Dynamics of Water in Urban Ecosystems: Effluent for the Environment

The reuse of effluent, otherwise known as reclaimed or recycled water, is becoming more and more of a commodity as water resource manager’s deal with tightening water budgets. It has many uses including groundwater recharge, cooling for industrial uses and irrigation for crops, public parks and golf courses. Now, it is even being considered as a drinking water supply in places using groundwater recharge/recovery or "toilet-to-tap" technology.

With its many beneficial uses possibly one of the most important is its utilization to support natural environments. Across the country, water that was once considered a nuisance is now being sought after for environmental stream flows and projects such as the Tres Rios wetlands in Phoenix and the Sweetwater Wetlands in Tucson, both of which create wildlife habitat using effluent.

Join us in a discussion on November 14, 2012, focused on the collaboration, competition, and policy implications of the use of "effluent for the environment."

Panelists

Peter Fox, Ph.D., Professor, ASU School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment

Tom Hildebrandt, Wildlife Program Manager (retired), AZ Game & Fish, Central Arizona Regions

Bruce Prior, Hydrologist, City of Tucson Water Department

Robert F. Upham, P.E., Project Manager, Water Resources Division, City of Phoenix

When

Wednesday, November 14, 2012, 12:00–1:30 p.m.

Lunch 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]

As an environmental anthropologist, Shauna BurnSilver is concerned with people’s relationships with their environment, how these relationships are changing, and what this means for vulnerability and well-being. She joined Arizona State University’s faculty last year and has already earned accolades for her research. Most recently, one of her research collaborations was recognized by the Ecological Society of America with a Sustainability Science Award.

The awarded research developed out of many discussions BurnSilver had with her fellow researchers and community collaborators about how to do better science. They wanted to implement a new collaborative method that could help alleviate poverty and support sustainable livelihoods and conservation in East African pastoral regions.

“As somebody who really cares about outcomes in terms of poverty and well-being—you can’t help but begin to really think about what your research means and how it is used,” says BurnSilver, a senior sustainability scientist in the Global Institute of Sustainability and faculty member in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change.

Read more »

Q&A with Matei Georgescu

Note: Matei “Matt” Georgescu is a Senior Sustainability Scientist at the Global Institute of Sustainability, assistant professor in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, and adjunct faculty at the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences. His work focuses on the environmental impacts of renewable energy expansion, as well as the water and climate effects resulting from large-scale urbanization. Prior to joining ASU in 2010, he conducted research in the Center on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford University and, while at Rutgers, was the recipient of a NASA Earth System Science Fellowship.

When did sustainability become an important part of your research?

Although my research has gradually integrated sustainability elements from my days as an undergraduate student at Rutgers University, it wasn’t until I arrived at ASU in the summer of 2010 that sustainability became a special focus. ASU’s campus-wide emphasis and concerted efforts toward sustainability-related research were essential in facilitating this focus.

What are your most important sustainability-related research projects?

First, I am a principal investigator of a five-year bioenergy project funded by the National Science Foundation under its Water Sustainability and Climate initiative. This project, which includes Sustainability Scientists from across ASU, focuses on the long-term sustainability of growing perennial grasses for ethanol production in the United States. These perennial grasses, such as miscanthus and switchgrass, offer significant advantages over their annual competitors, such as maize.

Continue Reading

Arizona Indicators, a project managed by ASU's Morrison Institute for Public Policy, has just published a new Policy Points by DCDC research analyst, Sally Wittlinger. Sally's Policy Point is entitled, "How Will the Current Drought Affect Our Future Water Supply?"

This Policy Points provides a clear, succinct overview of the status of Arizona’s water supply and what the current drought really means for water availability. Both the effect of climate change on our future water supply and the size of the population that will need to share in that supply are uncertainties that water planners must consider when making decisions regarding our future. We have options, but we have to be sure that we use water efficiently to meet our urban, agricultural, and environmental needs.

Read the entire Policy Points at the Arizona Indicators website.

Decision Center for a Desert City, at the request of the ASU President’s Office, has been contributing to the Sustainability indicators since the inception of the project. These indicators currently are housed in four categories: Air Quality, Water Quality, Urban Heat Island, and Energy. DCDC also now contributes to the three sustainability-related indicator categories on the Transportation tab, Travel Time and Congestion, Commuters’ Mode of Travel, and Public Transportation. Data for these indicators are collected from various public sources and are presented in a way that makes them accessible to the general public.

For more information about DCDC's involvement in the Arizona Indicators project, visit the DCDC website.

October 15, 2012 via ASU News.

Anthony J. Brazel, ASU professor emeritus, has received the Helmet E. Landsberg Award for 2013 from the American Meteorological Society’s Board on the Urban Environment. The AMS is this country’s primary professional society for atmospheric scientists.

"Tony’s recognition by the American Meteorological Society highlights the prominent recognition his work has garnered across a spectrum of geophysical disciplines," said Randall Cerveny, ASU President’s Professor and climatologist in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning. "His research papers, with topics that include everything from Phoenix urban dust storms to the intricacies of urban climate energy fluxes, are some of the most highly regarded works by geographical climatologists."

This award is named after Helmut E. Landsberg, a climatologist and Presidential Medal of Science winner who modernized how climate data are used to help solve societal problems. Among other accomplishments, Landsberg made ground-breaking connections between climate and urbanization by helping advance the study of urban climates from a descriptive study to one of physical understanding. In selecting Brazel for the award, the society notes the ASU professor’s "fundamental contributions to the field of urban climatology, especially those related to understanding urban heat islands in desert environments."

Brazel’s work in desert urban climatology began soon after he became director of ASU’s Laboratory of Climatology and governor-designated Arizona State Climatologist in 1979. "With new realizations of climate change at this time, there arose many applied and fundamental research opportunities for colleagues at ASU to investigate the role of urbanization and climate change" said Brazel. "The "research laboratory" was right in front of us – Phoenix, Ariz."

As state climatologist, a position he held until 1999, Brazel and his colleagues worked closely with stakeholders ranging from the National Weather Service, to the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, water and energy provider Salt River Project (SRP), and city and county organizations. In the 1980’s, Brazel helped establish a partnership between SRP, ASU, and the State Climate Office that focused on improving short-term weather forecasting models applied to urban areas. Collaborations such as these catalyzed urban climate research, rooted in Phoenix-area and Arizona climate issues, but with implications for the understanding of urban climate globally.

Beginning in the late 1990s, as part of the National Science Foundation-funded Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research (CAPLTER) Project, Brazel fostered the interdisciplinary study of the region’s urban climate, not only leading research initiatives but also mentoring fellow faculty, postdoctoral and graduate student researchers.

"A simple literature search shows nearly twice as many peer-reviewed research articles dealing with Phoenix’s urban heat island as there are for either New York City or Houston," comments Winston Chow, a research fellow in ASU’s Department of Engineering, College of Technology and Innovation, with a concurrent appointment in the National University of Singapore’s Department of Geography. "This flourishing of research in Phoenix is in large part due to Brazel’s success in advancing partnerships between ASU and local stakeholders."

"Another important aspect of his work," Chow adds, "is his dedication to geographical fieldwork. Tony has trained numerous students to value the importance of its proper practice, which is key to excellent research."

"Brazel’s work in urban climatology – particularly in desert urban climatology – over the last four decades has, quite literally, shaped the fundamental concepts and themes for current research into this increasingly vital and important scientific and social topic," observes Luc Anselin, Regents’ Professor and School of Geographical Sciences director

Brazel is an emeritus professor in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, an academic unit of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. In 2010, he received the Association of American Geographers Climate Specialty Group Lifetime Achievement Award. Brazel remains as a senior sustainability scholar with ASU’s Global Institute of Sustainability, is editor of the Journal of the Arizona-Nevada Academy of Science, and serves on the Editorial Board of the Annals of the Association of American Geographers.

Brazel will receive the Landsberg Award at the society’s national meeting, which takes place in Austin, Texas, Jan. 6-10, 2013.

In the past month, Arizona’s mayors’ from Phoenix, Tempe, Mesa, Goodyear, and the Town of Clarkdale have actively engaged in ASU organized mayoral panels highlighting their cities’ sustainability and solar initiatives.

