RCN-SEES: Climate, Energy, Environment, and Engagement in Semi-Arid Regions (CE3SAR)

该奖项由NSF的科学，工程和可持续发展教育（SEES）活动资助，旨在应对创造可持续发展世界的挑战。 研究协调网络（RCN）CE 3SAR（气候，能源，环境和半干旱地区的参与）是南德克萨斯州区域机构和其他地方主要研究型大学的研究人员的全面合作伙伴关系，促进科学，工程和可持续发展教育（SEES）的知识。该网络将开发和测试一种创新模式，用于开展跨学科、特定区域的可持续性研究，与高度参与的当地利益相关者的需求和利益密切相关。RCN CE 3SAR将聚集区域研究能力，专门针对墨西哥湾毗邻的半干旱气候的可持续性，同时利用该地区以外注入的研究专业知识。地理信息科学（GIS）将在整合科学数据层、产生科学见解以及向区域利益相关者和科学界呈现新思想、新研究方向和新科学知识的过程中发挥关键作用。该网络将整合迄今为止基本上脱节的区域能力，并为一系列将深刻影响该地区及其社会经济未来的研究带来焦点和协同作用。南得克萨斯州包括28个县，其中8个与墨西哥接壤，8个位于墨西哥湾，沿海海洋和河口环境很快成为历史上容易遭受干旱的半干旱地区。气候变化及其涟漪反应，从海平面上升到干涸的河床，将深刻影响南德克萨斯州的社会经济结构、地理分布模式以及教育和文化机构。虽然许多可持续性科学关注全球范围，但德克萨斯州南部和其他地方的当地社区和机构在未来20年内面临着与水，能源和空间使用相关的可持续性问题的关键决定。科学知识必须在相关范围内提供，以便可持续性研究为这些决策提供信息;此外，科学必须为社区所理解和接受，社区在将研究成果纳入其决策和基础设施方面发挥着至关重要的作用。经验表明，从该地区以外的进口研究人员很少或根本没有连接到社区的结果在低接受的研究结果，由当地决策者和社区在大;此外，南得克萨斯州一直是历史上孤立的和其居民怀疑的“投机者”。 为了使可持续性研究对当地产生有益和实质性的影响，区域研究人员必须利用国家和国际专门知识来推动可持续性研究。

This award is funded under NSF's Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability (SEES) activities, which aim to address the challenges of creating a sustainable world. Research Coordination Network (RCN) CE3SAR (Climate, Energy, Environment, and Engagement in Semiarid Regions) is a comprehensive partnership of researchers at South Texas regional institutions and major research universities elsewhere advancing knowledge of science, engineering and education for sustainability (SEES). The network will develop and test an innovative model for conducting interdisciplinary, region-specific, sustainability research closely tied to the needs and interests of highly-engaged local stakeholders. RCN CE3SAR will aggregate regional research capacities specific to sustainability in semiarid climates contiguous to the Gulf of Mexico while leveraging research expertise infused from outside the region. Geographic information science (GIS) will play a key role in the process of integrating layers of scientific data, producing scientific insight and presenting new ideas, new research directions and new scientific knowledge to regional stakeholders as well as the scientific community. The network will align regional capacities that heretofore were largely disconnected and bring focus and synergy to a range of research that will profoundly impact the region and its socioeconomic future. The network will engage and educate regional communities, government and private-sector stakeholders throughout the process.South Texas comprises 28 counties, eight of which border Mexico and eight the Gulf of Mexico, where coastal marine and estuarine environments quickly become semiarid regions historically susceptible to drought. Climate change and its ripple effects, from rising seas to parched riverbeds, will profoundly affect South Texas socioeconomic structures, geographic distribution patterns and educational and cultural institutions. While much sustainability science focuses on global scales, local communities and institutions in South Texas and elsewhere face crucial decisions over the next 20 years driven by sustainability issues related to water, energy and use of space. Scientific knowledge must be available at relevant scales for those decisions to be informed by sustainability research; moreover, the science must be understood and accepted by the community, which plays a vital role in implementing the research results into its decision making and infrastructure. Experience has shown that importing researchers from outside the region with little or no connection to the community results in low acceptance of research results by local decision-makers and by the community at large; moreover, South Texas has been historically isolated and its residents suspicious of 'outsiders'. In order for sustainability research to have a salutary and substantive local impact, it must be advanced by regional researchers who also draw on national and international expertise.