BE/CNH: Neighborhood Ecosystems: Human-Climate Interactions in a Desert Metropolis

这个跨学科的研究项目探讨了人类生态系统气候的相互作用，在大都市凤凰城邻里规模。 该项目借鉴了城市空间异质性的社会和生态理论，以了解城市发展如何导致邻里之间的经济，社会和物理不平等，这反过来又会产生邻里微气候条件的差异。 小气候条件影响生物环境，然后通过影响社区的社会经济和物理系统来完成循环。 由于社区在应对气候压力方面的资源不平等，社区的社会经济地位和其他当地特征将缓和这一过程的影响。 这项研究有三个具体目标。 首先，该项目将展示1970年至2000年之间的社区定居如何通过改变土地利用，土地覆盖和气候来改变景观。 第二，该项目将证明邻里微气候之间的差异是否以及在多大程度上使人类和其他生物群暴露于不平等的气候引起的压力源，如热量，空气质量差和风暴危害。 第三，该项目将调查人类和植物社区在科普气候压力方面资金不平等的社区的恢复力。 研究地点是位于亚利桑那州中部凤凰城长期生态研究项目监测点的七个凤凰城社区。 这些社区以人口普查街区组为界，包括因年龄、距市中心的距离、土地覆盖、收入和种族构成而异的情况。 该项目将使用来自各种来源的数据，包括人口普查、居民社会调查、历史土地使用调查和气候记录、环境条件实地测量以及土地覆盖和温度遥感图像。 将使用地理信息系统绘图、绘图工具、空间统计和多元统计分析来制定人类、生态系统和气候活动以及随时间变化的指标。 使用关键指标，邻里社会生态周期将比较不同的社会阶层，物理特征，距离城市中心的地方。 研究成果将通过若干学科的出版物和在专业会议上的介绍加以传播，关于干旱地区城市发展的研究将有助于了解全球气候变化的区域层面。 该项目将通过解释人类行为如何在社区范围内影响气候变化来推动社会和生态科学综合理论的发展。 这是细尺度生态系统过程（如邻近小气候的变化）与粗尺度环境现象（如全球变暖）之间的必要联系。 这项研究将有助于改进城市增长模型和区域气候变化模型。 该项目还为人类脆弱性理论提供了信息，该理论解释了社会不平等如何使穷人面临更高的环境危害风险。 虽然许多关于脆弱性的研究侧重于更有可能伤害穷人的“自然”灾害，但本项目将研究长期的环境条件，特别是气候多变性和变化，因为气候多变性和变化对脆弱人口构成更持久但不太明显的威胁。 该项目还将为本科生和研究生提供参与和了解科学与公共问题之间的界面以及跨学科研究的机会。 该项目得到了2002财政年度环境中生物复杂性特别竞赛的资助，该竞赛侧重于自然和人类系统耦合的动力学。

This interdisciplinary research project explores human-ecosystem-climate interactions at the neighborhood scale in metropolitan Phoenix. The project draws upon social and ecological theories of spatial heterogeneity in cities in order to understand how urban development leads to economic, social, and physical inequalities among neighborhoods, which in turn produce neighborhood differences in microclimate conditions. Microclimate conditions influence the biotic environment, which then completes the cycle by influencing the socioeconomic and physical systems of neighborhoods. Because neighborhoods have unequal resources for responding to climate stress, socioeconomic status of the neighborhood and other local characteristics will moderate the effects of this process. The research has three specific objectives. First, the project will show how the settlement of neighborhoods between 1970 and 2000 transformed the landscape by altering land use, land cover, and climate. Second, the project will demonstrate whether and to what extent the resulting differences among neighborhood microclimates expose humans and other biota to unequal levels of climate-induced stressors, such as heat, poor air quality, and storm hazards. Third, the project will investigate the resilience of human and plant communities in neighborhoods that have unequal amounts of capital to cope with climate stress. The research sites are seven Phoenix neighborhoods located at monitoring sites of the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research project. The neighborhoods, bounded by census block groups, include cases that vary by age, distance to urban center, land cover, income, and ethnic composition. The project will use data from a wide variety of sources, including the census, social surveys of residents, historical land-use surveys and climate records, field measures of environmental conditions, and remotely sensed images of land cover and temperature. GIS mapping, graphing tools, spatial statistics, and multivariate statistical analysis will be used to develop indicators of human, ecosystem, and climate activities and changes over time using. Using key indicators, neighborhood socioecological cycles will be compared for places that differ by social class, physical features, and distance from the urban center. Research results will be disseminated through publications in several disciplines and presentations at professional meetings.Research on urban development in arid regions will contribute to understanding the regional dimensions of global climate change. This project will advance the development of integrative theory in the social and ecological sciences by explaining how human actions influence climate change at the neighborhood scale. This is a necessary link between fine-scale ecosystem processes, such as variation in neighborhood microclimates, and coarse-scale environmental phenomena, such as global warming. The research will help improve models of urban growth and models of regional climate change. The project also informs human vulnerability theory, which explains how social inequalities expose poor people to higher risks of environmental hazards. While many studies of vulnerability focus on "natural" disasters that are more likely to harm poor people, this project will study chronic environmental conditions, specifically climatic variability and change, which poses a more lasting but less obvious threat to vulnerable populations. This project will also provide opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to participate and learn about the interface between science and public issues as well as the conduct of interdisciplinary research. This project is supported by an award resulting from the FY 2002 special competition in Biocomplexity in the Environment focusing on the Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems.