From germs in space, to supporting minorities in science and engineering, to communicating the importance of science to the public and developing effective science policy, Arizona State University faculty talked up science at the recent annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). This year’s meeting took place Feb. 14-18 in Boston.

Researchers today more than ever focus their work on real-world problems, often times making their research relevant to the public locally, regionally and nationally. But engaging the public in their research can be a daunting task for researchers professionally and personally.

Leah Gerber, associate professor in ASU's School of Life Sciences and a senior sustainability scientist in the School of Sustainability, has identified impediments to productive science communication and she shared her recommendations at AAAS.

“We must find a way to make engagement rise to the top of the pile,” Gerber said.

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Arizona State University students' work for Intel's WaterMatch program is featured in a special Valentine's Day story on GreenBiz.com.

Intel first started WaterMatch with the aim of connecting wastewater makers with wastewater users in hopes of creating water sustainability. Using an online platform, WaterMatch is a database of water treatment plants and facilities that need wastewater to function. However, progress has been slow, GreenBiz.com reporter Aaron Tilley writes:

"The biggest problem is that getting data on wastewater treatment plants is incredibly hard. There is no national database for treatment facilities so gathering this kind of information requires laborious searches and calls to each individual plant."

That's when ASU student researchers come in. They provide the grunt work of documenting wastewater users and makers in Arizona. Next, the students will be moving on to Mexico with funding from CH2M Hill.

Note: School of Sustainability students Saad Ahmed and Rud Moe are part of the ASU-Intel WaterMatch research team. Moe is a senior majoring in sustainability and geology and Ahmed, also a senior, is studying sustainability and urban planning.

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The Arizona Riparian Council is holding its annual meeting on April 4-6, 2013 in the Convergence Room at ASU SkySong in Scottsdale. The theme of the meeting is "Sustaining Urban Rivers -- Visions and Actions across the Southwest: Application for the Salt River through the Phoenix Metro Area." The program includes presentations, field trips, and a poster session. Please visit the Arizona Riparian Council website for registration and poster abstract submission information.

Phosphorus is an essential nutrient for life. It is added to fields to help farmers boost their crops and feed the growing number of humans on Earth.

Yet this critical rock is increasingly scarce. It is commonly overused in agricultural fields, which leads to polluted streams and lakes.  Without a change in attitudes of policy-makers, research ingenuity and sustainable strategies, this essential component to life on Earth may join oil on the "endangered species" list.

In an online article posted on ScienceNews Feb. 7, writer Roberta Kwok takes an in depth look at phosphorus – why we need it, how we waste it, and what we can do to reduce the demand for it, as well as find sustainable policies for our future.

In the article, James Elser, a professor in Arizona State University's School of Life Sciences and a Sustainability Scientist at the Global Institute of Sustainability, says it's time to draw attention to the problem.

"I call it the biggest problem you've never heard of," says Elser, an ecologist and co-organizer of the Sustainable Phosphorus Initiative at ASU.

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CAP Ph.D. student Juan Declet-Barreto presented research on vegetation and the urban heat island recently to a seminar of Fulbright scholars held in Phoenix. Declet-Barreto noted that a lack of vegetation in poor Latino neighborhoods drives up temperatures in the already hot summers in the Phoenix area. Planting desert-adapted trees can mitigate this heat. Declet-Barreto's research is a part of CAP's ongoing investigations of the urban heat island and the Urban Vulnerability to Climate Change project, funded through a separate grant from the National Science Foundation.

The 2013 winners of the CAP ASM student poster competition have been announced.

First Place: Elizabeth Cook, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University.

Runners-up: David Huber, Department of Biological Sciences, Idaho State University; Kevin Kane, School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University.

Congratulations to all of these winners. Please see full poster citations and links to the posters below.

Cook, Elizabeth M., Pamela Padgett, and Sharon J. Hall. Effects of Co-occurring Urban Atmospheric Compounds on Desert Herbaceous Plants. (pdf)

Huber, David P., Kathleen A. Lohse, and Sharon J. Hall. Climate Controls the Fate of Anthropogenic Nitrogen Additions in Desert Ecosystems. (pdf)

Kane, Kevin, Abigail M. York, Joseph Tuccillo, Lauren Gentile, and Yun Ouyang. A Spatio-Temporal View of Historical Growth in downtown Phoenix, Arizona, 1915-1963. (pdf)

Many have studied how the climate is changing—melting ice caps, rising sea levels, increased pollution, and higher temperatures. Countless researchers, scientists, and experts have dedicated their work to recording numbers, collecting samples, and writing reports that show evidence of climate change. But has anyone studied how humans are changing their commitment to the environment?

You may recycle because you care for the environment and would hate to see it littered, but did you also know you may do it because your neighbors or colleagues are doing it?  In a recent BioScience article, an interdisciplinary team of researchers led by Arizona State University’s Ann Kinzig explores the impacts of human behavior towards the environment and how policies can promote environmentally friendly behavior.

In the article, “Social Norms and Global Environmental Change: The Complex Interaction of Behaviors, Values, and Policy,” the researchers theorize that advancements in sustainability can come from policy changes that alter public behavior in the short-term, while simultaneously creating public pro-environmental values in the long-term.

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Researchers today more than ever focus their work on real-world problems, often times making their research relevant to the public locally, regionally and sometimes nationally. But engaging the public in their research can be a daunting task for researchers both professionally and personally.

Leah Gerber, an associate professor in ASU's School of Life Sciences and a senior sustainability scientist in the School of Sustainability, has identified impediments to productive science communication and she shared her recommendations at the 2013 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

As a researcher, Gerber and her group at ASU develop mathematical approaches that bring together the best available scientific information to make rational, efficient conservation decisions about endangered species recovery, ecosystem management and reserve design for oceans and fisheries. Getting that information to the public is a key component in her work.

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ASU professor Edward Kavazanjian has attained one of the highest professional honors in his field, election to the National Academy of Engineering.

Kavazanjian is a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, one of ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, and a senior scientist in the university’s Global Institute of Sustainability.

Kavazanjian is widely recognized as a leading authority on the seismic analysis, design and performance evaluation of solid-waste landfills, as well as an expert in landfill containment systems, environmental safety of waste sites and development of waste sites after closure.

“He is absolutely the world expert in his area," says G. Edward Gibson, director of the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment. "His leadership has placed ASU at the forefront of geotechnical engineering, seismic design and biogeotechnical engineering.”

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Intel's WaterMatch research partnership with CH2M Hill and DCDC is highlighted in the following article.

via Green Biz by Aaron Tilley

For the past year, Intel has been doing its part to help make the perfect match. That is, in matching wastewater makers with wastewater users for the WaterMatch project.

Intel’s director of global citizenship, Gary Niekerk, describes the project as functioning potentially like an online dating site. But instead of having an interested couple meet up and seeing where things go, wastewater makers like agriculture or power companies could hook up with wastewater users like industrial facilities or treatment plants.

But obviously, making this dream happen is going to be a lot more complicated than getting two budding lovers together for coffee.

And so far, progress has been slow. Although the site has received plenty of hits from all over the world, said Niekerk, there has yet to be any documented successful matches.

The biggest problem is that getting data on wastewater treatment plants is incredibly hard. There is no national database for treatment facilities so gathering this kind of information requires laborious searches and calls to each individual plant.

Nevertheless, the wastewater project has made strides since Intel got involved a year ago. Niekerk said he became interested in the project after meeting with Jan Dell, vice president at consultant and construction firm CH2M Hill, which developed the project. But Niekerk noticed when he entered Tempe, Ariz., the location where he lived, nothing came up. The map was practically empty.

So Intel decided to fund a grant for Arizona State University for students to do the grunt work of populating the map, starting with Arizona. There are now almost 200 of these sites listed on the map for Arizona.

Next, students at ASU are moving on to Mexico with funding from CH2M Hill. The project is also trying to draw other university students from around the world to help fill in more gaps.

And next month the project is bringing together leading water experts in the Colorado River basin to discuss the tool and how it might be improved.

