Collaborative Research: GCR:Can improved ecological forecasting accelerate sustainability transformation in urban lighting?

实现国家可持续发展目标将需要在社会的许多领域迅速采用更可持续的做法，但向可持续做法的过渡往往是缓慢的。该项目测试是否可以通过以下方式加速这些过渡：(1)创建创新的生态预测，预测在哪里以及何时更可持续的做法将获得最大好处；(2)让受影响的社区参与共同实施预测和倡导可持续过渡的过程。研究系统是夜间人造灯光的扩散(艾伦)及其对候鸟的影响。艾伦在全球范围内迅速增长，其好处被对生物多样性、生态系统和人类健康的普遍负面影响所抵消。艾伦的一个主要生态后果是扰乱了鸟类的迁徙--每年有数百万只鸟死于与光线充足的建筑物的碰撞--这导致了鸟类数量的普遍下降。艾伦-鸟类迁徙系统是这项研究的理想选择，因为像许多邪恶的环境问题一样，环境问题是复杂的社会和文化过程的产物，事实证明，使用传统方法很难解决这些问题。该项目采用跨学科融合的方法，将生态预测方面的进展与社区参与学术的社会和政治科学方面的进展结合起来。测试生态预测创新的可持续性影响的实验将与趋同研究伙伴联盟共同设计和实施。该项目将产生对艾伦采用可持续做法的途径的理解，这一新知识可用于帮助解决其他社会-环境冲突。该项目侧重于测试可持续性转型的一个关键预测科学理论--创新源自倡导联盟，然后在子系统一级积累，以推动可持续性转型(例如，新政策)。在第一阶段，调查收集了关于艾伦系统的详细的国家调查信息，并针对艾伦的影响对现有的鸟类迁徙预测进行了革命性的技术改进。然后，这些新的社会和生态知识将被用于在特定的城市试验场参与倡导联盟，以在第二阶段共同实施可持续发展转变试验。这些实验将使用有针对性的消息传递活动来促进艾伦的缓解。实验将集中在以可持续发展为导向的联盟上，因为预计这些倡导者将拥有很高的影响力，以影响整个艾伦子系统向可持续发展的根本转变。实验对艾伦的影响，艾伦对候鸟的影响，以及人类对艾伦的行为和态度将被量化。通过这一分两个阶段的办法，该项目将对如何在可持续发展科学和政策框架中采用汇聚研究办法所产生的创新，以加速转型产生新的理解。这些成果将有助于理解社区和研究人员如何更广泛地共同参与邪恶的环境问题，以推动向可持续发展的转变。结果将产生新的、可能具有变革性的理解，即生态预测如何有助于可持续发展的转变。该项目由不断增长的融合研究计划和既定的激励竞争性研究计划(EPSCoR)共同资助。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Achieving national sustainability goals will require rapid adoption of more sustainable practices in many areas of society but transitions to sustainable practices are often slow. This project tests whether these transitions can be accelerated by (1) creating innovative ecological forecasts that predict where and when more sustainable practices would have the greatest benefits and (2) engaging impacted communities in the process of co-implementing forecasts and advocating for sustainability transitions. The study system is the proliferation of artificial lights at night (ALAN) and its impacts on migrant birds. ALAN is increasing rapidly worldwide, and its benefits are countered by pervasive negative consequences for biodiversity, ecosystems, and human health. A major ecological consequence of ALAN is disruption of bird migration – millions of birds die annually in collisions with well-lit buildings – which contributes to widespread bird population declines. The ALAN-bird migration system is ideal for this study because, like many wicked environmental problems, environmental concerns emerge as a product of complex social and cultural processes that have proven difficult to resolve using traditional approaches. This project employs a transdisciplinary convergence approach to integrating advances in ecological forecasting with those in the social and political science of community engaged scholarship. Experiments testing sustainability impacts of innovations in ecological forecasting will be co-designed and implemented with a coalition of convergence research partners. The project will generate an understanding of pathways by which sustainable practices are adopted for ALAN, this new knowledge can be used to help address other societal-environmental conflicts.The project focuses on testing a key prediction of sustainability transformations science theory – that innovations originate within advocacy coalitions then accumulate at the subsystem level to drive sustainability transformations (e.g., new policies). During phase one the investigation gathers detailed national survey information on the ALAN system and creates transformational technological improvements in existing bird migration forecasts specific to impacts of ALAN. This new social and ecological knowledge will then be used to engage with advocacy coalitions in specific urban testbed sites to co-implement sustainability transformation experiments during phase two. These experiments will use targeted messaging campaigns to foster ALAN mitigation. Experiments will be focused on sustainability-oriented coalitions because these advocates are predicted to have high leverage to affect radical transformation toward sustainability across the ALAN subsystem. Impacts of the experiments on ALAN, impacts of ALAN on migrant birds, and human behaviors and attitudes toward ALAN will be quantified. Through this two-phase approach this project will produce a new understanding of how innovations derived from a convergence research approach can be employed in a sustainability science and policy framework to accelerate transformations. These outcomes will contribute understanding of how communities and researchers can co-engage with wicked environmental problems more broadly to drive transformations toward sustainability. Results will create new, and potentially transformative, understanding of how ecological forecasting contributes to sustainability transformations. This project is jointly funded by the Growing Convergence Research Program and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).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.