REU Site: Land Change and Vulnerability Studies in New England: The Human-Environment Regional Observatory (HERO)

REU 网站：新英格兰土地变化和脆弱性研究：人类环境区域观测站 (HERO)

• 批准号: 0849985
• 负责人: Colin Polsky
• 金额: $ 35.41万
• 依托单位: Clark University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-05-01 至 2013-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0849985&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: REU; Site; Land; Change; Vulnerability

Human alterations of the earth's surface represent one of the planet's most significant cumulative global environmental changes. In countries such as the US this process manifests principally as suburbanization. Our understanding of the specific causes and consequences of suburbanization -- an under-studied form of landscape change -- is limited because we also lack a systematic baseline description of the location, extent, timing, and rates of the changes where the process is suspected to be important. These knowledge gaps are increasingly being filled by "land change" and "vulnerability" assessments, or the integrated studies of the process, and why it matters to stakeholders. This REU Site project will build on 9 years of success engaging undergraduate researchers through the Human-Environment Regional Observatory (HERO) program, which operates on the REU Site approach. Intellectual Merit: Two research streams are proposed. The Forest Change Monitoring stream will produce validated measures of spatial & temporal forest composition changes in a landscape (Massachusetts) dominated by heterogeneous species assemblages and ownership groups. This stream will also contribute to the ?best-practices? literature for remote sensing applications, by articulating challenges and opportunities associated with constructing and maintaining a long-term, semi-automated satellite imagery-based forest monitoring program. The Vulnerability Assessment stream will examine the social causes and consequences of, and responses to, land-cover changes in the suburban Boston area, using remote sensing, statistical, and survey analytical techniques. Research products from both research streams will contribute to both substantive and methodological literatures on land use-environment, suburban studies, landscape ecology, and geographic information science.Broader Impacts: The research proposed here will produce salient results that provide resources for practitioners and suburban communities experiencing rapid changes associated with their development patterns; publications will be produced for both scholarly and stakeholder (e.g., USFS, NASA, federal/state/municipal/community groups, elected officials) audiences. Undergraduate students will be integrally involved in the implementation of established research design and in the design of future research. These students will benefit from interacting with HERO MA & PhD students serving as research mentors. A rigorous two-part assessment will be conducted. The PIs are committed to furthering their successes engaging students from underrepresented groups by testing new methods for recruiting to enhance diversity. HERO will be closely integrated with K-12 communities and science journalists through existing efforts under separate but related NSF-CNH funding.

人类对地球表面的改变代表着地球上最重大的累积全球环境变化之一。在美国等国家，这一过程主要表现为郊区化。我们对郊区化的具体原因和后果的理解是有限的--郊区化是一种研究不足的景观变化形式，因为我们也缺乏对怀疑这一过程重要的地点、范围、时间和变化速度的系统基线描述。这些知识空白越来越多地被“土地变化”和“脆弱性”评估或对这一过程的综合研究以及它为什么对利益攸关方重要所填补。这个REU站点项目将建立在9年来通过人类-环境区域天文台(HERO)计划成功吸引本科生研究人员的基础上，该计划在REU站点方法上运行。智力价值：提出了两个研究方向。森林变化监测流将在以异质物种组合和所有权群体为主的景观(马萨诸塞州)中产生经过验证的森林组成变化的时空测量方法。这一流程还将有助于最佳实践？通过阐述与建立和维持长期、半自动卫星图像为基础的森林监测方案有关的挑战和机遇，为遥感应用提供文献资料。脆弱性评估流程将使用遥感、统计和调查分析技术，研究波士顿郊区土地覆盖变化的社会原因和后果，以及对此做出的反应。这两个研究流派的研究产品将有助于土地利用-环境、郊区研究、景观生态学和地理信息科学的实质性和方法性文献。广泛影响：这里建议的研究将产生显著的成果，为从业者和经历与其发展模式相关的快速变化的郊区社区提供资源；将为学术和利益相关者(例如，美国科学基金会、美国国家航空航天局、联邦/州/市政/社区团体、民选官员)出版出版物。本科生将完整地参与既定研究设计的实施和未来研究的设计。这些学生将受益于与担任研究导师的英雄硕士和博士研究生互动。将进行严格的两部分评估。私人投资机构致力于通过测试新的招聘方法来促进其成功，吸引来自代表性不足群体的学生，以增强多样性。HERO将通过单独但相关的NSF-CNH资金下的现有努力，与K-12社区和科学记者密切结合。