Intel’s interest in this project stems from its own efforts to improve water sustainability in the company’s operations. Since 1998 Intel has invested $100 million in internal projects to make its water usage more sustainable in its manufacturing operations. The company has saved more than 40 billion gallons of water through its water reuse and efficiency measures.

"We have been thinking as a company about what we can do to increase water sustainability, especially in the places we operate," said Niekerk.

In the company’s Arizona facilities, for example, it uses 2.6 million gallons of reclaimed water per day in its manufacturing process in things like scrubbers and cooling towers.

"This is a worldwide opportunity," said Niekerk. "If you talk to water experts, increasing water reuse is an important way to increase water sustainability, because we’re not finding any new water."

A research team led by Arizona State University (ASU) senior sustainability scientist Ann Kinzig argues for an novel approach to climate change alleviation: target public values and behavior.

Kinzig, chief research strategist for ASU’s Global Institute of Sustainability and a professor at ASU’s School of Life Sciences, urges policymakers to alter laws and regulations, such as recycling mandates and energy restrictions, based on social values and the associated behaviors.

In a recent article in the journal Bioscience, the team shares findings that pro-environmental behaviors (e.g., recycling and water conservation) can influence pro-environmental values, and that the interaction also works in reverse.

“Often we believe that we behave in a certain way because we hold particular values and that is certainly true,” Kinzig says. “But our values may also shift based on our behaviors. We may initially engage in recycling, for instance, because of an economic incentive, but the repeated act of recycling may create a value for recycling.”

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We all know Wrigley Hall is sustainable and energy-efficient—but what about the Energizer Bunnies® inside the building?

Sustainability is not just about technology, economics, and biodiversity. It’s about people, too. ASU’s University Sustainability Practices knows that sustainable behavior is just as important as green buildings. That’s why it’s organized the Wrigley Building Energy Challenge from February 1 through April 30.

The Wrigley Building Energy Challenge aims to reduce energy consumption through the combined efforts made by the people inside the building: students, sustainability scientists, staff, and faculty. The main goal of the challenge—other than reducing energy usage—is to inspire energy efficiency through behavioral change, not through building modifications.

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The Dynamics of Energy and Water for Central Arizona Agriculture

Water, energy, and policy are intimately linked in the West.

Irrigated agriculture is particularly sensitive to changes in the source and price of energy, with implications for water demand, land use and economic activity in Central Arizona.

• In what ways is Central Arizona agriculture sensitive to changing energy policy?
• How can irrigation districts and farmers cope with the dynamics of energy and water prices?
• What might different energy scenarios mean for the viability of central Arizona agriculture?

Join us in a discussion on February 27, 2013.

Panelists

Brian Betcher, General Manager, Maricopa Stanfield Irrigation and Drainage District

Ed Gerak, General Manager, Buckeye Water Conservation and Drainage District

Katosha Nakai, Manager, Tribal Relations and Policy Development, Business Planning and Governmental Programs, Central Arizona Project

Ron Rayner, Partner/Manager, A Tumbling T Ranches

Karen Smith, Fellow, Grand Canyon Institute

When

Wednesday, February 27, 2013, 3:00-4:30p.m.

Refreshments will be served. Please RSVP to: Sarah.Jones.2@asu.edu

Location

Decision Center for a Desert City, 21 East 6th Street, Suite 126B, Tempe [Map]

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts will serve as a backdrop for research presentations by representatives of Arizona State University’s Decision Center for a Desert City (DCDC) on February 17.

DCDC Director and Principal Investigator Dave White and anthropologist Margaret Nelson, vice dean of Barrett, The Honors College, will accompany a contingent of faculty, graduate and undergraduate students.

Nelson, who is also co-principal investigator and education program coordinator, remarked, “The students in DCDC’s Community of Graduate Scholars (CGS) represent multiple disciplines, including psychology, anthropology, public policy, sustainability, computer science and geography. Through the seminar, students become familiar with the issues as well as perspectives of DCDC researchers, not to mention challenges that emerge from interdisciplinary collaborations.”

The ASU contingency will present research that employs interdisciplinary social science methods to develop knowledge and tools for water sustainability and climate change adaptation in urban areas.

