Research Starter Grant: An Urban Environmental Observatory

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Urban environments provide novel opportunities for increasing our understanding of ecological processes and identifying feedbacks between ecological and societal dynamics. To address scientific and management uncertainties associated with the linkages between carbon, water, and energy exchanges within a city, this project will begin developing a multiple-scale urban environmental observatory. The urban observatory approach will provide novel opportunities to describe current urban environmental conditions and develop short- and long-term forecasts of likely futures based on societal decisions and future climate predictions. By focusing on the water-carbon-energy nexus, the urban observatory will provide descriptions of how urban water use leads to changes in urban ecosystem functioning. It will also allow for testing of hypotheses regarding the response of urban ecosystem processes to weather, irrigation, and land-cover changes. The proposed urban observatory will have an immediate impact by identifying the sensitivity and resilience of ecosystem functioning and ecosystem services associated with human health and prosperity in response to changes in land-use, management, and water availability for the city of Riverside, CA. This project will provide a longer-term impact by developing a framework for improving management of ecological processes to provide ongoing availability of ecosystem services to support human well-being within this region. The results will be disseminated in venues appropriate for scientists and local stakeholders in a format that can assist real-time management activities. In conjunction with the improved knowledge, this project will contribute to the training of underrepresented groups in science at undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral levels.