ULTRA-Ex: Understanding the Dynamic Connections Among Stewardship, Land Cover, and Ecosystem Services in New York City's Urban Forest

该项目将把最新进展纳入一个跨学科的人类生态系统框架，以促进对城市社会和生态系统的理解，特别关注跨越社会和生态边界的动态因素。 该项目将测试关于管理者和管家谁维护城市森林在纽约市，生态过程，管理其丰富性，多样性和适宜性作为栖息地，它提供了一个关键的社会服务，城市微气候的温度调节之间的关系的假设。 这些假设将使用多尺度和多时相分析的管理组的活动和演变的城市森林在过去的25年进行测试。这些分析将利用卫星生成的土地覆盖图、社会调查和访谈以及植被和动物群数据。目的是了解管理、生态过程和生态系统服务之间的联系，使利益攸关方、管理者和决策者直接了解这些联系。城市绿色空间除了为动植物提供栖息地外，还提供了许多社会效益。这些措施包括调节当地温度，清洁空气和水，减少雨水径流和相关的污水系统溢出，以及接近自然和与自然互动对人类的身心益处。该项目的主要目标是研究管理组织的努力和目标、绿色空间及其相关植物群和动物群的发展以及温度调节之间的联系。第二个目标是提供一套分析方法，可用于研究其他服务和其他城市。纽约市拥有无与伦比的现有数据供应、对环境管理组织的全面调查、密集而多样化的人口以及各种城市主导的植树工作。这项研究将增加对管理，土地覆盖和生态系统服务之间动态联系的一般理解，并为城市自然资源的管理提供信息。

This project will integrate recent advances into an interdisciplinary human ecosystem framework to advance understanding of urban social and ecological systems, focusing specifically on the dynamic factors that cross social and ecological boundaries. The project will test hypotheses regarding the relationships between actions of managers and stewards who maintain the urban forest in New York City, the ecological processes that govern its abundance, diversity and suitability as habitat, and a key societal service it provides, temperature regulation of the urban microclimate. These hypotheses will be tested using multiscale and multitemporal analyses of stewardship group activities and evolution of this urban forest over the past 25 years. The analyses will use satellite derived land cover maps, social surveys and interviews, and vegetation and faunal data. The objective is to understand links between stewardship, ecological processes and ecosystem services in ways that directly inform stakeholders, managers and policy makers.Urban green space provides a number of societal benefits in addition to habitat for plants and animals. These include regulation of local temperature, cleaning of air and water, reduction in storm water runoff and associated sewage system overflows, and physical and psychological benefits to humans of being close to and interacting with nature. The primary goal of this project is to study the links between the efforts and goals of stewardship organizations, development of green space and its associated flora and fauna, and temperature regulation. A secondary goal is to provide a set of analytical methods that can be used to study other services and other cities. New York City has an unparalleled supply of preexisting data, a comprehensive survey of environmental stewardship organizations, a dense and diverse human population, and a variety of city led tree planting efforts. This research will increase general understanding of the dynamic connections among stewardship, land cover, and ecosystem services, and also inform the management of the natural resources in the city.