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Major corporations are not that different from large universities when it comes to practices, management, emissions, and costs. Today's universities operate like well-oiled corporate machines balancing multiple departments, people, buildings, and challenges. Arizona State University—with 72,000 students, 13,000 staff members, and 1,500 acres of campus land—is no small university. But since Michael Crow became the university's president ten years ago, ASU has transformed into a sustainability-driven university.

In a recent GreenBiz.com article, author Georges Dyer covers ASU's zero waste accomplishments. Dyers outlines the university's process in identifying waste management strategies and the steps taken to implement those practices.

ASU's University Sustainability Practices Director Nick Brown says a major cultural phenomenon needs to happen in order to eliminate enough waste to really make a difference.

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A contingent of faculty, graduate students and undergraduate students from the Decision Center for a Desert City (DCDC) at Arizona State University will present their research at a special poster session at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting in Boston, MA on February 17. Dave White, DCDC’s Director and Principal Investigator and Margaret Nelson, DCDC Co-PI and education program coordinator, will accompany the group.

Students from DCDC Community of Graduate Scholars (CGS) have organized a special section for the AAAS general poster session focused on decision making under uncertainty (DMUU) since 2011. The ASU students coordinated with students and faculty from universities that host projects funded by the National Science Foundation under the NSF’s DMUU program, which, along with ASU, includes Columbia University, Carnegie Mellon University and University of Chicago. The DCDC students and their faculty mentors will present research that employs interdisciplinary social science methods to develop knowledge and tools for water sustainability and climate change adaptation in urban areas. Two undergraduate students funded under DCDC's Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program will also attend.

According to Margaret Nelson, an anthropologist and Vice Dean of Barrett, The Honors College, "The students in the Community of Graduate Scholars represent multiple disciplines, including psychology, anthropology, public policy, sustainability, computer science and geography. Through the seminar, students become familiar with the issues, perspectives, and language of the researchers within DCDC, as well as with issues that emerge from interdisciplinary collaborations."

"The CGS students have not only been instrumental in developing interdisciplinary collaborations at ASU, but have fostered cooperation between the DMUU centers," says White, a Senior Sustainability Scientist at ASU’s Global Institute of Sustainability. "Their efforts have helped develop a network of research efforts focused on improving environmental decision making."

Research posters will be presented by the following students:

• Rebecca Neel, CGS, Using upward trends to promote sustainable behaviors. [Poster]
• Nicholas Murtha, REU, (Rebecca Neel 1st author), When scientists disagree: How we frame uncertainty influences public trust of science. [Poster]
• Lauren Withycombe Keeler, CGS, Quenching our thirst: Future scenarios of water in Phoenix. [Poster]
• V. Kelly Turner, CGS (Dave White 1st author), Uncertainty frames in water policy debates. [Poster]
• Rashmi Krishnamurthy, CGS, Fostering perspective-taking in collaborative decision making through an interactive computer simulation. [Poster]
• Jose Rosales Chavez, CGS, Cross-cultural perspectives on uncertainty in climate science: Preliminary results from DCDC and the Global Ethnohydrology Study. [Poster]
• Julia C. Bausch, CGS, Farmers’ Resilience to Socio-Ecological Change in Central Arizona. [Poster]
• Manikandan Vijayakumar, CGS, Sustainability, Collaboration and Uncertainty: A Scenario-­‐based Evaluation of Water Issues for Desert Cities Using Computer Simulation. [Poster]
• Jacelyn Rice, CGS, Actual vs. perceived amounts of de facto wastewater reuse in the Continental United States. [Poster]
• John Quinn, REU, The future of water in the desert: Convergence and divergence between decision makers and students. [Poster]

The AAAS is an international non-profit organization dedicated to advancing science around the world by serving as an educator, leader, spokesperson and professional association.

The Decision Center for a Desert City (DCDC) at Arizona State University (ASU) was established in 2004 by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to advance scientific understanding of environmental decision making under conditions of uncertainty.

