Metropolitan Phoenix has the largest set of wild land preserves of any major metropolitan area in the United States, including the largest city park in the country, South Mountain Park. Mountain preserves are treasures in our own backyard, yet the pressures of urbanization, invasive species and overuse of certain parks threaten their long-term integrity.

Arizona State University's Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research (CAP LTER) program in the Global Institute of Sustainability and ASU's Ecosystem Conservation and Resilience Initiative (ECRI) in the School of Life Sciences are part of a new initiative to address the future of these mountain park preserves.

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The Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research (CAP LTER) program in the Global Institute of Sustainability at ASU and the Ecosystem Conservation and Resilience Initiative (ECRI) in the School of Life Sciences are part of a new initiative to address the future of metropolitan Phoenix's mountain park preserves. They have joined with the Desert Botanical Garden (the lead institution), Audubon Arizona, the City of Phoenix Parks and Recreation Department, Maricopa County Parks and Recreation Department, and the Phoenix Mountains Preservation Council to form the Conservation Alliance, a collaboration to foster community engagement to study, restore, and promote the mountain park preserves of metropolitan Phoenix.

This initiative received a boost of support recently when it was chosen as an awardee in the Five Communities Project competition sponsored by the Center for the Future of Arizona.

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This year marks the fourteenth anniversary of the Central Arizona–Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research (CAP LTER) Project at Arizona State University. To celebrate our accomplishments and move forward toward new research initiatives, we are hosting our Fourteenth Annual All Scientists Meeting and Poster Symposium, "Synthesizing Urban Systems Research," on January 13, 2012 in the Convergence Room at Arizona State University’s SkySong facility.

We are privileged this year to have two esteemed keynote speakers. Dr. Karen Seto, Associate Professor at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University, will present "Rethinking urbanization and sustainability: Lessons from China and India" during the morning session. In the afternoon, Dr. Wallace Broecker, Newberry Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, will present "The global CO2 problem and some possible solutions:  What it all means for cities."

The agenda for January 13^th includes update presentations on CAP’s current research in the areas of water, climate, biodiversity, and biogeochemistry.  There also will be two interactive poster sessions featuring 40 posters from a variety of CAP LTER initiatives as well as exhibits from high school and middle school students participating in the Ecology Explorers program.

ASU SkySong is located on the southeast corner of Scottsdale and McDowell Roads, north of the ASU Tempe campus. For directions to SkySong, please visit http://skysong.asu.edu/contact . The Convergence Room is in the north building at SkySong in the northeast corner, although the entrance to the room is from the front of the building, not the lobby. There is free parking north of the building, and SkySong is also accessible by Valley Metro (bus 72) from the Tempe Transit Center.

We will be serving lunch during the event. To RSVP for lunch, please go to:  http://sustainability.asu.edu/events/rsvp/caplter-fourteenth-symposium.

Students at Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability get the opportunity to tackle real-life issues in their community as a part of their studies. For Dr. Hallie Eakin’s students in the Fall 2011 undergraduate course, “Sustainable Food and Farms,” this meant conducting research to analyze ASU’s food sourcing decisions and come up with suggestions for improvements.

Through the research for this class, the students concluded that ASU is moving in the right direction in identifying and supporting sustainable food supplies. The student researchers noted, however, that they had several concerns regarding aspects of waste management, ecological impact, education, and transparency in the food system, among other issues.

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“You cannot run an economy, especially one poised for growth (like Arizona) without energy,” noted two Arizona State University energy experts in an op-ed that appeared in the Dec. 19 Arizona Republic.

“On the cusp of its 100th birthday, Arizona is facing an aging energy infrastructure that is unprepared for a sustainable future,” wrote ASU’s Gary Dirks and Matthew Croucher. Dirks is director of LightWorks, an ASU initiative that capitalizes on the university’s strengths in solar energy and other light-inspired research. He is also a distinguished sustainability scientist with ASU’s Global Institute of Sustainably. Croucher, an economist, is an associate research professor at the W.P. Carey School of Business and a senior sustainability scientist with ASU’s Global Institute of Sustainability.

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A November 29 broadcast on National Public radio features a project co-directed by planning professor Aaron Golub and Milagros Zingoni of the ASU Herberger Institute of Design and the Arts. Students involved include Benjamin Stanley, of the School of Sustainability and Christian Solorio; Hector Navarro; and Whitney Warman of the Herberger Institute of Design and the Arts.

