PIRE: Developing Low-Carbon Cities in the US, China, and India Through Integration Across Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Social Sciences, and Public Health

国际研究与教育伙伴关系（PIRE）奖支持一个为期五年的项目，该项目将来自美国六所机构的研究人员和学生与印度的五所伙伴机构和中国的三所伙伴机构联合起来，进行变革性研究，为美国、印度和中国的低碳、可持续城市的发展做出贡献。城市需要有基于科学的工具来模拟与城市相关的当前温室气体（GHG）排放，并预测技术和政策战略相结合导致的未来温室气体减排。这项研究工作是双管齐下的，重点是减少选定城市的温室气体排放，同时也解决更广泛的可持续发展目标，如经济发展、水资源短缺、环境污染、气候变化和公共卫生。明尼苏达大学首席研究员Anu Ramaswami和来自耶鲁大学（Marian Chertow）、佐治亚理工学院（Armistead Russell）、国家大气研究中心（Patricia Romero-Lankao）、科罗拉多大学丹佛分校（Christopher Weible）以及美国国家工程学院工程中心、伦理与学会（Rachelle Hollander）的同事将与TERI大学、印度坎普尔理工学院、同济大学、清华大学、中国科学院城市环境研究所，以及印度和中国的一些非政府组织。PIRE的研究探索了技术、基础设施和社会子系统耦合所需的变革，这些变革可以帮助城市地区实现低碳、资源高效的结果，从而实现可持续城市。该项目针对处于转型中的亚洲城市。这些是亚洲快速工业化的小城市，人口不到100万，预计将主导未来的城市化进程。研究人员将把这些城市的发展轨迹与美国人口超过1000万的特大城市和规模较小的服务经济城市的发展轨迹进行比较，从而为全球不同类型城市的可持续发展提供路线图。研究小组将评估亚洲小型城市独特的基础设施干预措施——城市工业共生、纳入快速公交系统的早期交通规划和缺水条件下的电力部门规划——这些措施可以实现上述多个可持续发展目标。社会科学研究将探讨地方供水和公共卫生问题能在多大程度上推动采用低碳基础设施，并将确定最有效的政治和体制干预措施，以促进在不同类型的城市采用低碳基础设施。基础设施、社会行为者和可持续性结果之间的相互作用将使用一个新的跨学科社会-生态-基础设施系统（SEIS）框架一起进行评估。piire教育将为来自工程、环境科学、工业生态学、城市规划、公共事务和公共卫生六个主要学科的三个国家的研究生开发一个可持续基础设施-可持续城市的首个国际暑期学校和硕士项目。课程和实地考察将培养多种能力，包括：跨文化学习、跨学科技能、可持续发展知识、系统整合、社区实践以及全球可持续发展讨论中的道德意识。这个项目的智力价值在于，它首次使用基于科学的系统框架，在研究和教育方面整合了六个不同的学科。跨学科整合、城市与全球的联系、城市基础设施与公共卫生和治理的整合以及国际间的城市比较，将共同推动低碳城市科学的发展。就更广泛的影响而言，该项目将直接影响三个国家的近100名学生，使实地考察城市的居民受益，并创造长期能力，将研究转化为社区乃至全球的可持续性。与美国国家工程院工程中心、伦理与学会和中国科学院城市环境研究所的伙伴关系使研究和教育成果得以传播，而与iclei -地方政府可持续发展（南亚）、城市卫生资源中心（UHRC）和资源优化倡议（ROI）等非政府组织的合作将有助于将研究成果转化为社区行动。该项目由NSF的国际科学与工程办公室（OISE）通过pie资助。

This Partnership for International Research and Education (PIRE) award supports a five-year project that brings researchers and students from six U.S. institutions together with five partner institutions in India and three in China to conduct transformative research that will contribute to the development of low-carbon, sustainable cities in the U.S., India, and China. There is a need for cities to have science-based tools to model present-day greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with cities, and to project future GHG emissions reductions resulting from a combination of technology and policy strategies. This research effort is two-pronged, focusing on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in selected cities and also addressing broader sustainability goals such as economic development, water scarcity, environmental pollution, climate change, and public health. Principal Investigator Anu Ramaswami, University of Minnesota and colleagues from Yale University (Marian Chertow), Georgia Institute of Technology (Armistead Russell), National Center for Atmospheric Research (Patricia Romero-Lankao), University of Colorado Denver (Christopher Weible), and the National Academy of Engineering Center for Engineering, Ethics & Society (Rachelle Hollander) will collaborate with partners at TERI University, the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Tongji University, Tsinghua University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute for the Urban Environment, and several Non-Governmental Organizations in India and China. PIRE research explores transformations needed in coupled technological, infrastructural, and social sub-systems that can help urban areas realize low-carbon, resource-efficient outcomes leading to sustainable cities. This project targets Asian cities in transition. These are small rapidly industrializing cities in Asia with populations less than 1M that are expected to dominate future urbanization. The investigators will compare their development trajectories with those of megacities having populations greater than 10M and smaller service-economy cities in the U.S., thus providing a road-map for sustainable development in different city types worldwide. The research team will evaluate unique infrastructure interventions in smaller Asian cities --urban industrial symbiosis, early transportation planning incorporating bus rapid transit, and electric power sector planning under water-scarcity conditions-- that can achieve the multiple sustainability goals listed above. Social science research will explore the extent to which local water-supply and public health concerns can motivate the adoption of low-carbon infrastructures, and will identify the most effective political and institutional interventions that could facilitate their adoption in different city types. The interactions between infrastructures, social actors and sustainability outcomes will be evaluated together using a novel inter-disciplinary Social-Ecological-Infrastructural Systems (SEIS) framework.PIRE education will develop a first-of-its-kind International Summer School and MS Program on Sustainable Infrastructure-Sustainable Cities for graduate students in three nations drawn from six major disciplines: Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Industrial Ecology, Urban Planning, Public Affairs and Public Health. Curriculum and fieldwork will nurture multiple competencies addressing: inter-cultural learning, inter-disciplinary skills, sustainability knowledge, systems-integration, community-based practices, and awareness of ethics in global discussions of sustainability.The intellectual merit of this project is that it integrates for the first time six diverse disciplines both in research and education using a science-based systems framework. Cross-disciplinary integration, urban-to-global linkages, integration of urban infrastructures with public health and governance, and international cross-city comparisons, taken together will advance the science of low-carbon cities. As to broader impacts, this PIRE will directly affect close to 100 students across three nations, benefit residents in the fieldwork cities, and create long-term capacity to translate research to sustainability in communities and potentially worldwide. Partnerships with the U.S. National Academy of Engineering Center for Engineering, Ethics & Society and the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute for the Urban Environment enable the dissemination of research and education outputs, while work with NGOs such as ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability (South Asia), Urban Health Resource Centre (UHRC), and Resource Optimization Initiative (ROI) will help translate research into action in communities. The project is funded by NSF's Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE) through the PIRE.