Collaborative Research: Prioritizing Cooling Infrastructure Investments for Vulnerable Southwest Populations

该合作研究项目的目标是开发将社会和建筑环境脆弱性纳入单一框架的方法，并将创建一个优先级框架，用于选择冷却基础设施投资，最大限度地减少脆弱性。美国西南部人口对高温的脆弱性是一个城市的社会人口特征和建筑环境的结果，但对后者知之甚少。先前的研究主要集中在人口亚群的社会人口特征上。新出现的证据表明，我们设计基础设施系统的方式可能会显著影响个人对冷却资源的获取。如果一个社区居住在变暖更快的建筑中，或者居住在由于发电和输电影响而可能更频繁断电的地区，或者不靠近社区制冷中心，那么被认为在社会上容易受到高温事件影响的社区，可能面临更大的风险。研究小组将开发新的方法，将社会人口特征与新的基础设施脆弱性措施相结合，以评估耦合社会技术风险的关系，并以洛杉矶和凤凰城为案例研究。基础设施脆弱性指数将评估一个社区获得冷却资源的情况，包括空调、建筑被动制冷、社区避难所和补水中心的情况，以及电力供应中断的情况。通过结合社会技术脆弱性框架，该团队将制定优先考虑基础设施升级的战略。综合社会和基础设施脆弱性框架将产生估算由建筑环境特征导致的额外热风险的新方法，并将为城市确定有效的冷却基础设施投资策略，以减少这种风险。研究小组将召集专家小组，并通过他们的反馈编写一本指南，说明城市如何评估其脆弱性，以及考虑到特定的建筑环境特征，哪些基础设施战略可能带来最具成本效益的效益。该项目将为城市提供一个指导框架，使其能够将庞大而复杂的社会人口和基础设施数据集结合起来，以了解哪些人口最容易受到未来高温影响及其原因。它将为高风险高温地区的城市提供信息和方法，以了解如何识别和减轻未来的脆弱性。

The objective of this collaborative research project is to develop methods for joining social and built environment vulnerability into a single framework, and will create a prioritization framework for selecting investments in cooling infrastructure that maximize the reduction in vulnerability. The vulnerability of the United States Southwest populations to heat is a result of both a city's socio-demographic profile and the built environment, yet little is known about the latter. Prior research has largely focused on socio-demographic characteristics of population sub-groups. Emerging evidence suggests that the way in which we design our infrastructure systems may significantly affect an individual's access to cooling resources. A neighborhood that is considered socially vulnerable to heat events may be at an even greater risk if they live in buildings that warm more quickly, are in regions that may lose electricity more frequently due to generation and transmission impacts, or are not near to a community cooling center. The research team will develop novel methods for coupling socio-demographic characteristics with new infrastructure vulnerability measures to assess the nexus of coupled socio-technical risk, using Los Angeles and Phoenix as case studies. The infrastructure vulnerability indices will assess a neighborhood's access to cooling resources whether that be air conditioning, building passive cooling, access to community refuge and hydration centers, as well as disruptions of electricity supply. With the coupled socio-technical vulnerability framework, the team will develop strategies for prioritizing infrastructure upgrades.The integrated social and infrastructure vulnerability framework will result in new methods for estimating the additional risk to heat that result from built environment characteristics, and will identify efficient cooling infrastructure investment strategies for cities to reduce this risk. The research team will convene expert panels and through their feedback will develop a guidebook that shows how cities can assess their vulnerability and which infrastructure strategies are likely to lead to the most cost-effective benefits, given particular built environment characteristics. The project will provide a guiding framework for cities to join large and complex socio-demographic and infrastructure datasets to understand which populations are most at-risk to future heat impacts and why. It will enable cities in high-risk heat regions with information and methods for understanding how to identify and mitigate future vulnerability.