REU Site: Inclusive Student Training in Rapidly Urbanizing Climate-sensitive Terrains (InSTRUCT)

正如2018年德克萨斯州第四次国家气候评估所预测的那样，“随着主要大都市地区......人口继续快速增长，极端降雨事件（和干旱）的总体风险将增加。“一个关键的挑战是，在一个已经容易遭受这种极端天气的地区，面对这些挑战，如何规划城市人口的复原力。应对这一挑战需要一个包容性的对话，让来自不同背景的学生与文化相关的材料，并结合多学科的方法，将地球科学，水文学，气候科学，生态学和土木工程与解决人类影响的领域，如环境政策，规划和可持续性。在我们的学生研究培训计划中，我们将分析影响我们生活质量的过程，反馈和影响，从人类健康到生态系统服务，再到资源退化。我们将把新的重点放在：1）通过从STEM专业和STEM劳动力中代表性不足的群体中招募学生来建立一个包容性的计划，2）整合性别，种族，文化，研究和职业阶段的多元化导师团队，以及3）拥抱跨学科，协同的研究主题，涉及大学内六个不同学校和学科的导师：自然科学、地球科学、工程、建筑、政府和公共事务。因此，我们建议开发的REU网站上Inclusive CT：在快速城市化的气候敏感的地形包容性的学生培训。大部分的研究项目将集中在得克萨斯州中部地区，这是一个气候和人口的热点。我们将围绕综合自然，社会和工程子系统之间的关键联系组织我们的研究主题。而一个单独的学生研究项目将强调一个子系统，学生将获得所有三个子系统的赞赏，如研究圆桌会议，共同指导和同行影子程序元素的指导。研究将围绕三个跨学科主题进行。研究主题A将侧重于工程自然子系统。为了了解城市人口快速增长的影响以及相关的建筑环境，我们需要城市扩展模型，该模型将不断变化的城市形态、气候和生态系统以及由此产生的对水和其他资源的需求整合在一起。研究主题B将集中在社会工程的子系统。通过了解个人和组织的偏好、限制和行为，以及环境因素对他们的压力，我们可以更好地理解社会工程系统中的个人和组织如何减轻或加剧子系统之间的关键相互作用。研究主题C将侧重于过去对可持续性的看法。对过去的社会、生态系统、气候和水文系统的研究为当前和未来的变化提供了独特的视角，可以为可持续城市系统的规划提供信息。学生将应用一系列的方法来这些研究主题，包括气候，水文和基础设施预测的计算建模，水质影响的自然地球化学示踪剂，以及对环境资源公平分配的调查研究。项目设计将考虑到短短10周的经验不会损害项目设计，假设框架，方法选择，数据质量评估，数据解释和结果交流的研究原则。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

As projected by the Fourth National Climate Assessment in 2018 for the Texas region, “As major metropolitan areas … continue their rapid population growth, overall exposure to extreme rainfall events (and droughts) will increase." A key challenge is to plan for the resilience of urban populations in the face of these challenges, in a region already prone to such weather extremes. Meeting this challenge requires an inclusive conversation that engages students from diverse backgrounds with culturally relevant material, and also incorporates multidisciplinary approaches that intertwine geosciences, hydrology, climate science, ecology, and civil engineering with fields addressing human impacts such as environmental policy, planning, and sustainability. Within our student research training program, we will analyze the processes, feedbacks, and impacts that affect our quality of life, ranging from human health, to ecosystem services, to degradation of resources. We will place new emphases on: 1) building an inclusive program by recruiting students from groups underrepresented in STEM majors and the STEM workforce, 2) integrating a diverse mentor team with respect to gender, race, culture, research, and career-stage, and 3) embracing an interdisciplinary, synergistic set of research themes, involving mentors from six different schools and disciplines within the university: natural sciences, geosciences, engineering, architecture, government, and public affairs. We thus propose to develop the REU Site on InSTRUCT: Inclusive Student Training in Rapidly Urbanizing Climate-sensitive Terrains.Most of the research projects will be focused on the central Texas region, which is a climatological and demographic hotspot. We will organize our research themes around the key connections between the integrated natural, social, and engineered subsystems. Whereas an individual student research project will emphasize one subsystem, students will gain an appreciation of all three subsystems as guided by program elements such as research roundtables, co-mentoring, and peer shadowing. Research will be organized around three interdisciplinary themes. Research Theme A will focus on engineered-natural subsystems. To understand the impacts of rapid growth of urban populations and the associated built environment, we require models of urban expansion that integrate changing urban form, climate, and ecosystems, and the resulting demands for water and other resources. Research Theme B will focus on social-engineered subsystems. By understanding individual and organizational preferences, limitations, and behaviors—along with pressures placed on them by environmental factors—we can better understand how individuals and organizations within social-engineered systems alleviate or exacerbate key interactions between the subsystems. Research Theme C will focus on past perspectives on sustainability. Studies of past societies, ecosystems and climate and hydrologic systems offer unique perspectives on present and future change that can inform planning for sustainable urban systems. Students will apply a range of methodologies to these research themes, including computational modeling of climate, hydrology, and infrastructure projections, natural geochemical tracers of water quality impacts, and survey research on equitable distribution of environmental resources. Project design will consider that the short 10-week length of the experience does not compromise the research tenets of project design, hypothesis framing, method selection, assessment of data quality, data interpretation and communication of results.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.