SEES Fellows: Sustainable Infrastructure in a Changing Climate

该项目得到了NSF科学，工程和教育可持续发展研究员（SEES研究员）计划的支持，其目标是帮助实现所需的发现，为导致环境，能源和社会可持续性的行动提供信息，同时创造必要的劳动力来应对这些挑战。可持续发展科学是一个新兴的领域，它解决了在不损害环境的情况下满足人类需求的挑战，并且不牺牲后代满足其需求的能力。一个强大的科学队伍需要在跨学科研究和思维方面受过教育和培训的个人，特别是在可持续发展科学领域。在SEES奖学金的支持下，该项目将使一个有前途的早期职业研究人员能够在与可持续发展相关的独立研究生涯中确立自己的地位。该项目涉及纳入气候趋势和预测的需要，以确保基础设施部门长期规划的可持续性。特别是对于基础设施（例如，道路、桥梁、涵洞和暴雨排水系统），未来的变化可能会使许多这些风险超出历史甚至当前的设计标准。修改现有基础设施并确保新建筑能够适应未来的变化，是围绕基础设施弹性和可持续基础设施设计问题的核心和关键问题。拟议的工作将把气候变化研究中最先进的模型和工具与工程技术相结合，以帮助为未来设计更强大、更持久的基础设施。在基础设施工程中，高分辨率气候建模和气候预测实施的进展将加强ICNet RCN内部的合作，并为不断变化的环境条件下的可持续工程科学做出重大贡献。该提案旨在缩小气候科学家和工程师之间的知识差距，并应对气候变化对基础设施工程带来的具体挑战。它将探索如何利用气候信息为设计标准提供信息，以建造更好的桥梁和道路，这些桥梁和道路将在未来持续更长时间，并需要更少的资金和能源来维护。

The project is supported under the NSF Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability Fellows (SEES Fellows) program, with the goal of helping to enable discoveries needed to inform actions that lead to environmental, energy and societal sustainability while creating the necessary workforce to address these challenges. Sustainability science is an emerging field that addresses the challenges of meeting human needs without harm to the environment, and without sacrificing the ability of future generations to meet their needs. A strong scientific workforce requires individuals educated and trained in interdisciplinary research and thinking, especially in the area of sustainability science. With the SEES Fellowship support, this project will enable a promising early career researcher to establish herself in an independent research career related to sustainability. This project addresses the need of incorporating climate trends and projections to ensure the sustainability of long-term planning in the infrastructure sector. For infrastructure in particular (e.g., roads, bridges, culverts, and storm drainage systems), future change may shift many of these risks beyond historical and even current design standards. Modifying existing infrastructure and ensuring new construction will be adapted to future change is a central and critical concern surrounding the issues of infrastructure resiliency and sustainable infrastructure design. The proposed work will combine state-of-the-art models and tools in climate change research with engineering know-how to help design stronger and longer-lasting infrastructure for the future. Advances in both high-resolution climate modeling and implementation of climate projections in infrastructure engineering will enhance collaboration efforts within the ICNet RCN and significantly contribute towards the science of sustainable engineering under changing environmental conditions. This proposal aims to reduce the knowledge gap between climate scientists and engineers and to address specific challenges that climate change poses to infrastructure engineering. It will explore the ways in which climate information can be used to inform design standards to build better bridges and roads that will last longer in the future and require less money and energy to maintain.