CAREER: Urban Land-Use Change in Asia

地球表面向城市用途的转变是人类对全球生物圈和地球作为一个系统的运作最深远的影响之一。了解社会和城市土地利用变化之间的潜在结构、因果关系和反馈相互作用对于可持续性和人类福祉至关重要。该学院早期职业发展奖将资助旨在促进我们对城市化的时空模式、城市土地利用变化的人口、社会-制度和经济-政治原因以及城市土地利用变化对这些过程的反馈的理解的研究。在国际和平研究所已经建立的比较框架的基础上，该项目将使用中国和越南的多个研究地点作为观测实验室。两国最近的政治和经济改革刺激了令人印象深刻的经济增长速度，在短短几十年内，这些经济增长已经转变为新的城市地区，数百年来一直用于农业的土地。这项研究将评估当代中国和越南城市的土地利用变化，作为政府政策、人口变化、经济因素、投资和当地制度之间动态互动的结果。首先，将使用两国基于地点的案例研究来检验关于城市土地流转根本原因的长期假设。其次，这些研究将被用来开发关于社会经济、政治和经济过程与城市土地利用变化之间的相互作用的交叉主题和更一般的理论。第三，将评估这些跨越时间和空间的相互作用的强度，最终目标是提供一个关于土地利用变化的人类驱动因素的新范式，解决社会和生物物理过程的复杂性和反馈问题。通过卫星遥感分析，结合深度访谈和档案研究，研究城市土地利用变化的时空格局，构建土地利用历史。将从人口迁移、经济因素、产权和政策改革等方面探讨城市土地利用变化的原因、后果和反馈。这项研究将分析人口普查数据、家庭信息、深度访谈和来自多个行政单位的国家纲要的经济数据。这些目标的主要意义在于确定多种社会过程的趋势和影响及其在城市土地转换中的作用；对正在进行的社会和生物物理转变及其相互作用的点形成跨尺度的了解；以及在个别个案研究之外发展土地利用变化过程的理论。该项目的三个教育目标是通过暑期研究机会与当地一所学校启动一项外联计划，开发一个关于亚洲城市化的教学模块，该模块可与国际和平协会已经制作的一部纪录片结合使用，以及开发和实施一门新的跨校园地理信息系统课程。该项目将为在多个学术水平上传统上在科学领域代表性不足的学生提供独特的学习和研究机会。这些学生社区的参与将通过与当地一所服务于低收入和弱势青年的学校的外展和指导计划以及通过斯坦福大学的积极招生来扩大。

The conversion of Earth's land surface to urban uses is one of the most profound human impacts on the global biosphere and the functioning of Earth as a system. Understanding the underlying structure, causal relationship, and feedback interactions between society and urban land-use change is critical for sustainability and human well-being. This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award will fund research that seeks to advance our understanding of the spatial and temporal patterns of urbanization, the demographic, social-institutional, and economic-political causes of urban land-use change, and the feedbacks of urban land-use change on these processes. Building on a comparative framework already established by the PI, this project will use multiple study sites in China and Vietnam as observational laboratories. Recent political and economic reforms in both countries have spurred impressive rates of economic growth which, in only a few decades, have transformed to new urban areas land that had been dedicated to agriculture for centuries. The research will evaluate urban land-use change in contemporary Chinese and Vietnamese cities as an outcome of the dynamic interaction among government policies, population changes, economic factors, investments and local institutions. First, place-based case studies in both countries will be used to test long-held hypotheses about the fundamental causes of urban land conversion. Second, these studies will be used to develop cross-cutting themes and more general theories regarding the interaction among socioeconomic, political, and economic process and urban land-use change. Third, the strength of these interactions across time and space will be evaluated with the ultimate goal of offering a new paradigm about the human drivers of land-use change that addresses the complexities and feedbacks of social and biophysical processes. The spatial and temporal patterns of urban land-use change will be investigated through satellite remote sensing analysis combined with in-depth interviews and archival research to construct land-use histories. The causes, consequences, and feedbacks of urban land-use change will be explored by examining population migration, economic factors, property rights, and policy reforms. The research will analyze census data, household information, in-depth interviews, and economic data from national compendiums at multiple administrative units. The primary significance of these objectives lies in identifying trends and impacts of multiple social processes and their roles in urban land conversion; developing a cross-scale understanding of the social and biophysical transitions underway and the points at which they interact; and developing theories of land-use change processes beyond individual case studies. The three educational objectives of the project are to initiate an outreach program with a local school through summer research opportunities, to develop a teaching module on urbanization in Asia that can be used in conjunction with a documentary film that the PI already has created, and to develop and implement a new cross-campus GIS course. The project will offer unique learning and research opportunities for students who are traditionally underrepresented in the sciences across multiple academic levels. The participation of these student communities will be broadened through an outreach and mentorship program with a local school that serves low-income and disadvantaged youths and through active student recruitment at Stanford.