Sustainable urban development in the Sun Corridor: Finding engineering alternatives through coupled WRF-urban land surface modeling

1435881(王)。快速城市化与土地利用和土地覆盖(LULC)的重大变化相关，产生了复杂的社会生态城市景观。LULC的变化对城市-土地-大气相互作用产生了深远的影响，改变了建造地形上的能量、水和示踪剂的传输。这些变化的众所周知的影响包括城市热岛效应(UHI)以及温室气体和污染物的排放，这些都可能因预期的气候变化而加剧。在这个项目中，研究人员将使用城市规划者和研究人员共同开发的亚利桑那州太阳走廊的开发场景作为研究城市系统动态的原型。太阳走廊是美国发展最快的城市之一。太阳走廊的快速扩张吸引了越来越多的社会生态问题的研究，如城市热岛效应和区域水文气候影响。尽管做出了这些努力，但缺乏一个新的物理模拟框架来研究创新的工程设计和社会经济规划如何有助于减轻不利的环境影响。该项目旨在弥合这一差距。中心假设是，从数值模拟得出的未来城市增长情景可以揭示土地利用变化和区域水气候之间的相互作用，从而为城市可持续发展带来新的结果。为了解决这一问题，城市系统动力学，包括人与环境的相互作用，需要用具有统计量化不确定性的高分辨率多尺度建模框架(MMF)来忠实地表示。在这个项目中，研究人员将通过将天气研究和预报(WRF)模型与最先进的城市地表模型(LSM)相结合来开发MMF，以捕捉城市树冠中的人为压力和水和能量的耦合传输。这项工作的主要成果将是将综合的WRF-LSM应用于评估城市规划战略。模拟的结果将阐明工程基础设施如何改善城市压力，例如采用绿色基础设施来缓解城市热岛。预计这项工作将为土地利用和水资源规划者提供可持续城市发展的指导方针，涵盖水资源、水文气候和工程基础设施等多个维度。此外，模型不确定性表征与情景分析相结合，将深入了解城市环境对土地利用/土地利用变化和气候变化的脆弱性。虽然这项研究的重点是太阳走廊，但研究结果预计将对其他城市产生影响。该项目将积极吸引利益攸关方和当地城市以及水资源和土地规划机构的人员参与。在整个项目期间，研究小组将寻求利益相关者的参与和反馈，参与建模工作、情景开发和对与当地城市和机构相关的研究结果的解释。项目小组和利益攸关方之间的双向交流将通过亚利桑那州立大学沙漠城市决策中心组织的技术简报和讲习班进行。例如，将从城市规划者那里收集未来城市发展下的土地利用/土地利用变化特征作为边界条件，以此作为集成的WRF-LSM模型的边界条件。与利益攸关方的会议将通过辅助的3D图形展示和其他创新的传播机制来促进。此外，该项目将支持一名研究工程师和一名博士研究生，他们将在整个项目期间积极参与教育和外联活动。这项研究的研究成果将纳入本科生和研究生课程，并通过会议报告、同行评议的期刊出版物和外联活动向科学界和更广泛的受众传播。

1435881 (Wang). Rapid urbanization is associated with substantial modifications of land use and land cover (LULC), producing complex socio-ecological urban landscapes. Changes in LULC have profound impacts on urban-land-atmosphere interactions, with modification of the transport of energy, water, and tracers over built terrains. Well-known effects of these changes include the urban heat island (UHI) and the emission of greenhouse gases and pollutants, which will likely be exacerbated by anticipated climate change. In this project, the researchers will use development scenarios of Arizona's Sun Corridor developed jointly by city planners and researchers as prototypes for investigating urban system dynamics. The Sun Corridor is one of the fastest growing urban areas in the U.S. Rapid expansion of the Sun Corridor has attracted increasing research attention on many socio-ecological issues such as the UHI effect and regional hydroclimate impacts. Despite this effort, there is a lack of a novel physical modeling framework to investigate how innovative engineering design and socioeconomic planning can help to mitigate adverse environmental effects. This project aims to bridge this gap. The central hypothesis is that scenarios for future urban growth derived from numerical modeling can reveal the interplay between land use change and regional hydroclimate leading to novel outcomes for urban sustainability. To address this, urban system dynamics including human-environment interactions need to be faithfully represented by multi-scale modeling frameworks (MMF) at high resolution with statistically quantified uncertainty. In this project, the researchers will develop an MMF by integrating the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model with a state-of-the-art urban land surface model (LSM) to capture anthropogenic stresses and coupled transport of water and energy in urban canopies. The major outcome of the work will be the application of the integrated WRF-LSM for assessment of urban planning strategies. The result of simulations will shed light on how engineering infrastructure can ameliorate urban stresses, for example the adoption of green infrastructure to mitigate UHI. The work is expected to provide guidelines of sustainable urban development for land use and water resource planners, embracing various dimensions including water resources, hydroclimate, and engineering infrastructure. In addition, model uncertainty characterization in conjunction with scenario analysis, will provide insight into the vulnerability of urban environments to LULC and climate changes. Though this study is focused on the Sun Corridor, research findings are expected to have implications to other cities. This project will actively engage stakeholders and personnel from local cities and water resources and land planning agencies. The research team will seek participation and feedback from stakeholders in modeling efforts, scenario development, and interpretation of research findings relative to local cities and agencies throughout the project duration. Two-way communication between the project team and stakeholders will be conducted through technical briefings and workshops organized by the Decision Center for a Desert City (DCDC) at the Arizona State University. For example, LULC characteristics under future urban development will be gathered from city planners as the boundary conditions to the integrated WRF-LSM model. Meetings with stakeholders will be facilitated by auxiliary 3D graphic presentation and other innovative dissemination mechanisms. In addition, this project will support one research engineer and one graduate student at the Ph.D. level, who will be actively engaged in education and outreach activities throughout the project duration. Research findings of this study will be incorporated into undergraduate and graduate-level courses, and disseminated to scientific communities as well as broader audiences, through conference presentations, peer-reviewed journal publications, and outreach activities.