarez-Berríos received a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences from the University of Puerto Rico in 2016 and a M.S. in Geography and a M.S. in Land Resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison 2001. Dr. Álvarez-Berríos joined the USDA Caribbean Climate Hub in 2016.

Current and Ongoing Projects

Selected Media Coverage

Cambridge Core blog. Confronting Drought Impacts in Puerto Rico. By Nora Álvarez-Berríos. Published online July 3 2018.

Nature. Gold-rush threat to tropical forests. Published online January 22 2015.

Contributed Assessment

Gould, W.A.; Díaz, E.L.; Álvarez-Berríos, N.L.; Aponte-González, F.; Archibald, W.; Bowden, J.H.; Carrubba, L.; Crespo, W.; Fain, S.J.; González, G.; Goulbourne, A.; Harmsen, E.; Holupchinski, E.; Khalyani, A.H.; Kossin, J.; Leinberger, A.J.; Marrero-Santiago, V.I.; Martínez-Sánchez, O.; McGinley, K.; Méndez-Lázaro, P.; Morell, J. ; Oyola, M.M.; I.K. Parés-Ramos, I.K.; Pulwarty, R.; Sweet, W.V.; Terando, A.; Torres-González, S. 2018: U.S. Caribbean. In Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States: Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume II. Reidmiller, D.R.; Avery, C.W.; Easterling, D.R.; Kunkel, K.E.; Lewis, K.L.M.; Maycock, T.K.; Stewart, B.C. eds. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, USA, pp. 809–871. DOI: 10.7930/NCA4.2018.CH20

Selected Peer-Reviewed Publications

Van Beusekom, Ashley; Álvarez-Berríos, Nora; Gould, William; Quiñones, Maya; González, Grizelle. 2018. Hurricane Maria in the U.S. Caribbean: Disturbance Forces, Variation of Effects, and Implications for Future Storms. Remote Sensing. 10(9): 1386. DOI: 10.3390/rs10091386

Álvarez-Berríos, Nora L.; Soto-Bayó, Sandra; Holupchinski, Eva; Fain, Stephen J.; Gould, William A. 2018. Correlating drought conservation practices and drought vulnerability in a tropical agricultural system. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems. 33(03): 279-291. DOI: 10.1017/S174217051800011X

Fain, Stephen J.; Quiñones, Maya; Álvarez-Berríos, Nora L.; Parés-Ramos, Isabel K.; Gould, William A. 2017. Climate change and coffee: assessing vulnerability by modeling future climate suitability in the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico. Climatic Change. 43(1): 141. DOI: 10.1007/s10584-017-1949-5

Gould, W.A., Wadsworth, F.H., Quiñones, M., Fain, S.J. and Álvarez-Berríos, N.L., 2017. Land Use, Conservation, Forestry, and Agriculture in Puerto Rico. Forests, 8(7), p.242. DOI: 10.3390/f8070242

Álvarez-Berríos, N. L., & Mitchell Aide, T. (2015). Global demand for gold is another threat for tropical forests. Environmental Research Letters, 10(1), 014006. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/10/1/014006

Álvarez, N. L., & Naughton-Treves, L. (2003). Linking National Agrarian Policy to Deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon: A Case Study of Tambopata, 1986–1997. AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment, 32(4), 269–274. DOI: 10.1579/0044-7447-32.4.269

Tools and Infographics

Research Mentoring

Other

Dr. Nora L Álvarez-Berríos ResearchGate Profile

MOU with the Puerto Rico Department of Agriculture Departamento de Agricultura firma un acuerdo con el Servicio Forestal