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

三十多年来，长期生态研究(LTER)计划一直在支持基础生态学研究，这些研究需要在二十多个野外站点组成的协调网络中进行长时间和大空间尺度的研究。自1998年以来，LTER计划支持城市环境中的两个地点，以明确研究大都市环境中人类活动和生态过程之间的相互作用。该奖项为中亚利桑那州凤凰城(CAP)长期生态研究(LTER)项目提供了新的支持。CAP的中心问题是：不断演变的城市生态系统提供的服务如何影响人类的结果和行为，以及人类行为(反应)如何在动态环境中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的概念框架出发，CAP将继续建立土地利用和土地覆盖变化、人类对环境的态度和人类感知的基础数据库；6400平方公里研究区域内生态变量的广泛快照；家庭和邻里尺度对住宅景观实验性操纵的反应；以及人口和经济变量。在这些基础上，将在四个综合项目领域进行正在进行的和新的研究：(1)气候、生态系统和人；(2)沙漠城市的水动力学；(3)生物地球化学模式、过程和人类结果；(4)人类决策和生物多样性。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，共同制定亚利桑那州中部可持续未来的愿景。在知识价值方面，该项目将通过开发和测试有关城市环境中的社会生态系统的理论，采用以地点为基础的跨学科方法，加强基本的科学理解。该项目的长期数据库将进一步开发，并用于测试关于设计和高度修改的城市环境中的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“巨型城市”)，增加对高分辨率图像的基于对象的分析，以解决与不同土地配置(建筑)有关的生态系统服务、植被与水热相互作用以及风暴期间水的运动等问题。与水有关的项目带来了新的水文专业知识和模型，涉及水的景观再分配和连通性、生态系统服务和虚拟水等问题。生物地球化学研究将继续侧重于改变的循环，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，继续侧重于对面对城市化的生物多样性变化的机械解释。在其大部分工作中，履约协助方案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的处理。在更广泛的影响方面，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。它将整合所有各级的教育和外联工作，并将继续为一个快速变化的系统开发和维护一个关于生态和社会变量的长期综合数据库。CAP还将把研究人员与社区和政府决策者聚集在一起，制定在亚利桑那州中部和类似类型的城市环境中发展可持续未来的战略。

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.