PIRE: Co-Creating Research and Education Capacities to Understand, Visualize and Mitigate Climate-Change Impact Cascades and Inequities in Central Mexico

这条新闻带来了越来越多的关于全球气候变化影响越来越大的报道：水库萎缩、严重干旱、洪水、森林火灾和危险的热浪，等等。这些影响超出了人类的经验，使我们措手不及，因此对生命、生计和财产造成灾难性损失。更糟糕的是，一个影响往往会产生多米诺骨牌效应或“影响级联”。越来越明显的是，虽然气候变化将影响我们所有人，但我们中的一些人比其他人面临的风险更大。那些生活在社会“边缘”的人，在社会和经济压力下，将遭受最大的痛苦，而且准备最少。该项目动员了美国和墨西哥的不同合作伙伴和社会团体，以了解、可视化和解决气候变化对墨西哥城及其周边地区的水资源、生态系统、粮食和农业、健康和生计的无数影响。它还揭示了这些影响如何因人口和景观而异。研究人员整合了不同的数据——包括降雨、温度、人口、土地利用/土地覆盖——以及预测未来影响的工具。总体目标是创造新的方法来模拟和虚拟地模拟未来气候变化/影响情景，供社区和决策者用于实施缓解措施。因此，该项目重新设想了研究、政策、社区行动和教育如何联合起来应对气候变化和社会正义。其结果不仅适用于美国和墨西哥，而且适用于全球。该项目还支持克拉克大学研究生的培训，特别是来自科学界代表性不足群体的研究生，并支持向公众推广。不同的社会群体如何共同创造对水、生态系统、食物、健康和生计的复杂气候变化影响级联的共同理解？我们如何绘制和建立影响不平等的模型？我们如何改革治理和社会学习，规划可持续、社会公正、气候适应型的道路？在这里，团队在一个强有力地象征着这一全球气候和可持续发展挑战的环境中工作：墨西哥-莱尔马-库扎马拉水文区，包括墨西哥城。为了应对这一问题，他们的方法首次将四个组成部分结合在一起：C1)与合作伙伴（包括试点社区）共同创建一个基于开源GIS/遥感的区域气候变化地图集，以绘制和空间分析社会、气候和环境条件；C2)共同创建一个基于GIS的系统动力学模型，代表气候变化、水、人口、城市化、土地利用/土地覆盖变化、生态系统、粮食、健康和生计之间的相互作用/影响，并揭示影响的不公平和不公正；C3)试点扩展现实（XR）决策分析，模拟气候变化/发展情景，不同利益相关者可以虚拟地居住并在群体中互动，由C1和C2提供信息；C4)整合研究和教育，使两者相互加强，包括共同创建课程和实地研究，美国学生和他们在墨西哥的同龄人可以作为学习团队一起体验。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。

The news brings more and more reports of the growing impacts of climate change around the world: shrinking water reservoirs, severe drought, flooding, forest fires and dangerous heat waves, to name a few. These impacts are beyond human experience, catching us off-guard and therefore are causing catastrophic losses to lives, livelihoods, and properties. To make matters worse, one impact often has a domino effect or "impact cascade". It is becoming clear that, while climate change will impact us all, some of us are more at risk than others. Those living of the ‘edges’ of society, under social and economic stress, will suffer the most and are the least prepared. This project mobilizes diverse partners and social groups in the U.S. and Mexico to understand, visualize, and address the myriad impacts of climate change on water resources, ecosystems, food and agriculture, health, and livelihoods - in and around Mexico City. It also reveals how these impacts vary across populations and landscapes. The researchers integrate diverse data - including rainfall, temperature, population, land use/land cover - and tools to anticipate future impacts. The overarching goal is to create new ways to simulate and virtually inhabit future climate change/impact scenarios to be used by communities and policy makers to implement mitigation measures. This project, thus, re-imagines the way research, policy, community action, and education can join forces to address climate change and social justice. Its outcomes will be applicable not only in the U.S. and Mexico, but globally. The project also supports the training of graduate students at Clark University, notably from underrepresented groups in science, and outreach to the public. How do diverse social groups co-create a shared understanding of complex climate-change impact cascades to water, ecosystems, food, health, livelihoods? How do we map and model impact inequities? How do we transform governance and social learning to chart sustainable, socially just, climate-resilient pathways? Here, the team works in a setting powerfully emblematic of this global climate and sustainability challenge: Mexico-Lerma-Cutzamala Hydrological Region, that includes Mexico City. To respond, for the first time, their approach combines four components in synergy: C1) Co-creation with partners (including pilot communities) of an open-source GIS/Remote Sensing-based Regional Climate-Change Atlas to map and spatially analyze social, climate and environmental conditions; C2) Co-creation of a System Dynamics Model informed by GIS, representing interactions/impacts among climate change, water, population, urbanization, land-use/land cover change, ecosystems, food, health, and livelihoods – and revealing of impact inequities and injustice; C3) Piloting of eXtended Reality (XR) decision analysis, simulating climate-change/development scenarios diverse stakeholders can inhabit virtually and interact with in groups, informed by C1 and C2; C4) Integration of research and education such that they reinforce each other, including the co-creation of courses and field research that U.S. students and their peers in Mexico can experience together as learning teams.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.