CAS-Climate: An Integrated Framework to Investigate Thermal Resilience of Sustainable Buildings and Living Environments for Greater Preparedness to Extreme Temperature Events

综合建筑和建筑环境特征的影响，家庭的社会和行为特征以及城乡不平等可能导致极端温度事件的不同程度的脆弱性。为了最公平和有效地分配有限的资源，决策者需要一个框架来规划和优先考虑极端温度事件发生之前的准备和干预，以及在此类事件发生期间和之后确定有效的响应和管理战略。特别是，有必要估计和预测极端温度对个体居民水平的影响，这些信息与社区、城市和区域因素高度相关。这项跨学科的中美研究的总体目标是建立一个城乡区域极端温度事件的评估、准备和响应系统，用于向全球可持续性过渡。具体而言，该项目的三个具体研究目标是：1)在建筑可持续发展的背景下，构建新的多标准、多尺度的建筑和生活环境对极端温度事件的弹性评估；2)赋予这种新的多尺度动态准备系统在城乡极端温度事件中部署的能力；3)制定高效、有效、公正的应对极端温度事件的策略和管理实践。将特别关注可持续建筑的特点以及对物理、社会和人类相关方面的潜在影响，同时考虑到全球可持续性和发展的过渡。该项目将汇集美国在建筑工程、建筑和社会学方面的学术专长，以及中国在城市规划、信息系统、土木工程和管理方面的研究优势，开发一个多尺度热弹性评估框架，用于进一步增强对极端温度事件的准备能力，并确保适当的应对策略。热弹性评估框架将整合物理和社会环境变量，并涵盖多个尺度，从个人居住者到家庭、建筑物、社区和地区。更重要的是，通过采用模拟和基于调查的方法，本研究将提供关于在向可持续性过渡过程中不同尺度的热弹性如何受到特定物理和社会环境影响的基本理解。基于这些认识的响应和管理框架（由中美研究团队合作实施）将提供一个定量平台，以平衡区域和建筑的可持续性过渡以及城市和农村连续体对天气相关灾害的恢复能力。从社会影响的角度来看，该研究将支持多尺度脆弱性和恢复力评估，用于极端温度事件的准备以及与准备、响应和管理相关的决策。这项工作将为城乡区域应对极端温度事件带来与可持续性相关的目标诱导效应，实现净零碳排放和恢复力之间的平衡。在这项工作中建立的方法可以扩展到其他与天气有关的事件和灾害，促进对这些事件的更大准备和反应。此外，项目团队将参与一系列教育和推广活动，将研究成果转移到本科和研究生水平的现有课程中，通过利用当前以少数民族和代表性不足的学生为重点的大学和学院课程，扩大代表性不足群体的参与，通过研讨会、会议演讲和期刊出版物传播研究成果和发现。除了通过传统方式传播调查结果外，所有项目数据、教育和推广活动都将发布在一个专门的项目网站上，并通过PSU的在线教育资源向公众开放。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。

Compounding the effects of building and built environment characteristics, the social and behavioral characteristics of households and urban-rural inequality can result in differing levels of vulnerability to extreme temperature events. To most fairly and effectively allocate limited resources, decision-makers need a framework for planning and prioritizing preparedness and intervention before extreme temperature events occur, as well as to identify effective response and management strategies during and after such events. In particular, there is a need to estimate and project extreme temperature- induced impacts on an individual resident level, information highly correlated to community, urban, and regional factors. The overarching goal of this interdisciplinary US-China research is to build an urban-rural regional assessment, preparedness, and response system for extreme temperature events for use during the transition to global sustainability. In particular, the project's three specific research goals are to: 1) build a new multi-criteria and multiscale assessment of building and living environments’ resilience to extreme temperature events in the context of the trend of sustainable building development, 2) empower this new multiscale dynamic preparedness system to be deployed during extreme temperature events in urban-rural regions, and 3) develop efficient, effective, and just strategies and management practices for responding to extreme temperature events. Special focus will be on the characteristics of sustainable buildings and the potential impacts on physical, social, and human-related aspects, taking the transition to global sustainability and development into account.This project will bring together US academic expertise in architectural engineering, construction, and sociology and Chinese research strengths in urban planning, information systems, civil engineering, and management to develop a multiscale thermal resilience assessment framework for heat and cold waves that can further be utilized to empower preparedness and ensure appropriate response strategies for extreme temperature events. The thermal resilience assessment framework will integrate both physical and social context variables and cover multiple scales, ranging from individual occupants to households, buildings, communities, and regions. More importantly, by employing simulations and survey-based methods, this research will provide fundamental understandings about how thermal resilience at different scales is affected by specific physical and social contexts during the transition to sustainability. The resultant response and management framework based on these understandings (collaboratively conducted by the US-China research team) will provide a quantitative platform to balance the regional and building’s sustainability transition and resilience to weather-associated disasters along the urban and rural continuum. From the societal impact perspective, the research will support multi-scale vulnerability and resilience assessments for use in preparing for extreme temperature events and decision-making related to preparedness, response, and management. This work will bring sustainability-related target-induced effects into urban-rural regional preparedness for extreme temperature events, achieving a balance between net-zero carbon emissions and resilience. The methodology to be created in this work can be expanded to other weather-related events and disasters, promoting greater preparedness and responses to those events. Also, the project team will engage in the a series of educational and outreach activities, transferring research outcomes to existing courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels, broadening participation by under-represented groups by leveraging current university and college programs that focus on minorities and underrepresented students, disseminating research results and findings through seminars, conference presentations, and journal publications. In addition to disseminating the findings through traditional means, all of the project data and educational and outreach activities will be posted on a dedicated project website, as well as through PSU’s online educational resources, which are open to the public.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.