In the project, called “Retrofitting Suburbs: Re-visioning the Cul-de-Sac,” Golub, Zingoni and their team are working with the city of Avondale to re-design one of its cul-de-sacs for the year 2030. The goal is for the re-designed cul-de-sac to fit the needs of future populations, in which there will be an increasing number of single- and two-person households. The re-designed cul-de-sac will use the existing structures to accommodate up to 3 times as many residents, in “manors” that blend small private units with shared space.

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The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has awarded the City of Phoenix a three-year $2.9 million Sustainable Communities grant, with ASU as a key partner.

The grant’s objective is to promote transit-oriented development (TOD) along the light rail line – with a focus on development that will provide all residents with safe, convenient access to quality, affordable housing, well-paying jobs, education and training programs, fresh food and healthcare services.

The project, named Reinvent Phoenix: Cultivating Equity, Engagement, Economic Development and Design Excellence with TOD, will foster development near the light rail that serves to:

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The Global Institute of Sustainability (GIOS) at Arizona State University is one of the players on the Governor’s Office of Energy Policy team tabbed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative to identify and eliminate barriers to easy and affordable rooftop solar installation.

Gov. Jan Brewer announced this month that the Arizona team received a $710,000 grant from DOE, the first-year award in a three-year $2.8 million initiative, with the goal of developing processes to lower costs by identifying best practices in finance, permitting and zoning.

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What does the future of business look like in a sustainability-minded world, and how do we get there are two among many questions addressed in the three-volume set, "The Business of Sustainability: Trends, Policies, Practices, and Stories of Success."

A dozen chapter contributors from ASU essentially helped to develop the first integrated presentation of the business of sustainability. The books were published in November 2011 and bring together more than 70 experts who specialize in several industries. The volumes’ editors include Scott G. McNall, who joined forces with fellow editors who hail from ASU: George Basile, a professor in the School of Sustainability, and James C. Hershauer, an emeritus professor of management.

According to Hershauer, the editors teamed up to produce the books because they collectively saw fragmentations in the approaches businesspeople were making when engaging in sustainability discussions.

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ASU has announced that Tesco is joining The Sustainability Consortium, an independent group of global businesses, academics, governments and non-governmental organizations that work collaboratively to drive innovation in consumer product sustainability. The Tesco-funded Sustainable Consumption Institute (SCI) at The University of Manchester will also become an academic member of the Consortium. Tesco joins 16 other European members that provide The Sustainability Consortium a strong foothold in the region.

Joining The Consortium is a further boost to Tesco’s work on sustainability and comes after its commendation as the top green UK retailer by the internationally recognized Carbon Disclosure Project. By focusing on environmental and social sustainability in the supply chain, The Consortium’s collaboration between Tesco and other global businesses will drive sustainable production and consumption in the consumer goods market. This partnership builds on The Consortium’s recent opening of a European branch at Wageningen University & Research Centre in The Netherlands.

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Postdoctoral Research Associate

Arizona State University

Decision Center for a Desert City

Location: Tempe Campus

Full/Part Time: Full-Time

Regular/Temporary: Regular Fiscal Appointment

Position Type

This is a grant funded position. Continuation is contingent on future grant funding. Appointments are year-to-year, with subsequent renewal, based upon performance, the needs of the department, and availability of funding.

Job Description

The Global Institute of Sustainability (GIOS) and the Decision Center for a Desert City (DCDC) at Arizona State University seek a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the decision making under uncertainty related to water sustainability and urban climate adaptation.

Expertise in one or more of the following research areas is highly desirable:

• decision making under uncertainty
• climate change uncertainties
• urban climate adaptation
• psychology of environmental decision making
• urban systems dynamics
• vulnerability, resilience and risk
• science-policy interactions and boundary organizations
• hydrological and water simulation modeling

Anticipated Start Date

July 1, 2012

Hiring Range

$38,000 - $42,000 annually depending on experience; plus benefits.

Minimum Qualifications

Earned Ph.D. at the time of appointment.

Desired Qualifications

Demonstrated experience in interdisciplinary environmental research, strong social science skills including quantitative and qualitative analyses and spatial analyses, and strong verbal and written communication skills.

