Research Starter Grant: An Urban Environmental Observatory

城市环境为增加我们对生态过程的理解和确定生态和社会动态之间的反馈提供了新的机会。为了解决与城市内碳、水和能源交换之间的联系相关的科学和管理不确定性，该项目将开始开发一个多尺度的城市环境观测站。城市观测站方法将提供新的机会来描述当前的城市环境状况，并根据社会决策和未来气候预测制定对可能的未来的短期和长期预测。通过将重点放在水-碳-能源关系上，城市天文台将描述城市用水如何导致城市生态系统功能的变化。它还将允许测试关于城市生态系统过程对天气、灌溉和土地覆盖变化的反应的假设。拟议的城市观测站将产生立竿见影的影响，确定与人类健康和繁荣相关的生态系统功能和生态系统服务的敏感性和弹性，以应对加利福尼亚州河滨市土地利用、管理和水资源供应的变化。该项目将通过制定一个改善生态进程管理的框架，以提供持续的生态系统服务，以支持该区域的人类福祉，从而产生较长期的影响。结果将在适合科学家和当地利益攸关方的场所以有助于实时管理活动的形式传播。结合改进的知识，该项目将有助于在本科生、研究生和博士后各级培训未被充分代表的科学群体。

Urban environments provide novel opportunities for increasing our understanding of ecological processes and identifying feedbacks between ecological and societal dynamics. To address scientific and management uncertainties associated with the linkages between carbon, water, and energy exchanges within a city, this project will begin developing a multiple-scale urban environmental observatory. The urban observatory approach will provide novel opportunities to describe current urban environmental conditions and develop short- and long-term forecasts of likely futures based on societal decisions and future climate predictions. By focusing on the water-carbon-energy nexus, the urban observatory will provide descriptions of how urban water use leads to changes in urban ecosystem functioning. It will also allow for testing of hypotheses regarding the response of urban ecosystem processes to weather, irrigation, and land-cover changes. The proposed urban observatory will have an immediate impact by identifying the sensitivity and resilience of ecosystem functioning and ecosystem services associated with human health and prosperity in response to changes in land-use, management, and water availability for the city of Riverside, CA. This project will provide a longer-term impact by developing a framework for improving management of ecological processes to provide ongoing availability of ecosystem services to support human well-being within this region. The results will be disseminated in venues appropriate for scientists and local stakeholders in a format that can assist real-time management activities. In conjunction with the improved knowledge, this project will contribute to the training of underrepresented groups in science at undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral levels.