William L. Stefanov, Ph.D. - US grants

0112960
Arrowsmith

This grant, supported through funds from the NSF/Information Technology Research - Small Grants Program, facilitates a joint effort between Arizona State University and the University of Texas at El Paso to construct an integrated data system focusing on the Transition zone between the Colorado plateau and the Basin and Range province primarily in Arizona and New Mexico. This region is important for the development of an integrated geological and spatially-referenced data system as it is of fundamental significance to the geologic evolution of southwestern North America. In addition, such a system is timely as it can be used to address practical problems such as the effects of urbanization and dwindling water resources. Construction of this data system will involve three main efforts: 1) compilation of many large, scattered and heterogeneous earth science data sets into verified, standardized, and documented data bases; 2) construction of web-based interfaces that allow any interested party to access these data, receive robust metadata describing the data and how best to use them, and receive information on how to add data to the system via structured protocols; and 3) the design and construction of an extensive collection of public domain software (a toolbox) that would empower users with the capability to use and update the data in a substantial way. This project will leverage considerable support from several federal and state agencies including NASA, the U. S. Geological Survey, the National Imaging and Mapping Agency, and the Arizona Geological Survey.
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This interdisciplinary research project explores human-ecosystem-climate interactions at the neighborhood scale in metropolitan Phoenix. The project draws upon social and ecological theories of spatial heterogeneity in cities in order to understand how urban development leads to economic, social, and physical inequalities among neighborhoods, which in turn produce neighborhood differences in microclimate conditions. Microclimate conditions influence the biotic environment, which then completes the cycle by influencing the socioeconomic and physical systems of neighborhoods. Because neighborhoods have unequal resources for responding to climate stress, socioeconomic status of the neighborhood and other local characteristics will moderate the effects of this process. The research has three specific objectives. First, the project will show how the settlement of neighborhoods between 1970 and 2000 transformed the landscape by altering land use, land cover, and climate. Second, the project will demonstrate whether and to what extent the resulting differences among neighborhood microclimates expose humans and other biota to unequal levels of climate-induced stressors, such as heat, poor air quality, and storm hazards. Third, the project will investigate the resilience of human and plant communities in neighborhoods that have unequal amounts of capital to cope with climate stress. The research sites are seven Phoenix neighborhoods located at monitoring sites of the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research project. The neighborhoods, bounded by census block groups, include cases that vary by age, distance to urban center, land cover, income, and ethnic composition. The project will use data from a wide variety of sources, including the census, social surveys of residents, historical land-use surveys and climate records, field measures of environmental conditions, and remotely sensed images of land cover and temperature. GIS mapping, graphing tools, spatial statistics, and multivariate statistical analysis will be used to develop indicators of human, ecosystem, and climate activities and changes over time using. Using key indicators, neighborhood socioecological cycles will be compared for places that differ by social class, physical features, and distance from the urban center. Research results will be disseminated through publications in several disciplines and presentations at professional meetings.

Research on urban development in arid regions will contribute to understanding the regional dimensions of global climate change. This project will advance the development of integrative theory in the social and ecological sciences by explaining how human actions influence climate change at the neighborhood scale. This is a necessary link between fine-scale ecosystem processes, such as variation in neighborhood microclimates, and coarse-scale environmental phenomena, such as global warming. The research will help improve models of urban growth and models of regional climate change. The project also informs human vulnerability theory, which explains how social inequalities expose poor people to higher risks of environmental hazards. While many studies of vulnerability focus on "natural" disasters that are more likely to harm poor people, this project will study chronic environmental conditions, specifically climatic variability and change, which poses a more lasting but less obvious threat to vulnerable populations. This project will also provide opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to participate and learn about the interface between science and public issues as well as the conduct of interdisciplinary research. This project is supported by an award resulting from the FY 2002 special competition in Biocomplexity in the Environment focusing on the Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems.

Exposure to excessive heat is a significant threat to human health and well-being in cities around the world. Urbanization is strongly linked to increasing temperatures through the formation of "heat islands" - places with higher temperatures due to radiant heat from buildings, concrete, and other human activities. Such local effects are likely to intensify with future trends in global warming. Previous studies have shown that the urban poor are most vulnerable to extreme heat, but little is known about the interplay between changing urban climates and the coupled human-natural systems that amplify or mitigate climate-related hazards for different socioeconomic and racial/ethnic groups at finer spatial scales of neighborhoods and households. Taking account of global trends in urban growth and climate change, this project investigates the causes of variation in heat-related human vulnerability within the metropolitan region of Phoenix, Arizona. An ideal laboratory for this research, Phoenix has a naturally hot, arid climate. Rapid urbanization has increased average summer nighttime temperature by five degrees Celsius during the past 50 years. The research will explain the character of complex urban heat "riskscapes", assess the vulnerability of people in different neighborhoods to heat-related health hazards, and identify the causes of variation of vulnerability within cities. Ecological, meteorological, sociological, and medical treatment data will be used to build an integrated system dynamics model of vulnerability to climate change that incorporates substantial feedback mechanisms from human adaptations. Researchers will use the model to test hypotheses about complex interactions between human manipulation of the environment and induced climate response, to explore relationships between neighborhood and regional dynamics, and to forecast alternative future scenarios. The results will be used to devise alternative neighborhood landscapes and community coping mechanisms that can reduce vulnerability, and to design programs for teaching and learning about climate and health. Innovative methodological techniques used in this study are developing fine-scale, surface energy balance models for integrating and extending climate research over spatial and temporal scales; combining airborne and satellite remotely sensed data with a meteorological model nested in state-of-the-art global climate model output; conducting spatial analyses of heat riskscapes and heat-related illnesses; and community-participatory research on coping strategies in low-income and minority neighborhoods.

Meeting the challenges of sustainability in a rapidly urbanizing and warming world will depend on decisions that allow humans to control or adapt to rising urban temperatures. This project will identify community and demographic markers of high-risk environments that decision-makers can use to develop spatially informed early warning systems and heat-illness prevention programs. Model projections for the distribution of future heat-related vulnerabilities and human responses that impact particular places and population subgroups are important for cities on several continents because enlarging heat islands, higher temperatures, and associated adverse impacts on health are occurring globally. Model results will be displayed in a visualization environment that will allow stakeholders to examine alternative future vulnerability scenarios; this will make knowledge accessible to the community and promote better decision-making. Educational activities will be designed for low-income and minority populations, including the production of a children's magazine issue on "people and climate" that will reach thousands of households. Local residents, university students, and project investigators will engage in collaborative community-participation research to promote heat-hazard mitigation in inner-city Phoenix neighborhoods. Information and materials will be shared with city planners and health agencies in many cities.