ULTRA-Ex: Connecting the Social and Ecological Sciences with Planners, Managers, and the Public

ULTRA-Ex：将社会和生态科学与规划者、管理者和公众联系起来

• 批准号: 0948484
• 负责人: David Wise
• 金额: $ 29.99万
• 依托单位: University of Illinois at Chicago
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-08-01 至 2014-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0948484&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: ULTRA; Ex; Connecting; Social; Ecological

Cities that function well ecologically are critical to meeting pressing needs like mitigating and adapting to climate change and providing high-quality places to live for a growing and diversifying populace. This research project will help increase the ecological functioning of cities by addressing a fundamental question: In a complex urban/metropolitan system, what are the synergies and tradeoffs between conserving biodiversity and providing ecosystem services to people? The investigators will focus on the Green Infrastructure Vision of the Chicago Wilderness alliance, a conservation consortium of more than 240 organizations. The Green Infrastructure Vision, designed to implement the Chicago Wilderness Biodiversity Recovery Plan, is already influencing long-range land planning throughout the Chicago metropolitan region. The Green Infrastructure Vision identifies 1.5 million acres of recommended resource protection areas -- lands that need careful planning and management in order to protect the 360,000 acres of already protected lands and waters in the Chicago Wilderness network. Two postdoctoral researchers will work with the ULTRA-Ex research team (who come from a diversity of research institutions and governmental agencies) to accomplish two major objectives. Their first objective is to conduct a critical examination of the connections between the biodiversity-recovery goals of the region-wide Green Infrastructure Vision and the delivery of critical ecosystem services to human communities throughout the Chicago region. The researchers will examine links between social and ecological systems in the context of biodiversity management, green-infrastructure conceptualization and implementation, and the delivery of ecosystem services from cultural to biogeochemical. Their second major objective is to develop a multi-faceted, interactive, web-based Chicago hub of urban environmental researchers. This hub will include an interactive platform for managing data, communicating research findings to planners and the public, and collaborating and interacting with scientists and practitioners. It will also be an umbrella and focal point for urban ecosystem research and policy, and it will partner with regional education and outreach programs.This research project will develop new information about biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, green-infrastructure planning, asset-based analysis, and resilience theory. A novel facet of the project is the application of scientific tools to investigate the relationship between the protection of biodiversity and the delivery of a range of ecosystem services in a complex metropolitan landscape. The project will provide scientifically objective information to strengthen planning and conservation practices in the City of Chicago and the entire Chicago metropolitan region. Needs faced in the Chicago region are faced in other urban areas. Project results therefore will have utility for understanding the dynamics of complex socioecological systems of other regions of the U.S. and the world. The research project will strengthen the infrastructure of science by integrating research groups consisting of ecologists, urban planners, and social scientists in several universities, a federal agency, and the city of Chicago administration. The project also will strengthen interdisciplinary education in the social and natural sciences through a Chicago-wide interdisciplinary graduate course taught by faculty, researchers, and planners from several institutions. This award was funded as an Urban Long-Term Research Area Exploratory (ULTRA-Ex) award as the result of a special competition jointly supported by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service.

生态功能良好的城市对于满足缓解和适应气候变化等紧迫需求至关重要，并为日益增长和多样化的人口提供高质量的居住场所。这项研究项目将通过解决一个基本问题来帮助提高城市的生态功能：在一个复杂的城市/大都市系统中，保护生物多样性和为人们提供生态系统服务之间的协同和权衡是什么？调查人员将把重点放在芝加哥荒野联盟的绿色基础设施愿景上，该联盟是由240多个组织组成的保护联盟。绿色基础设施愿景，旨在实施芝加哥荒野生物多样性恢复计划，已经影响到整个芝加哥大都市区的长期土地规划。绿色基础设施愿景确定了150万英亩的建议资源保护区--这些土地需要仔细规划和管理，以保护芝加哥荒野网络中已经受到保护的36万英亩土地和水域。两名博士后研究人员将与ULTRA-Ex研究团队(来自不同的研究机构和政府机构)合作，以实现两个主要目标。他们的第一个目标是对全区域绿色基础设施愿景的生物多样性恢复目标与向整个芝加哥地区的人类社区提供关键的生态系统服务之间的联系进行严格的审查。研究人员将在生物多样性管理、绿色基础设施的构思和实施以及从文化到生物地球化学提供生态系统服务的背景下审查社会和生态系统之间的联系。他们的第二个主要目标是发展一个多方面的、互动的、基于网络的芝加哥城市环境研究中心。该中心将包括一个互动平台，用于管理数据，向规划者和公众传达研究成果，并与科学家和从业人员合作和互动。它还将成为城市生态系统研究和政策的保护伞和焦点，并将与区域教育和推广计划合作。该研究项目将开发关于生物多样性和生态系统功能、绿色基础设施规划、基于资产的分析和复原力理论的新信息。该项目的一个新方面是应用科学工具来调查在复杂的大都市景观中保护生物多样性与提供一系列生态系统服务之间的关系。该项目将提供科学客观的信息，以加强芝加哥和整个芝加哥大都市区的规划和保护实践。芝加哥地区面临的需求在其他城市地区也面临。因此，项目结果将有助于理解美国和世界其他地区复杂的社会生态系统的动态。该研究项目将通过整合由几所大学、一个联邦机构和芝加哥市政府的生态学家、城市规划者和社会科学家组成的研究小组来加强科学的基础设施。该项目还将通过芝加哥范围内的跨学科研究生课程加强社会科学和自然科学的跨学科教育，该课程由来自几个机构的教师、研究人员和规划师教授。该奖项是由美国国家科学基金会和美国农业部林业局联合支持的一项特别竞赛的结果，作为城市长期研究区域探索(ULTRA-EX)奖的资助。