Continue Reading

CAP co-PI and Executive Committee member Charles Redman and CAP Education Manager Monica Elser were honored recently when their National Science Foundation-funded GK-12 program, Sustainability Science for Sustainable Schools, won an award  at the 32nd annual Valley Forward Environmental Excellence Awards held in Scottsdale, Arizona. Each year, Valley Forward recognizes a wide range of environmental initiatives in the metropolitan Phoenix area, including education programs, through its awards.

The Sustainability Science for Sustainable Schools program places graduate students in high schools to foster learning on sustainability. In addition to Dr. Redman and Ms. Elser, who serve as PI and co-PI respectively on this initiative, several CAP graduate students have participated in the program, including Ph.D. candidate Erin Frisk who led CAP’s high school student mentoring program last spring. More

Finally, the air has a bite to it, you can do homework outside, and the occasional breeze lets you know fall is here. And soon, the first holiday of the season: Halloween.

Halloween by definition is a one-time use kind of holiday, with revelers rarely reusing (woah, that’s a lot of R’s, almost like reduce, reuse, and recycle) their past costumes and decorations. Not to mention, leftover candy—but that would be gross. And normally when you think of Halloween, you don’t say “Hey, I think I am going to donate money to save big cats instead of buying a new costume” or “Where can I get a locally-grown pumpkin?” But we know you guys are wondering that!

So, we’ve scoured the internet and attempted to bring everything sustainable to you, for your Halloween pleasure. Check out the links below to get inspired to do some good while partying hard as Captain Planet or Rachel Carson.

Continue Reading

Sun Devil Stadium tailgaters may have spoken with small student groups roaming around before recent home ASU football games. These students are not there primarily as sports revelers, but zero waste ambassadors. Outfitted in “Zero Waste by 2015” emblazoned black T-shirts, their mission is simple; to educate football fans about the university’s 2015 zero waste goal.

“Achieving the university’s zero waste goal is something that requires well-engineered, back-of-the-house recycling and waste disposal operations, as well as ASU community involvement to recycle, and to avert and divert waste headed to local landfills,” said Nick Brown, director of university sustainability practices at ASU.

Read more »

Emily Talen, ASU professor of planning and senior sustainability scientist, talked about how city zoning, coding and laws got started, and how they need to be changed to help build more livable cities, as a guest on the nationally syndicated Wisconsin Public Radio show "To the Best of Our Knowledge," which aired around the country the week of Oct. 21.

In the program, Talen makes the case that in the contemporary United States, the reasons behind zoning codes and laws aren’t always clear, and don’t always foster livable communities.

The history of zoning “is a story of taking a good idea too far, and trying to make zoning solve all kinds of perceived social problems,” argues Talen. She explains that the form-based code movement, in which zoning is backed up by a visual plan, provides an alternative to current zoning code.

“The end goal is to create communities that are walkable, diverse, compact, and are transit-oriented,” she says.

Read more »

Sustainability Science for Sustainable Schools was honored at the 32^nd annual Valley Forward Environmental Excellence Awards, held September 29^th. The awards ceremony brought together over 600 community members from all spectrums—business, nonprofit, education, and technology—to give recognition to those exemplifying sustainability and environmental responsibility in the Phoenix metro area.

This year, Valley Forward chose among over 120 entries. Sustainability Science for Sustainable Schools received a merit award for the category, Environmental Education/Communication in the Public Sector. The Sustainable Schools project was recognized for its wide reach and ability to tailor sustainability education to a diverse range of communities and populations.

“We appreciate Valley Forward’s recognition of our graduate students’ and their partner teachers’ work to implement sustainability projects in Valley schools,” says Monica Elser, education manager at Arizona State University’s Global Institute of Sustainability and co-principal investigator of the Sustainable Schools project. “This award provides us with even more incentive to share our program both locally and nationally.”

