CAP3: Urban Sustainability in the Dynamic Environment of Central Arizona, USA

30多年来，长期生态研究（LTER）项目支持了需要长时间和大空间尺度的基础生态研究，这些研究需要在20多个野外站点的协调网络上进行。自1998年以来，LTER项目在城市环境中支持了两个站点，以明确地研究城市环境中人类活动与生态过程之间的相互作用。该奖项为中亚利桑那凤凰城（CAP）长期生态研究（LTER）项目提供了新的支持。CAP的核心问题是：不断演变的城市生态系统所提供的服务如何影响人类的结果和行为？在动态环境中，人类的行动（反应）如何改变生态系统结构和功能的模式，并最终改变城市的可持续性？从一个概念框架出发，通过生态系统服务将城市社会生态系统的社会和生态领域联系起来，共同行动计划将继续建立土地利用和土地覆盖变化、人类态度和人类对环境的看法的基础数据库；6400平方公里研究区生态变量的广泛快照；家庭和社区尺度对实验性住区景观的响应以及人口和经济变量。基于这些基础，将在四个综合项目领域开展正在进行的和新的研究：(1)气候、生态系统和人类；(2)沙漠城市的水动力学；(3)生物地球化学模式、过程与人类结果；(4)人类决策与生物多样性。将开展新的活动，综合超过12年的现有数据，并与其他科学家、决策者和公众合作，共同为亚利桑那州中部的可持续未来创造一个愿景。就智力价值而言，该项目将利用基于地点的跨学科方法，通过发展和测试城市背景下社会生态系统的理论，加强对基础科学的理解。该项目的长期数据库将得到进一步发展，并用于测试在设计和高度修改的城市环境中关于生态系统服务的新假设。关于土地覆盖的新工作将包括三个不同的尺度（地块、大都市、区域“大都市”），增加基于对象的高分辨率图像分析，以解决与不同土地结构（建筑）、植被-水-热相互作用以及风暴期间水的运动相关的生态系统服务问题。与水相关的项目带来了新的水文学专业知识和模型，以解决水和连通性、生态系统服务和虚拟水的景观再分配问题。生物地球化学研究将继续侧重于变循环，并将增加对持久性有机污染物的分析。“城市食物网”的新视角将组织生物多样性研究，继续关注城市化背景下生物多样性变化的机制解释。在其大部分工作中，CAP将对生态系统服务之间以及这些服务与人类结果之间的权衡进行系统处理。就更广泛的影响而言，该项目将提高科学家和决策者对城市作为解决可持续性挑战的社会生态平台的认识。它将把各级的教育和外联工作结合起来，并将继续为迅速变化的系统发展和维持一个全面、长期的生态和社会变量数据库。CAP还将把研究人员与社区和政府决策者聚集在一起，制定战略，在亚利桑那州中部和类似的城市环境中发展可持续的未来。

For more than three decades, the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Program has supported fundamental ecological research that requires long time periods and large spatial scales at a coordinated network of more than two dozen field sites. Since 1998, the LTER Program has supported two sites in urban settings to explicitly examine the interactions among human activities and ecological processes in metropolitan settings. This award provides renewed support for the Central Arizona Phoenix (CAP) long-term ecological research (LTER) project. CAP's central question is: How do the services provided by evolving urban ecosystems affect human outcomes and behavior, and how does human action (response) alter patterns of ecosystem structure and function and, ultimately, urban sustainability, in a dynamic environment? Working from a conceptual framework that links the social and ecological spheres of urban socioecological systems via ecosystem services, CAP will continue to build foundational databases of land-use and land-cover change, human attitudes, and human perceptions with respect to the environment; an extensive snapshot of ecological variables across the 6400-square km study area; household- and neighborhood-scale responses to experimental manipulation of residential landscapes; and demographic and economic variables. Based on these foundations, ongoing and new research will be conducted in four integrative project areas: (1) Climate, Ecosystems and People; (2) Water Dynamics in a Desert City; (3) Biogeochemical Patterns, Processes, and Human Outcomes; and (4) Human Decisions and Biodiversity. New activities will be undertaken both to synthesize more than 12 years of existing data and to work with other scientists, decision makers, and the public in collaboratively producing a vision for a sustainable future in central Arizona. In terms of intellectual merit, this project will enhance basic scientific understanding by developing and testing theories regarding socioecological systems in urban contexts, using a place-based, transdisciplinary approach. The project's long-term database will be further developed and used to test new hypotheses about ecosystem services in designed and highly modified urban environments. New work on land cover will include three distinct scales (parcel, metropolitan, regional "megapolitan"), adding object-based analysis of high-resolution imagery to address questions about ecosystem services associated with different land configurations (architectures), vegetationwaterheat interactions, and movement of water during storms. Water-related projects bring new hydrologic expertise and models to bear on questions of landscape redistribution of water and connectivity, ecosystem services, and virtual water. Biogeochemical research will continue to focus on altered cycles and will add analysis of persistent organic pollutants. A new perspective of "the urban food web" will organize biodiversity research, which continues to focus on mechanistic explanations for biodiversity change in the face of urbanization. Throughout much of its work, CAP will launch systematic treatments of tradeoffs among ecosystem services and between those services and human outcomes. With respect to broader impacts, this project will raise scientists' and decision makers' awareness of cities as socioecological platforms for solving sustainability challenges. It will integrate education and outreach at all levels, and it will continue to develop and maintain a comprehensive, long-term database of ecological and social variables for a rapidly changing system. CAP also will bring together researchers with community and governmental decision makers to develop strategies for developing a sustainable future in central Arizona and similar kinds of urban environments.