Conference: 2019 Louisville Earth Stewardship Initiative' August 11-16, 2019, Louisville, Kentucky

城市热浪、洪水、下水道溢流、绿地等环境问题给全国城市带来挑战，并威胁到环境的可持续性。作为美国生态学会（ESA）会议的一部分，地球管理倡议（ESI）让科学家们沉浸在一个示范项目中，该项目通过将生态研究与景观和城市设计相结合，帮助塑造城市。参与者包括来自不同学科和职业阶段的科学家、城市官员和城市规划者。强调最大限度地提高参与者的多样性将使ESI更有效，并将改善社会影响。ESI员工将与城市员工合作，确定计划、项目和优先事项，这些计划、项目和优先事项可以从与不同观点的设计师和科学家的更多接触中受益。在ESI项目结束时，目标城市将收到几份白皮书，详细说明已确定的可持续性问题的解决方案。研究生与城市工作人员交流思想和信息，并从与不同一线专业人员的合作中获得宝贵的经验。生态学家能够将他们的学术知识应用于实际问题，城市官员和雇员可以获得当前的研究和最佳实践。ESI项目进入第四个项目年头，对城市生态学家的培训产生了重大影响，并通过跨学科设计峰会促进了创意城市生态学的应用，该峰会解决了ESA主办城市的当地生态挑战。历史上，生态学研究主要在偏远地区进行，那里的生态系统与人类活动相对隔绝。城市生态学领域的出现认识到在偏远保护区产生的生态结果与在受人类使用严重影响的生态系统中实验得出的结果之间的不一致。认识到人类活动与土地利用模式、生物地球化学循环、气候、水文和生物多样性之间的关键反馈，生态学家需要从研究城市生态转向更积极的方法来研究和塑造城市生态系统。ESI为生态学家提供了一个论坛，让他们将自己定位为塑造城市的贡献者，并推动他们这样做。在峰会期间，参与者将分成小组，从生态学的角度研究城市官员确定的当地可持续发展问题，为复杂的城市问题集思广益，提出创造性的解决方案。他们还将提出“设计实验”，将科学研究和统计分析纳入现有项目。这既提高了理论知识，又为当地项目管理提供了信息，为国家科学基金会的研究和社会效益之间提供了更直接的途径。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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。

Environmental issues such as urban heat waves, flooding and sewer overflow, and access to green space present challenges to cities nationwide and threaten environmental sustainability. The Earth Stewardship Initiative (ESI), as a part of the Ecological Society of America (ESA) conference, immerses scientists in a demonstration project that helps shape cities by integrating ecological study with landscape and urban design. The participants include scientists from many disciplines and career stages, city officials, and urban planners. The emphasis on maximizing diversity of the participants will make ESI more effective and will improve societal impacts. ESI staffers will work with city employees to identify plans, projects, and priorities that could benefit from increased engagement with designers and scientists with different perspectives. At the end of the ESI project, the target city receives several white papers detailing solutions to identified sustainability issues. Graduate students exchange ideas and information with city workers while gaining invaluable experience from their collaboration with diverse frontline professionals. Ecologists are able to apply their academic knowledge towards practical problems, and city officials and employees gain access to current research and best practices.Entering its fourth program year, the ESI project has significantly impacted training of urban ecologists and is fostering the application of creative urban ecology through an interdisciplinary design summit that addresses local ecological challenges for the ESA host city. Historically, ecological research was predominately executed in remote areas where ecosystems were relatively isolated from human activity. The emergence of the field of urban ecology recognized the incongruence between ecological results generated in remote, protected areas and those drawn from experimentation in ecosystems heavily impacted by human use. Recognizing the critical feedbacks between human activities and patterns of land-use, biogeochemical cycles, climate, hydrology, and biodiversity, ecologists need to shift from studying ecology in and of the city to a more active approach to study and shape urban ecosystems. The ESI provides a forum for ecologists to position themselves as contributors to shaping cities and pushes them to do so. During the summit, participants are divided into teams and will research local sustainability issues identified by city officials using ecological perspectives to brainstorm creative solutions for complex city issues. They will also propose "designed experiments," which embed scientific research and statistical analysis into existing projects. This both advances theoretical knowledge and informs local project management, providing a more direct path between NSF research and societal benefits.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.