REU Site: Inclusive Student Training in Rapidly Urbanizing Climate-sensitive Terrains (InSTRUCT)

REU 网站：快速城市化气候敏感地区的包容性学生培训 (InSTRUCT)

• 批准号: 2051110
• 负责人: Jay Banner
• 金额: $ 40.23万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Austin
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-11-01 至 2024-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2051110&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: REU; Site; Inclusive; Student; Training

As projected by the Fourth National Climate Assessment in 2018 for the Texas region, “As major metropolitan areas … continue their rapid population growth, overall exposure to extreme rainfall events (and droughts) will increase." A key challenge is to plan for the resilience of urban populations in the face of these challenges, in a region already prone to such weather extremes. Meeting this challenge requires an inclusive conversation that engages students from diverse backgrounds with culturally relevant material, and also incorporates multidisciplinary approaches that intertwine geosciences, hydrology, climate science, ecology, and civil engineering with fields addressing human impacts such as environmental policy, planning, and sustainability. Within our student research training program, we will analyze the processes, feedbacks, and impacts that affect our quality of life, ranging from human health, to ecosystem services, to degradation of resources. We will place new emphases on: 1) building an inclusive program by recruiting students from groups underrepresented in STEM majors and the STEM workforce, 2) integrating a diverse mentor team with respect to gender, race, culture, research, and career-stage, and 3) embracing an interdisciplinary, synergistic set of research themes, involving mentors from six different schools and disciplines within the university: natural sciences, geosciences, engineering, architecture, government, and public affairs. We thus propose to develop the REU Site on InSTRUCT: Inclusive Student Training in Rapidly Urbanizing Climate-sensitive Terrains.Most of the research projects will be focused on the central Texas region, which is a climatological and demographic hotspot. We will organize our research themes around the key connections between the integrated natural, social, and engineered subsystems. Whereas an individual student research project will emphasize one subsystem, students will gain an appreciation of all three subsystems as guided by program elements such as research roundtables, co-mentoring, and peer shadowing. Research will be organized around three interdisciplinary themes. Research Theme A will focus on engineered-natural subsystems. To understand the impacts of rapid growth of urban populations and the associated built environment, we require models of urban expansion that integrate changing urban form, climate, and ecosystems, and the resulting demands for water and other resources. Research Theme B will focus on social-engineered subsystems. By understanding individual and organizational preferences, limitations, and behaviors—along with pressures placed on them by environmental factors—we can better understand how individuals and organizations within social-engineered systems alleviate or exacerbate key interactions between the subsystems. Research Theme C will focus on past perspectives on sustainability. Studies of past societies, ecosystems and climate and hydrologic systems offer unique perspectives on present and future change that can inform planning for sustainable urban systems. Students will apply a range of methodologies to these research themes, including computational modeling of climate, hydrology, and infrastructure projections, natural geochemical tracers of water quality impacts, and survey research on equitable distribution of environmental resources. Project design will consider that the short 10-week length of the experience does not compromise the research tenets of project design, hypothesis framing, method selection, assessment of data quality, data interpretation and communication of results.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

正如2018年第四次国家气候评估对德克萨斯州地区的预测一样，“随着主要的大都市地区……继续他们的人口迅速增长，总体暴露于极端降雨事件（和干旱）将会增加。”一个关键的挑战是面对这些挑战，在一个已经容易发生这种极端天气的地区，计划城市人口的韧性。应对这一挑战需要一场包容性的对话，该对话使来自潜水员背景的学生与具有文化相关的材料，并结合了多学科的方法，这些方法将地球科学，水文学，气候科学，生态学和土木工程与涉及人类影响的领域（例如环境政策，规划和可持续性）进行了处理。在我们的学生研究培训计划中，我们将分析影响我们生活质量的过程，反馈和影响，从人类健康，生态系统服务到资源的退化。我们将提出新的重视：1）通过在STEM专业和STEM劳动力中招募学生的学生招募学生来建立包容性计划，2）在性别，种族，文化，研究，研究和职业阶段和3）融合多样性的导师团队，以及六个不同的研究主题和纪念活动，涉及六个不同的学校，涉及六个不同的学校：工程，建筑，政府和公共事务。因此，我们建议在指导下开发REU网站：在快速城市化气候敏感的地形中的包容性学生培训。大多数研究项目将集中在德克萨斯州中部地区，这是一个气候和人口统计学热点。我们将组织围绕集成的自然，社交和工程的子系统之间的关键联系。尽管一个个别的学生研究项目将强调一个子系统，但学生将获得对所有三个子系统的赞赏，这些系统受到计划元素的指导，例如研究圆桌会议，共同注册和同伴遮蔽。研究将在三个跨学科主题周围组织。研究主题A将集中于工程自然子系统。为了了解城市人口快速增长和相关的建筑环境的影响，我们需要城市扩张的模型，以整合不断变化的城市形式，气候和生态系统，以及对水和其他资源的需求。研究主题B将重点放在社会工程的子系统上。通过了解个人和组织的偏好，局限性和行为（以及受环境因素对它们施加的压力），我们可以更好地了解社会工程系统中的个人和组织如何减轻或加剧子系统之间的关键关键互动。研究主题C将侧重于过去对可持续性的观点。对过去社会，生态系统和气候以及水文系统的研究为当前和未来变化提供了独特的观点，可以为可持续城市系统的计划提供信息。学生将在这些研究主题上应用一系列方法，包括气候，水文学和基础设施项目的计算建模，水质影响的自然地球化学示踪剂以及对环境资源公平分配的调查研究。项目设计将考虑，短短10周的经验长度不会损害项目设计，假设框架，方法选择，数据质量评估，数据解释和结果的评估的研究宗旨。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是通过评估基金会的知识和更广泛的影响来通过评估来获得支持的珍贵的。

项目成果

Human heat health index (H3I) for holistic assessment of heat hazard and mitigation strategies beyond urban heat islands

• DOI: 10.1016/j.uclim.2023.101675
• 发表时间: 2023-11
• 期刊: Urban Climate
• 影响因子: 6.4
• 作者: H. Kamath;A. Martilli;Manmeet Singh;Trevor Brooks;Kevin Lanza;R. P. Bixler;M. Coudert;Zong-Liang Yang;D. Niyogi

Resetting of soil compositions by irrigation in urban watersheds: Evidence from Sr isotope variations in Austin, TX

城市流域灌溉重置土壤成分：来自德克萨斯州奥斯汀市锶同位素变化的证据

• DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.166928
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Science of The Total Environment
• 影响因子: 9.8
• 作者: Mauceri, Alessandro A.;Banner, Jay L.
• 通讯作者: Banner, Jay L.