In the report, Views and Activities among Municipal Water Managers and Land Planners: Stressors and Strategies for Resource Management in Metropolitan Phoenix, AZ, DCDC Co-PI Kelli Larson presents 2010 survey results aimed at understanding water resource and land use planning activities across municipalities in the greater Phoenix region.

Overview

Since land use and land cover (e.g., vegetation) affect water demand, and since water use and conservation affect the condition and management of land use and land cover, a primary objective of this research is to explore the potential for integrated planning across sectors. With special attention to land-water connections under climate variability and urbanization, we focus on planning strategies within and across sectors.

Here, we present the results from two sets of survey questions. First, we explore how professional views about water resource stressors and management strategies converge and diverge among water resource managers (WRMs) and land use planners (LUPs) (i.e., to what extent do these two groups hold similar or different perspectives from one another). Second, we examine the degree to which water managers and land planners are engaging in integrated planning by asking them the degree to which they consider both issues in their decision making (i.e., water issues in land planning and land issues in water management) and the extent to which they are involved in planning activities in the other sector (i.e., WRMs in land planning and LUPs in water management).

Continue reading and download Views and Activities among Municipal Water Managers and Land Planners: Stressors and Strategies for Resource Management in Metropolitan Phoenix, AZ.

Kelli Larson, Ph.D. is a DCDC Co-PI and an Associate Professor in the Schools of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning and Sustainability at Arizona State University and a Senior Sustainability Scientist at the Global Institute of Sustainability. Dr. Larson's areas of interest include human-environment interactions, water resource governance, and social aspects of sustainability.

Arizona State University's Global Institute of Sustainability and College of Technology and Innovation have received a $60,000 grant from the Ray C. Anderson Foundation.

The nonprofit organization seeks to promote a sustainable society by supporting and funding educational and project-based initiatives that advance knowledge and innovation in sustainable production and consumption. It was founded in 2012 as a legacy to the late Ray C. Anderson, founder and chairman of Interface, Inc., and globally recognized “pioneer for the environment.”

The ASU sustainability project proposed by Chell Roberts, executive dean for the College of Technology and Innovation, and Dan O'Neill, general manager in the Walton Sustainability Solutions Extension Service at ASU, combines two existing undergraduate capstone experiences into an integrated approach for solving real sustainable manufacturing challenges for major corporate clients.

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Tuesday, February 12, 2013

9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Orange Mall, west of the MU fountain

Arizona State University, Tempe campus

At the Farmers Market @ the Tempe campus, guest vendors will have special products for you or a friend. Flowers Direct will provide fresh flowers.  Peppermint Jim will delight us with his farm grown mint personal care products while Polished Pepper will feature jewelry made from re-purposed silverware and precious stones.

ASU Sun Devil Dining will offer chocolate-dipped strawberries, heart-shaped chocolate chip cookies, brownies, Valentine's cookies and cupcakes, heart-shaped vegan brownies, and Campus Harvest Devilade and Arnold Palmers made out of campus oranges. Udderly Natural and G.B. Proudfoot’s will provide natural soaps, lotions, and more.  Rich, chocolate truffles made from the finest ingredients will be on hand from our featured vendor, bNaked Chocolates. Yum!

TEMPE, Ariz. - February 5, 2013 - The Sustainability Consortium, an independent global organization developing science-based tools that advance the measurement and reporting of consumer product sustainability, is pleased to announce the launch of an Electronics Delphi Panel.

The Ideal Electronics Product Takeback Program Definition Delphi Panel has been initiated to develop a definition for an ideal electronics takeback program, which does not currently exist. This is the first step in developing a set of Electronics Product Takeback Program Metrics. The panel consists of invited experts including: government, non-government, manufacturers (OEMs), electronics recyclers and refurbishers, and retailers all with extensive experience in this area. This panel is part of the larger End of Life (EOL) Innovation Project, the first of its kind at TSC. The vision of this innovation project is to develop a standard assessment for the effectiveness of product takeback programs. The panel launched yesterday and will run through four phases over the next three months. The final definition and project report is scheduled to be released to TSC members in May. The panel will be directed by the Electronics Sector Working Group Research Manager, Carole Mars.

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