Read more »

Anthony J. Brazel,a long-time CAP scientist and Arizona State University professor emeritus in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, has been awarded the 2013 Helmet E. Landsberg Award from the American Meteorological Society (AMS), the leading professional society in the US for atmospheric scientists. The AMS gives this award to an individual or team for exemplary contributions to the fields of urban meteorology, climatology, or hydrology and recognizes Brazel's significant contributions to the study of urban heat islands, using the Phoenix metropolitan area/CAP study area as a research site. Under Brazel's scholarship and leadership, ASU has become one of the leading centers in the United States for research in urban climatology, which has been an enduring theme in CAP research. Brazel has also collaborated with Gordon Heisler at the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES) LTER site to produce research on comparative urban climatology. More

On Thursday, October 25, 2012, Captain Wayne Porter, USN, Chair, Systemic Strategy and Complexity at the Naval Postgraduate School, will present the first Wrigley Lecture Series of the 2012-2013 academic year. He will be discussing his piece, "A National Strategic Narrative," co-authored with Colonel Mark Mykleby. The narrative argues for a need of a sustainability context when protecting our nation's prosperity and security. It is now time to move the nation from a Cold War strategy of containment to a strategy of sustainability designed to address our enduring interests in a dynamic environment.

Captain Porter has served operational tours in England, Japan, Italy, the Balkans, and Bahrain. His personal awards include the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, the Defense Superior Service Medal, three Legions of Merit, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Navy Meritorious Service Medal, the NATO Meritorious Service Medal, and the Vice Admiral Rufus B. Taylor Award for Professional Excellence in Intelligence for his work in southern Serbia.

Please RSVP.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

4:00 - 5:30 p.m.

(reception will follow)

Old Main, Carson Ballroom

Arizona State University, Tempe campus

Anthony J. Brazel, ASU professor emeritus and senior sustainability scientist, has received the Helmet E. Landsberg Award for 2013 from the American Meteorological Society’s Board on the Urban Environment. The AMS is this country’s primary professional society for atmospheric scientists.

“Tony’s recognition by the American Meteorological Society highlights the prominent recognition his work has garnered across a spectrum of geophysical disciplines,” said Randall Cerveny, ASU President’s Professor and climatologist in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning. “His research papers, with topics that include everything from Phoenix urban dust storms to the intricacies of urban climate energy fluxes, are some of the most highly regarded works by geographical climatologists.”

"Brazel’s work in urban climatology – particularly in desert urban climatology – over the last four decades has, quite literally, shaped the fundamental concepts and themes for current research into this increasingly vital and important scientific and social topic,” observes Luc Anselin, Regents’ Professor and School of Geographical Sciences director.

Brazel will receive the Landsberg Award at the society’s national meeting, which takes place in Austin, Texas, Jan. 6-10, 2013.

Read more »

ASU SkySong, in conjunction with ASU Lightworks and ASU’s Office of Knowledge Enterprise Development, hosted Arizona Solar Summit III: Game Changers. The summit focused on highlighting the game-changing efforts of Arizona’s statewide solar industry.

More than 250 people throughout Arizona participated in Summit III, which began Oct. 5 with a pre-summit tour of Tucson’s top solar sites and projects and culminated with a two-day event hosted at ASU SkySong.

The four working groups that were formed out of the first summit will continue their efforts in the areas of Supply Chain, Building Arizona’s Solar Narrative, Policy and Finance, and Research and Development. The working groups are critical to the success of furthering Arizona’s solar future. Members of the solar community are encouraged to visit azsolarsummit.org to stay engaged with the working groups and to see latest updates on Summit IV.

Read more »

ASU graduate students Katelyn Parady and Victoria Sargent have created an interactive exhibit at the George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center that tells the story of environmental change in one Phoenix neighborhood. The exhibit, "Environmental Memories of South Central Phoenix," is based on Parady's Ph.D. research and data from the "Urban Vulnerability to Climate Change" project, a National Science Foundation-funded initiative directed by CAP scientist Sharon Harlan. The exhibit depicts the neighborhood over time through maps, photographs, resident interviews, and a timeline. Read more

Water is an essential resource for human settlement. Regardless of the climate or economy, if there is not an adequate supply of water to meet the water demands of a community, the community cannot be sustainable. Thus managing water supply and demand so that demand does not exceed supply will be an essential component of any communities plan for sustainability. Such management, referred to as water resources management, in urbanized regions can be very complicated. The systems used to collect water from multiple sources, treat it, deliver it to community residents, collect the wastewater, treat it, and safely dispose or reuse it are typically complex highly regulated systems often operated by multiple agencies over different geographies that can span hundreds of miles.