Department Info

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. Bolstered by Decision Making Under Uncertainty (DMUU) collaborative groups funding from the NSF, "DCDC II" was launched in October 2010 and is poised to expand its already-extensive research agenda, further engage the policy community, and forge stronger ties between knowledge and action. In this second phase of DCDC funding, we will develop fundamental knowledge about decision making from three interdisciplinary perspectives: climatic uncertainties, urban-system dynamics, and adaptation decisions. Simulation modeling and boundary organization studies are cross-cutting themes and will be core DCDC activities.

To date, DCDC has produced: (1) a critical mass of basic research, including over 200 articles, books, and book chapters (65 of these appearing to date in 2010–2011); (2) WaterSim, a dynamic water-simulation model that serves as an important basis for stakeholder engagement and decision support, a point of articulation for interdisciplinary research, and an experimental setting to study decision making under uncertainty; (3) an extensive network of relationships with regional water managers and resource decision makers; (4) productive partnerships with research and education efforts affiliated with ASU’s Global Institute of Sustainability (GIOS), including the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long Term Ecological Research (CAP LTER) project, the Decision Theater, and the School of Sustainability; and (5) a significant and growing set of comparative and collaborative partnerships linking our Phoenix-based case study to water sustainability and urban climate adaptation efforts nationally and internationally.

As our mission has evolved to focus not only on water sustainability but also urban climate adaptation, DCDC researchers now work to develop and implement decision-support processes for environmental decision making. Through an integrated approach to research and education, DCDC trains a new generation of scientists who work successfully at the boundaries of science and policy. DCDC II continues to build bridges between science and policy to foster local-to-global sustainability solutions. For additional information about the Decision Center for a Desert City, visit DCDC.

Instructions to Apply

To apply, submit curriculum vitae, two research papers, a letter of interest, and the names, phone numbers, and email addresses of three professional references by email to GIOSjobs@asu.edu.

Application Close Date

Initial close date is December 31, 2011. Applications will continue to be reviewed until position is filled.

Background Check Statement

ASU conducts pre-employment screening for all positions which includes a criminal background check, verification of work history, academic credentials, licenses, and certifications.

Arizona State University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer.

DCDC Publication (in press)

Network Determinants of Knowledge Utilization: Preliminary Lessons From a Boundary Organization

By Beatrice I. Crona (1,2) and John N. Parker (3,4)

http://scx.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/09/08/1075547011408116

Abstract

This study examines the socio-organizational model of science-policy knowledge transfer. Using social network analysis, the authors study how interactions between researchers-policy makers affect utilization of research by policy makers in a boundary organization designed to mediate between research and policy communities. Two types of social interactions with independent effects on utilization are identified. Policy makers with more direct contacts with researchers are more likely to utilize research. Policy makers interacting more with other policy makers regarding research are also more likely to utilize it. This indicates the importance of policy makers’ embeddedness in social networks and the importance of external reputation of boundary organizations for successful knowledge transfer.

Case Study and Research Context

Our case study is the Decision Center for a Desert City (DCDC), housed at Arizona State University. DCDC is funded through the National Science Foundation’s Decision Making Under Uncertainty program. It is specifically designed as a boundary organization with the goal of enhancing long-term decision making about urban water resources in arid, rapidly growing Phoenix, Arizona. As stated in a project summary, DCDC "seeks to build a new model of science and policy engagement that allows decision makers and scientists to collaborate on important research questions and experiment with new methods" (Crona & Parker, 2009).

DCDC operates in the highly politicized context surrounding water management and urban development in the arid Southwestern United States. The Phoenix metropolitan area is one of the fastest growing urban centers in the United States, and tensions between urban development, economic growth, and environmental sustainability arise continuously (Gober, 2006; Gober, Kirkwood, Balling, Ellis, & Deitrick, 2010). Against this complex backdrop, DCDC was created in 2004 to support research from a diverse range of disciplines, including both the social and natural sciences, and to facilitate its transfer to the policy sphere. To date, the research has consisted primarily of social vulnerability assessments, climatic and hydrological models, science-policy research, and the development of new drought indices.

In its capacity as a boundary organization, DCDC engages over 150 researchers and policy actors but only employs around a dozen support and administrative staff. It meets all of the criteria definitive of a boundary organization. Most characteristically, it involves participation by both scientists and policy makers. DCDC leaders have accomplished this in three main ways.

