HSD: Collaborative Research: A Study in the Dynamics of Human Behavior in Institutional Innovation and Learning

在全球环境迅速变化的时期，城市地区的人类社会组织和个人的复杂系统如何创造，成长，学习和改变以应对气候变化，当地空气污染和其他环境问题的威胁？科学信息和环境意识对公众、公共机构及其项目以及这些机构本身有何影响？ 发生的人类社会动力是什么？这些动力可以用在解释经济表现方面如此成功的创新和社会学习理论来描述吗？在迅速变化的时期，负责人类健康和福利的公共机构，在本研究的例子中，负责确保环境质量的公共机构，获得、吸收和对有关知识和信息作出反应的能力受到重视。 我们将把在制度经济学中获得的关于经济创新和社会学习的见解和理论，在高度不确定的条件下，面对快速的经济和技术变革，在公共部门面对潜在的严重环境问题时，适应和改变人类行为。 这项研究将耦合最先进的研究，在量化的影响，陆地表面植被对当地气候，生态系统服务价值和社会学习方法，以了解个人和组织的内部和外部刺激的推动下的行动。 我们将使用各种技术，包括贝叶斯建模来描述行为的动态，以及真实的时间程序开发和实施，这些程序是从我们对一个城市的大规模自然实验的投入中产生的，该实验试图通过在加州的洛杉矶部署城市森林来减轻其自身的污染。 该提案的学术贡献包括促进跨越不同科学、工程和社会科学界的综合研究工作。 我们的工作旨在通过应用生物物理和社会科学方法更好地了解人类社会组织的变化动态。 我们将关于组织如何从制度经济学中学习的新见解应用于公共政策设置。研究方法将包括使用经济工具通过房价量化城市森林的价值，以及几种社会科学方法来理解政府组织如何学习和改变，包括制定现有规则和程序的基线，并观察这些基线是否因经济和环境方面的新信息而发生变化，树木在城市环境中的价值。 为量度树木对城市环境的影响，我们会在树干内放置热液流传感器，以了解树木的蒸腾作用及其对本地气候的影响。我们将评估城市树木蒸腾作用对当地能量分配的影响，测量净辐射，温度和相对湿度分布，土壤热通量，以估计波文比（感热通量与潜热通量的比值）在不同的位置。 这些测量结果将进行比较，树蒸腾量估计从液流测量缩放。 最后，我们还将开发一个陆-面-气模式，模拟洛杉矶盆地城市森林对当地气候的耦合和互动影响。这项研究的更广泛的影响应有助于了解人类活动和发展的动态以及社会使用科学信息的制度障碍和障碍。我们的研究探讨了复杂的公共和非营利组织如何应对信息的演变：他们的社会学习和变革能力;由于新信息而发生的人类社会动态。这项研究还应有助于了解城市造林计划对环境质量的潜在影响，特别是在地中海气候下。 在城市造成的严重气候变化和环境退化的时期，我们的研究将有助于了解城市一级补救策略的程度和潜力。

In a period of rapid global environmental change how do complex systems of human social organizations and individuals in urban areas create, grow, learn, and change in reaction to threats of climate change, local air pollution, and other environmental problems? What is the influence of scientific information and environmental awareness on the general public, on public agencies and their programs, and within those agencies themselves? What are the human social dynamics that occur and can these be characterized by theories of innovation and social learning that have been so successful in explaining economic performance? Periods of rapid change place a premium on the ability to acquire, absorb and react to relevant knowledge and information by the public institutions responsible for human health and welfare, and, in this research instance, for ensuring environmental quality. We will apply the insights and theories gained in institutional economics about economic innovation and social learning in the face of rapid economic and technological change in conditions of high uncertainty, to adaptation and change in human behavior in the public sector in the face of potentially grave environmental problems. This research will couple state of the art research in quantifying the effects of land surface vegetation on local climate, ecosystem services valuation and social learning methods to understand individual and organizational action under the impetus of internal and external stimuli. We will use a variety of techniques including Bayesian modeling to describe the dynamics of behavior, and real time program development and implementation that result from our input into a large scale natural experiment of a city attempting to mitigate its own pollution through the deployment of an urban forest in Los Angeles, California. This proposal's scholarly contribution includes advancing integrative research efforts spanning the different science, engineering and social science communities. Our work seeks to better understand the dynamics of change in human social organizations through the application of coupled biophysical and social science approaches. We apply new insights about how organizations learn from institutional economics to a public policy setting.The research methods will include using economic tools to quantify the value of the urban forest through housing prices, and several social science methods to understand how governmental organizations learn and change, including developing baselines of existing rules and procedures and observing if these change in response to new information about the economic and environmental value of trees in the urban environment. To measure the environmental impacts of trees in the urban environment, we will deploy thermal sap flow sensors in tree trunks to understand tree transpiration and its effects on the local climate. We will assess the impacts of urban tree transpiration on local energy partitioning with measurements of net radiation, temperature and relative humidity profiles, and soil heat flux to estimate the Bowen ratio (the ratio of sensible to latent heat flux) in varying locations. These measurements will be compared to tree transpiration estimates scaled from sap flow measurements. Finally, we will also develop a land-surface-atmosphere model to simulate the coupled and interactive impact of urban forests in the Los Angeles Basin on the local climateThe broader impacts of this research should contribute to understanding the dynamics of human action and development and the institutional obstacles and barriers to societies using scientific information. Our research examines how complex public and non-profit organizations evolve in response to information: their social learning and capacity for change; the ensuing human social dynamics that occur as a result of new information. This research should also assist in understanding the potential impacts on environmental quality of urban afforestation programs, particularly in Mediterranean climates. In a period of serious climate change and environmental degradation caused by cities, our research will contribute to understanding the extent and potential of remediation strategies at the city-level.