ULTRA-Ex: Resilience in an Urban Socioecological System: Water Management as a Driver of Landscape and Biodiversity in Fresno-Clovis, California

ULTRA-Ex：城市社会生态系统的复原力：水管理作为加利福尼亚州弗雷斯诺-克洛维斯景观和生物多样性的驱动力

• 批准号: 0949036
• 负责人: Madhusudan Katti
• 金额: $ 29.92万
• 依托单位: California State University-Fresno Foundation
• 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: 2010-09-01 至 2015-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0949036&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: ULTRA; Ex; Resilience; Urban; Socioecological

Human beings have transformed the Earth into an increasingly urban planet, with nearly half of humanity now living in cities. A city is a unique type of ecosystem where human social, economic, and cultural activities play a prominent role in shaping the landscape, which, in turn, influences the distribution and abundance of other species and consequent patterns of biodiversity. The long-term sustainability of cities is of increasing concern as they continue to grow, straining their infrastructure and pushing against environmental constraints on available natural resources. A key natural resource is water, especially in the more rapidly urbanizing arid regions of the world. Understanding water management and use in cities therefore is critical to developing a deeper theoretical understanding of urban ecosystems as well as effective urban policy. The American West faces a water crisis. Drought, urban growth, climate change, and the continued demands of agriculture have combined to heighten the competition among water users and spurred the search for institutional arrangements to conserve water. Common tools used by governments to regulate and reduce water consumption are the water meter and a use-based pricing structure. In the rapidly urbanizing San Joaquin Valley of California, which is located in an arid region subject to prolonged drought cycles likely to be exacerbated under regional climate change projections, many cities now are installing meters to reduce household water use. Metering is expected to reduce water availability throughout the urban ecosystem, with residential landscaping choices mediating its effects upon the distribution of plants and animals. Urban land-use decisions result from dynamic interactions between institutional and individual-level factors. Landscaping and irrigation at any particular residence, for example, are products of local environmental conditions, the homeowners' cultural preferences, socioeconomic status, neighborhood dynamics, zoning laws, market conditions, city policies, and county/state/federal government regulations. Because land use is a key determinant of habitat for other species, overall urban biodiversity is strongly driven by the outcome of interactions between these variables, but these interactions remain poorly understood. This research project will address the significance of water as a key resource shaping regional patterns of landscape and biodiversity in the Fresno-Clovis metropolitan area of central California. Fresno currently is installing water meters and will start charging for use by 2013, while Clovis has been doing so for almost a century. This contrast in water policies between the two cities provides a unique comparative experimental opportunity to study the impact of metering on human landscaping choices and consequent patterns of urban biodiversity. The objectives of this project are to analyze and contrast current patterns of water use in these cities by focusing on institutional policy and decision making regarding metering; individual homeowner decision making about landscaping; landscape structure at multiple spatial scales; and patterns in the distribution of plant and bird diversity. The investigators will employ a range of methods from multiple disciplines including field observations, institutional and individual homeowner surveys, face-to-face interviews with stakeholders, geographical information systems, remote sensing, global positioning systems, statistical tools, systems modeling, and advanced computer visualization techniques. In addition to addressing many fundamental ecological and socioeconomic questions, the research will be tightly integrated with the education of undergraduate and graduate students and a strong citizen science component built upon the ongoing Fresno Bird Count project. The project will have significant implications for urban socioecological theory, methodology, and application. In terms of theory, this project will shed light on complex dynamics of interrelated processes among government regulatory policies, human behavior, landscape and habitat structure, and plant and bird distribution at multiple spatial and temporal scales. In terms of methodology, the research will integrate multidisciplinary methods and advanced technologies to investigate the complexity of the study system, leveraging a "natural" experiment occurring due to Fresno's installation of water meters, and involving citizen scientist participation in data gathering. With respect to broader impacts, the project will provide practical information for urban governance by measuring the impact of a common regulatory tool on citizen behavior and its resulting impacts on landscape and biodiversity. Understanding the relationships among institutions, individual citizens, and biodiversity will help guide urban planning towards more sustainable, resilient, and environmentally healthy cities in the region and throughout the world. 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.

人类已经将地球变成一个日益城市化的星球，现在有近一半的人类生活在城市中。 城市是一种独特的生态系统，人类的社会、经济和文化活动在塑造景观方面发挥着重要作用，反过来又影响着其他物种的分布和丰度以及随之而来的生物多样性模式。 城市的长期可持续性越来越令人关切，因为城市继续增长，使其基础设施紧张，并推动对现有自然资源的环境限制。 水是一种关键的自然资源，特别是在世界上城市化速度较快的干旱地区。 因此，了解城市中的水资源管理和使用对于加深对城市生态系统的理论理解以及制定有效的城市政策至关重要。 美国西部面临水资源危机。 干旱、城市发展、气候变化以及农业的持续需求，这些因素加在一起加剧了用水者之间的竞争，并促使人们寻求节约用水的制度安排。 政府用来管制和减少用水量的常用工具是水表和基于使用的定价结构。 加州的圣华金河谷正迅速城市化，该河谷位于干旱地区，长期干旱周期很可能在区域气候变化预测下加剧，许多城市现在正在安装水表，以减少家庭用水。 计量预计将减少整个城市生态系统的可用水，与住宅景观的选择调解其对植物和动物的分布的影响。 城市土地利用决策是制度因素和个人因素之间动态相互作用的结果。 例如，任何特定住宅的景观美化和灌溉都是当地环境条件、房主的文化偏好、社会经济地位、邻里动态、分区法、市场条件、城市政策和县/州/联邦政府法规的产物。 由于土地利用是其他物种栖息地的关键决定因素，因此这些变量之间相互作用的结果强烈驱动了整体城市生物多样性，但这些相互作用仍然知之甚少。 本研究项目将探讨水作为塑造加州中部弗雷斯诺-克洛维斯大都市区景观和生物多样性区域格局的关键资源的重要性。 弗雷斯诺目前正在安装水表，并将在2013年前开始收费使用，而克洛维斯已经这样做了将近世纪。这两个城市之间的水资源政策的对比提供了一个独特的比较实验的机会，研究计量对人类景观选择和随之而来的城市生物多样性模式的影响。 本项目的目标是分析和对比目前的水资源利用模式，在这些城市的重点是机构的政策和决策有关计量;个人房主决策有关景观美化;景观结构在多个空间尺度;和植物和鸟类多样性的分布模式。 调查人员将采用来自多个学科的一系列方法，包括实地观察，机构和个人房主调查，与利益相关者的面对面访谈，地理信息系统，遥感，全球定位系统，统计工具，系统建模和先进的计算机可视化技术。 除了解决许多基本的生态和社会经济问题外，该研究还将与本科生和研究生的教育紧密结合，并在正在进行的弗雷斯诺鸟类计数项目的基础上建立强大的公民科学组成部分。该项目将对城市社会生态理论、方法和应用产生重要影响。 在理论方面，该项目将揭示政府监管政策，人类行为，景观和栖息地结构，以及植物和鸟类分布在多个空间和时间尺度上相互关联的过程的复杂动态。 在方法论方面，该研究将整合多学科方法和先进技术，以调查研究系统的复杂性，利用由于弗雷斯诺安装水表而发生的“自然”实验，并让公民科学家参与数据收集。 在更广泛的影响方面，该项目将通过衡量共同监管工具对公民行为的影响及其对景观和生物多样性的影响，为城市治理提供实用信息。了解机构、公民个人和生物多样性之间的关系将有助于指导城市规划，使本区域和全世界的城市更具可持续性、复原力和环境健康。 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。