• First, DCDC leaders developed a regular forum ("water and climate briefings") where researchers and policy makers meet to discuss research and its implications for water policy. The forum was designed to provide a depoliticized space that would facilitate interaction among these groups. When surveyed, policy makers indicated that these meetings were the main way in which the organization had influenced the water policy community, with over 60% indicating that their network of contacts in the water policy community had grown as a result (Crona & Parker, 2009).
• Second, they hold semiregular panels of expert speakers involving members of both communities; and third, they hired a professional liaison to act as a mediator between researchers and policy makers. DCDC has also created a number of boundary objects, the most important of which is WaterSim, a regional-scale simulation model of water supply and demand that integrates climate, land use, and population growth data to examine future water use scenarios (see White et al., 2010).
• Finally, DCDC has distinct lines of accountability to both the research and policy communities. Accountability to the research community is via its formal ties to the university and the National Science Foundation, and accountability to the policy community is by virtue of the inclusion of policy makers on its advisory board.

1 Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

2 Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

3 National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

4 Barrett Honors College, Arizona State University

A near-fatal illness when she was 16 led Beth Anne Martin to dream big dreams. She decided she wanted to make the world a better place.

Now 21, the ASU senior from Chandler has hiked through rainforests to study ecology in Costa Rica and has planted hundreds of trees as a farm intern in New Zealand. She has founded a student organization to fight slavery and trafficking, and has led volunteer efforts for a Tempe homeless program and an environmental action team.

Next year the young activist will head for Chile to study food security and community-based agriculture, having just won a $26,000 Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship.

She is one of more than 400 university students from 40 countries selected by Rotary International to study abroad. They will participate in community service projects and speak to civic groups, acting as “goodwill ambassadors” for their home countries.

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by John Felty, Salt River Project

December 2, 2011 via East Valley Tribune

When you live in the desert, water conservation is a way of life.

Salt River Project has been promoting conservation for more than 100 years and we recently launched Together We Conserve, a multi-faceted educational effort aimed at water conservation while explaining how SRP's investments in water infrastructure, management and planning helped the Valley grow into one of the nation's largest metropolitan areas.

Valley schoolchildren also are now gaining a comprehensive understanding of our water supply and the importance of water-conservation and efficiency. Students are getting this information thanks to what their teachers learned last spring and summer at the inaugural Celebrating Fresh Water in Arizona Educator Academy, presented by SRP, Phoenix, Project WET and the Arizona Geographic Alliance.

Educators learned about the Valley's water portfolio, from the history of 100-year-old Theodore Roosevelt Dam to the expertise required to manage and deliver water to the Valley from a 13,000-square-mile watershed. That first wave of 80 academy graduates is just beginning to incorporate water knowledge gained at the freshwater academy into their classroom curriculum.

Karen Guerrero, a science teacher and parent at the Accelerated Foreign Language Academy in Gilbert, is one of the first graduates from the program. Karen recently launched a water curriculum at a "Celebrating Arizona" event at Mesa Community College's Red Mountain Campus. More than 50 future educators at MCC were involved in teaching about Arizona geography and water to the K-5 dual-language students from Gilbert Elementary School. Karen plans to teach water conservation throughout the school year in a program that will culminate with a Family Water Night event in the spring.

The Together We Conserve campaign will also reach out to students in early December when SRP will name a Valley school as the first winner of the "Flat Dewey" competition. The "Flat Dewey" program was designed to encourage fourth-grade students to learn about water supplies and resources throughout Arizona. The winning school will get a pizza party and a visit from SRP's "Dewey" water mascot, which inspired the "Flat Dewey" competition as a way for students to think about how water impacts their lives on a daily basis.

For more water-saving tips and other fun contest opportunities, please visit SRP's www.TogetherWeConserve.com website.

Gilbert resident John Felty is the manager of Water Shareholder Relations & Sustainability at Salt River Project.

Research on urban heat island by CAP LTER researchers Darrel Jenerette, Sharon Harlan, Will Stefanov, and Chris Martin recently was featured in Wired Magazine's article "Environmental Gap Widens in Phoenix."

The Wired story focused on the researchers' findings reported in the journal Ecological Applications.

