ULTRA-Ex: Reconsidering the New Normal: The Impact of Trauma on Urban Ecological and Social Diversity

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。近年来，学者和研究人员使用“新常态”一词来指代灾后恢复和重建过程的复杂和多方面的结果。 一般来说，创伤后立即发生的波动和混乱之后是相对稳定，通常在水平和配置上不同于创伤前的“正常”。“这个探索性的研究项目将调查创伤对城市生态和社会系统的影响，使用卡特里娜飓风后的新奥尔良作为研究区域。 研究人员将使用生态和社会措施来跟踪和描述从创伤到稳定的过渡。 将对数据进行分析，以衡量生态和社会多样化的模式。 “生态多样化”是指物种丰富度和优势度、群落结构和组成、演替阶段、土地覆盖和其他措施。 “社会多样化”跟踪人口在阶级（家庭收入中位数）、种族、民族、年龄、教育、出生地、性别、租房者/房主地位和其他指标方面的分化。 为此，研究人员确定了两个主要的研究目标。 第一项工作是利用卫星图像和2000年和2010年联邦人口普查，对创伤前和创伤后的景观和社会指标进行基于地理信息系统的空间分析。 将对这些数据进行多样化分析，并与稳定指标进行比较。 这项全市范围的研究将补充三个细粒度的研究在下九区，霍利格罗夫和庞恰特雷恩公园的社区。 在这些社区收集的定性数据将提供深入了解创伤与生态和社会多样性之间的关系，并确定社区恢复的时间，速度和轨迹的变化。 第二个目标是组织和协调一个学者和从业者网络，交流经验和知识，从而增加对创伤、人类行为和城市生态系统之间复杂的相互作用和联系的理解。该项目将为理解人类和自然生态系统的相互作用做出一些经验、理论和实践贡献。 从经验上讲，该项目将在详细的空间尺度上提供关于社会多样化和创伤后稳定的大量数字数据和分析。 从理论上讲，它将确定创伤后城市化模式、生态后果和人类反应之间的反馈和相互影响。 实际上，它将建立一个基础广泛的跨学科研究计划，确定创伤后城市生态系统变化的人类和自然系统驱动因素，并制定应对这些变化的战略。 关于拟议研究的更广泛影响，该项目将涉及生态学家，生物学家，社会学家，地理学家，人类学家，土木工程师，创伤心理学家，美国林务局研究人员和城市规划人员以及将传统知识带入项目的社区成员的跨学科团队。 通过利用三所主要大学（杜兰大学，新奥尔良大学和泽维尔大学，一个主要的HBCU）的研究和教育资源，这项研究将促进生态学家和社会科学家之间的独特合作，并将扩大代表性不足的群体的参与，产生关于人类与自然系统相互作用的新知识。 该奖项是由美国国家科学基金会和美国农业部林务局联合支持的一项特别竞赛的结果，作为城市长期研究领域探索（ULTRA-Ex）奖获得资助。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).In recent years, scholars and researchers have used the phrase "new normal" to refer to the complex and multi-faceted outcomes of post-disaster recovery and reconstruction processes. Generally, the volatility and chaos occurring immediately after a trauma are followed by a relative stabilization, usually at levels and configurations different from the pre-trauma "normal." This exploratory research project will investigate the impact of trauma on urban ecological and social systems using post-Katrina New Orleans as a study area. The investigators will use ecological and social measures to track and characterize the transition from trauma to stabilization. Data will be analyzed to measure patterns of ecological and social diversification. "Ecological diversification" refers to species richness and dominance, community structure and composition, succession stage, land cover, and other measures. "Social diversification" tracks human population differentiation in terms of class (median household income), race, ethnicity, age, education, nativity, gender, renter/homeowner status, and other metrics. Toward this end, the investigators have identified two major research objectives. The first will entail a GIS-based spatial analysis of pre- and post-trauma landscape and social metrics derived from satellite imagery and the 2000 and 2010 federal census. These data will be analyzed for diversification and compared to stabilization metrics. This citywide study will be supplemented with three fine-grained studies in the neighborhoods of the Lower Ninth Ward, Hollygrove, and Pontchartrain Park. Qualitative data collected in these neighborhoods will provide insight into the relationships between trauma and ecological and social diversity, and identify variation in the timing, pace, and trajectory of neighborhood recovery. The second objective will involve the organization and coordination of a network of scholars and practitioners to exchange experience and knowledge and thereby increase understanding of the complex interactions and connections among trauma, human actions, and urban ecosystems.This project will yield several empirical, theoretical, and practical contributions to understanding the interactions of humans and natural ecosystems. Empirically, this project will provide extensive numerical data and analyses on social diversification and post-trauma stabilization at detailed spatial scales. Theoretically, it will identify feedbacks and reciprocal effects among patterns of post-trauma urbanization, ecological consequences, and human responses. Practically, it will establish a broad-based, interdisciplinary research program that will identify the human and natural system drivers of post-trauma urban ecosystem changes and develop strategies for responding to these changes. With respect to broader impacts of the proposed research, the project will involve an interdisciplinary team of ecologists, biologists, sociologists, geographers, anthropologists, a civil engineer, a trauma psychologist, a U.S. Forest Service researcher, and urban planners plus members of the community who bring traditional knowledge to the project. By leveraging the research and education resources of three major universities (Tulane University, the University of New Orleans, and Xavier University, a major HBCU), this research will foster unique collaborations between ecologists and social scientists and will broaden participation of underrepresented groups in generating new knowledge about human-natural system 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.