ULTRA-Ex: Understanding the Dynamic Connections Among Stewardship, Land Cover, and Ecosystem Services in New York City's Urban Forest

该项目将把最新的进展纳入跨学科的人类生态系统框架，以促进对城市社会和生态系统的理解，特别关注跨越社会和生态边界的动态因素。该项目将测试维护纽约市城市森林的管理者和管家之间的关系，管理其丰富性、多样性和作为栖息地的适宜性的生态过程，以及它提供的一项关键社会服务--城市小气候的温度调节之间的关系。这些假设将通过对这片城市森林在过去25年中的管家群体活动和演变的多尺度和多时期分析来检验。分析将使用卫星获取的土地覆盖地图、社会调查和访谈以及植被和动物群数据。其目的是了解管理、生态过程和生态系统服务之间的联系，以直接为利益相关者、管理者和政策制定者提供信息。城市绿地除了为动植物提供栖息地外，还提供许多社会效益。这些措施包括调节当地温度，净化空气和水，减少暴雨径流和相关的污水系统溢出，以及接近自然和与自然互动对人类的身体和心理好处。该项目的主要目标是研究管理组织的努力和目标、绿地及其相关动植物的发展和温度调节之间的联系。第二个目标是提供一套分析方法，可用于研究其他服务和其他城市。纽约市拥有无与伦比的现有数据供应，对环境管理组织的全面调查，人口密集和多样化，以及各种城市主导的植树努力。这项研究将增加对管理、土地覆盖和生态系统服务之间动态关系的总体理解，并为城市自然资源的管理提供信息。

This project will integrate recent advances into an interdisciplinary human ecosystem framework to advance understanding of urban social and ecological systems, focusing specifically on the dynamic factors that cross social and ecological boundaries. The project will test hypotheses regarding the relationships between actions of managers and stewards who maintain the urban forest in New York City, the ecological processes that govern its abundance, diversity and suitability as habitat, and a key societal service it provides, temperature regulation of the urban microclimate. These hypotheses will be tested using multiscale and multitemporal analyses of stewardship group activities and evolution of this urban forest over the past 25 years. The analyses will use satellite derived land cover maps, social surveys and interviews, and vegetation and faunal data. The objective is to understand links between stewardship, ecological processes and ecosystem services in ways that directly inform stakeholders, managers and policy makers.Urban green space provides a number of societal benefits in addition to habitat for plants and animals. These include regulation of local temperature, cleaning of air and water, reduction in storm water runoff and associated sewage system overflows, and physical and psychological benefits to humans of being close to and interacting with nature. The primary goal of this project is to study the links between the efforts and goals of stewardship organizations, development of green space and its associated flora and fauna, and temperature regulation. A secondary goal is to provide a set of analytical methods that can be used to study other services and other cities. New York City has an unparalleled supply of preexisting data, a comprehensive survey of environmental stewardship organizations, a dense and diverse human population, and a variety of city led tree planting efforts. This research will increase general understanding of the dynamic connections among stewardship, land cover, and ecosystem services, and also inform the management of the natural resources in the city.