ULTRA-Ex: Human-Nature Interactions in an Urbanized Island Setting: Hilo and Kailua-Kona, Hawai'i as Model Socio-Ecological Systems

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。人类对生态系统功能的普遍和日益增长的影响以及与此同时“自然”区域范围的减少促使对生态系统长期研究的重新概念化，以包括人类维度。人类系统通过物质、水和能源资源的提取和处理，以及通过土地利用和土地覆盖的变化，直接与“自然”系统相互作用。这些相互作用在城市地区集中和放大。人类主导的社会生态系统的特点往往是资源流动和景观改变的复杂模式，由于资源可能经过的多个入口和出口点、许多城市地区的快速增长以及获得代表性数据的普遍困难，这些过程可能难以跟踪、量化并与生态影响联系起来。从这个角度来看，夏威夷的“大岛”提供了一个模型设置来测试人类对地球系统的影响和城市增长的资源约束的理论。资源管理问题是夏威夷岛的一个关键问题，因为夏威夷岛的粮食储备只能维持10天的供应，并保持着全国最高的电价。通过关注岛上的两个主要城市地区，希洛和Kailua-Kona，这个跨学科的研究项目将通过资源交换、地理邻近、历史和当代文化配置，对两个社会生态系统的结构和功能进行比较分析。虽然人口和面积相似，但这些地区的社会经济和生物物理特征存在显著差异。近年来，希罗一直在努力应对甘蔗产业的消亡和从种植园经济向更多元化的经济基地的转变，而凯卢阿-科纳则因其作为国际旅游和第二故乡的吸引力而经历了爆炸式的增长。基于夏威夷岛明确的物理边界，有限的入口数量，相对较小的地理面积，生物财富和脆弱性，以及相对孤立，希洛和kailwa - kona为本项目的两个主要目标提供了一个可理解的生活实验室，这是(1)定量分析这两个城市地区在过去200年的材料，水和能源吞吐量；(2)从地理空间上分析这些地区过去、现在和潜在的人为景观变化。材料和能量流分析是一种来自工业生态学的工具，将用于跟踪每个城市系统中材料、能量和选定物质的输入、输出、转换和积累。两个城市的土地利用和土地覆盖动态将通过结合远程卫星图像、统计人口数据和生物物理数据进行分析。这些目标的信息和数据将从历史档案、统计数据库和一些利益相关者（包括县机构、地方企业和社区成员）中收集。通过明确测量人类社会活动对生态系统的影响方式以及生态系统变化对人类系统产生反馈的方式，对资源流动和景观改变的理解有可能改变社会与“自然”世界相互作用的方式。这一进程的关键是将科学发现与当地社区及其特殊的可持续性挑战联系起来。该项目由两个致力于夏威夷科学教育的当地合作伙伴组成，将通过为当地和全国的学生、教师和决策者提供跨学科和多元文化的教育活动，成为提高人们对夏威夷岛上面临的问题的认识的平台。除了为促进生态和社会经济繁荣的政策提供信息外，该项目还将通过将一种新颖的比较方法应用于人与自然相互作用的定量分析，为社会生态和土地变化科学理论的发展做出贡献。该奖项是由国家科学基金会和美国农业部林业局联合支持的一项特殊竞赛的结果，作为城市长期研究区域探索奖（ULTRA-Ex）的资助。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).The pervasive and growing influence of humans on ecosystem functioning and the concurrent decrease in the extent of "natural" areas have prompted a reconceptualization of the long-term study of ecosystems to include a human dimension. Human systems interact with "natural" systems directly through the extraction and disposal of material, water, and energy resources and indirectly through changes in land use and land cover. These interactions are concentrated and magnified in urban areas. Human-dominated socioecological systems often are characterized by complex patterns of resource flows and landscape alteration, processes that can be difficult to track, quantify, and link to ecological impacts as a result of the multiple entry and exit points through which resources may pass, the rapid pace of growth in many urban areas, and the general difficulty in obtaining representative data. In this light, the "big island" of Hawai'i provides a model setting to test theories about human impacts on the earth system and about resource constraints on urban growth. Resource management issues are of critical concern for the island of Hawai'i, which holds only a ten-day reserve of food supplies and maintains the highest electricity rates in the country. By focusing on the island's two major urban areas, Hilo and Kailua-Kona, this interdisciplinary research project will provide a comparative analysis of the structure and function of two socioecological systems related through resource exchanges, geographic proximity, and historical and contemporary cultural configurations. Although similar in population and area, these areas have markedly different socioeconomic and biophysical characteristics. In recent years, Hilo has struggled with the demise of the sugarcane industry and the transition from a plantation economy to a more diversified base, while Kailua-Kona has experienced explosive growth fueled by its attractiveness as an international tourist and second-home destination. Based on the island of Hawai'i's clear physical boundaries, limited number of entry points, relatively small geographic area, biological wealth and fragility, and relative isolation, the Hilo and Kailua-Kona provide a comprehensible living laboratory for the two principal objectives of this project, which are (1) to analyze the material, water, and energy throughput of these two urban areas quantitatively over the past 200 years; and (2) to analyze past, present, and potential human-induced landscape change in these areas geospatially. Material and energy flow analysis, a tool drawn from industrial ecology, will be used to track the input, output, conversion, and accumulation of materials, energy, and selected substances through each urban system. Land-use and land-cover dynamics will be analyzed by coupling remote satellite imagery, statistical demographic data, and biophysical data for both cities. Information and data for these objectives will be collected from historical archives, statistical databases, and a number of stakeholders, including county agencies, local businesses, and community members. An understanding of resource flows and landscape modification has the potential to transform the ways in which society interacts with the "natural" world by explicitly measuring the ways in which the activities of human society affect ecosystems and the ways in which ecosystem changes produce feedback in the human system. Essential to this process is the linkage of scientific findings with local communities and their particular sustainability challenges. With two locally embedded partners devoted to science education in Hawai'i, this project will be a platform for developing awareness of the issues faced on the island of Hawai'i by providing cross-disciplinary and multi-cultural educational initiatives for a diverse group of local and national students, teachers, and decision makers. In addition to informing policies that encourage ecological and socioeconomic prosperity, this project will also contribute to the advancement of socioecological and land-change science theories by applying a novel, comparative approach to the quantitative analysis of human-nature interactions. 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.