NSF Convergence Accelerator Track K: Unraveling the Benefits, Costs, and Equity of Tree Coverage in Desert Cities

该“项目”包括收敛加速器第一阶段，将产生决策工具，优化沙漠城市的树冠覆盖。它将平衡三个核心问题：缓和热量对健康和福祉的影响，水的消耗和环境正义（用于树木的水的公平利益）。这些影响在不同的方向上产生，因此面向最终用户的决策工具将在多个层面上帮助决策者，从家庭到社区组织，再到城市和县的规划者。该项目的总体交付成果是为利益攸关方提供决策工具，以选择和分配树木，同时优化水热权衡的公正性和有效性。在第一阶段，该团队将开发，测试和提供使用启发的原型工具，由社区合作伙伴讨论与城市树木，水，热和社会公平等关键研究问题的融合驱动。第1阶段的组成部分包括：为沙漠城市的规划者提供树木选择和分配决策工具;利用热数据评估树木的水-热-健康权衡;树木效益和成本，特别是水的高分辨率环境公正绘图;改进以树木为重点的家庭能源和水保护措施评估软件;为家庭和社区树木规划提供社区保健工作者培训方案。该项目将使用大型，干旱，收入相对较低/西班牙裔高的埃尔帕索城市作为其试验台。更广泛的影响是巨大的。首先，这解决了有限的水和城市热量的权衡方面的环境正义。它通过将面向用户的规划工具和促进者培训交给社区组织和住户以及更广泛的机构来加强程序正义。它通过将有限的水资源用于最有效地减少城市热不平等来加强分配正义。这套原型工具将公开提供;它们将立即用于美国的半干旱和干旱地区，并对全国的水和树木规划产生影响。其次，在拟议的项目中，五所学术机构中有四所是西班牙裔服务机构，西班牙裔学生比例特别高，社会流动性也很高。第三，第一阶段项目将包括德克萨斯州埃尔帕索市的社区组织，该城市的贫困率几乎是全国贫困率的两倍。该项目将针对埃尔帕索的低收入地区和人口普查区，这些地区已被美国气候经济正义筛选工具确定为脆弱地区。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The “project,” consisting of Convergence Accelerator Phase 1, will produce decision-making tools that optimize tree canopy coverage in desert cities. It will balance three central concerns: tempering the effects of heat on health and well-being, water consumption, and environmental justice (equitable benefits of water devoted to trees). These effects pull in different directions, so end-user-oriented decision-making tools will help decision-makers at multiple scales, from householders to community organizations to city and county planners. The overall deliverables for this project are to produce decision-making tools for stakeholders to select and distribute trees while optimizing justice and effectiveness in water-heat tradeoffs. In Phase 1, the team will develop, test, and deliver use-inspired prototype tools, driven by the convergence of community partner discussions with key research questions about urban trees, water, heat, and social equity. Phase 1 components include: tree selection and distribution decision-making tools for planners in desert cities; use of thermal data to assess tree water-heat-health tradeoffs; fine resolution environmental justice mapping of tree benefits and costs, especially water; improvement of software for assessing household energy and water conservation measures with focus on trees; and community health worker training programs for household and neighborhood tree planning. The project will use the large, arid, and relatively low income/high Hispanic city of El Paso as its test bed. The broader impacts are substantial. First, this addresses environmental justice in terms of the trade off of limited water and urban heat. It strengthens procedural justice by putting user-oriented planning tools and promoter training in the hands of community organizations and householders, as well as wider agencies. It strengthens distributive justice by directing limited water resources toward reducing urban heat inequalities most effectively. This set of prototype tools will be made openly available; they will be immediately useful for semi-arid and arid areas of the United States and have implications for water and tree planning across the country. Second, four of the five academic institutions in the proposed project are Hispanic Serving Institutions with especially high fractions of Hispanic students and high classifications for social mobility. Third, the Phase 1 project will include community organizations in the heavily Hispanic (84%) city of El Paso, Texas, where the poverty rate is nearly twice that of the national figure. The project will target low-income portions of El Paso and census tracts that have been determined to be vulnerable by the US Climate & Economic Justice Screening Tool.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.