Management of such complex systems is further complicated by the future uncertainty in the factors that affect water supply and demand. Such uncertainties include: possible changes in the future growth or decline of a community and the behavior of its residents to use water, possible change is future of climate conditions of the community, and the ability of government and private institutions to respond to these changes in a manner that maintains a balance between water supply and demand.

The Exhibit

Beginning October 12, 2012, Pueblo Grande Museum in Phoenix will open their exhibit entitled, "Living in the Desert: Decisions and Consequences" featuring the DCDC WaterSim kiosk.

This collaboration between Pueblo Grande and Arizona State University brings the new exhibit, "Living in the Desert: Decisions and Consequences", to the Changing Gallery. The exhibit explores trade-offs made in the quest for desert sustainability in ancient, historic, and modern times. It includes a focus on water use from the Hohokam canal system through the allocation of Colorado River water today. The population of the southwestern United States can learn from the experiences of the Hohokam 1000 years ago.

WaterSim

To better understand how these uncertainties affect the complex tasks of water resources management, the Decision Center for a Desert City has been using a water and supply demand model, called WaterSim. The WaterSim kiosk offers a very basic and simplified version of our WaterSim model using a touchscreen device. This model has been implemented for the Central Arizona region and used primarily in four ways.

• Understand the dynamic nature of managing a complex water supply and demand system for urban regions.
• Explore the effectiveness of various water management policies.
• Explore the uncertainty of regional growth and climate change by understanding the impact different growth and climate change scenarios may have on the region’s complex water system and management policies.
• Explore how people make decisions for highly complex problems that are subject to high uncertainty.

Visit Pueblo Grande Museum.

A team of faculty from ASU’s College of Technology and Innovation (CTI) traveled to Ghana in May to install an innovative pit latrine that purifies human waste and generates electricity.

Mark Henderson, professor in the engineering department at CTI, and Brad Rogers, associate professor in the department of engineering technology at CTI, are co-principal investigators on the project and collaborated with Caitlyn Butler, a civil engineering professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Butler developed the primary design and implementation of the microbial fuel cell latrine while Henderson and Rogers supported the global sustainability efforts of the project. The project was funded by a $100,000 grant from the Grand Challenges Exploration program supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The pit latrine was developed as a response from many rural African communities who experience problems with waterborne diseases because of poor sanitation facilities. In the process, principal investigators designed a system in which liquids are used to generate electricity while solids can be used as compost for farming.

Read more »

Arizona State University researchers have developed a new software system capable of estimating greenhouse gas emissions across entire urban landscapes, all the way down to roads and individual buildings. Until now, scientists quantified carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions at a much broader level.

Dubbed “Hestia” after the Greek goddess of the hearth and home, researchers presented the new system in an article published Oct. 9 in Environmental Science and Technology. Hestia combines extensive public database “data-mining” with traffic simulation and building-by-building energy-consumption modeling. Its high-resolution maps clearly identify CO₂ emission sources in a way that policymakers can utilize and the public can understand.

“Cities have had little information with which to guide reductions in greenhouse gas emissions – and you can’t reduce what you can’t measure,” said Kevin Gurney, an associate professor in ASU’s School of Life Sciences, and senior scientist with the Global Institute of Sustainability. “With Hestia, we can provide cities with a complete, three-dimensional picture of where, when and how carbon dioxide emissions are occurring.”

Read more »

Listen to the NPR story »

Arizona State University chemical engineer and sustainability scientist César Torres is the winner of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) 2012 Young Investigator Award. The honor recognizes his contributions to bioenergy research.

Torres is an assistant professor at the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, one of ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. His research is conducted in the Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology at ASU’s Biodesign Institute.

“We look at microorganisms to find ways to convert either biomass or solar energy into electricity or fuels,” Torres explains.

Torres also recently began work with the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship: Solar Utilization Network, a program supported by the National Science Foundation that will train doctoral students in the solar-energy field.

Read more »