Scientists from ASU's School of Human Evolution and Social Change and ASU's Global Institute of Sustainability examined the role of vegetation in urban cooling, particularly in low-income neighborhoods experiencing extreme heat. The study was funded by a National Science Foundation grant awarded to the School.

While an increase in vegetation would ameliorate heat conditions and provide multiple ecosystem services, the authors argue that “vegetation has economic, water, and social equity implications that vary dramatically across neighborhoods and need to be managed through informed environmental policies.”

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Research by CAP scientists Darrel Jenerette, Sharon Harlan, Will Stefanov, and Chris Martin was featured in a recent online piece in Wired Magazine. The story focused on findings reported in an Ecological Applications article, "Ecosystem services and urban heat riskscape moderation: Water, green spaces, and social inequality in Phoenix, USA."

Jenerette et al. examine the role of vegetation in urban cooling, particularly in low-income neighborhoods experiencing extreme heat. While an increase in vegetation would ameliorate heat conditions and provide multiple ecosystem services, the authors argue that "vegetation has economic, water, and social equity implications that vary dramatically across neighborhoods and need to be managed through informed environmental policies."

Cotton, Condos, and Climate: Agriculture and Arizona’s Water Future

Decision-makers in Arizona are comforted by the idea that water can be diverted from farms to cities in the face of future water scarcity. The assumption has been that historic trends in farm retirement will continue into the future, releasing water for urban use. However, rapid changes in economic, environmental and policy conditions now challenge this assumption.

• What current and possible future conditions divert water from farms to cities?
• How are recent changes in the economy, policy and the environment affecting farmers’ and water managers’ decisions about water allocations?
• Should Arizona rely on agriculture to fulfill a buffering role in the face of future water uncertainties?

A panel of agriculture and water resource practitioners and professionals will discuss these and other issues associated with agriculture, urban growth and Arizona’s future demand for water.

This DCDC Water/Climate briefing explores the climate-water-agriculture-nexus in Arizona. Over the coming year, academic researchers, farmers, water managers, and other stakeholders throughout Arizona will continue this work and will provide new insights into this critical challenge.

December 6, 2011 | 12:00-1:30pm | Lunch will be served

DCDC Conference Room

Please RSVP: estella.ohanlon@asu.edu

Panelists

• Paco Ollerton, Cotton Grower
• Jim Holway, Director, Western Lands and Communities, a Lincoln Institute of Land Policy-Sonoran Institute Joint Venture
• Brian Betcher, Manager, Maricopa-Stanfield Irrigation and Drainage District, Pinal County
• Joe Sigg, Director of Government Relations, Arizona Farm Bureau

Organizers

School of Sustainability graduate students from the workshop, "Adaptation, Resilience and Transformation."

Professors

• Rimjhim Aggarwal, Assistant Professor, School of Sustainability
• Hallie Eakin, Associate Professor, School of Sustainability

RSVP

estella.ohanlon@asu.edu

Map and Parking

Decision Center for a Desert City

Global Institute of Sustainability

Arizona State University

21 East 6th Street, Suite 126B

Tempe, AZ 85281

(480) 965-3367

Map

The Central Arizona–Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research Project (CAP LTER) is hosting its Fourteenth Annual All Scientists Meeting (Poster Symposium) to discuss current research and promote future research on urban socio-ecological systems. It will be held at ASU’s Skysong facility in south Scottsdale on Friday, January 13, 2012. Skysong has very nice conference space and free parking. It can also be accessed by the 72 bus from the Tempe Transit Center.

We are particularly interested in posters that present interdisciplinary approaches to understanding urban systems and posters that represent university-community partnerships. We encourage our community partners, faculty, staff and students to participate by presenting posters and attending the symposium.

Please submit your abstract electronically by December 5, 2011 to Cindy Zisner. The abstract should be single-spaced, 12-point font size, no more than 250 words in length, and in Word format (no pdfs please). Final posters will need to be provided electronically for the CAP LTER web site. Posters need not be submitted by the abstract deadline but should be submitted as close to the Symposium as possible. Posters often are sized 3 x 5 ft (h x w), but the primary space consideration will be that the final product fits on a 4 x 8 ft (h x w) tack board.

This year, poster presenters will be expected to make short, 2 minute presentations to the symposium audience before their poster session commences. More details on this will be circulated in advance of the symposium.

We award prizes to the best student posters in the symposium. Indicate on your abstract if the lead author is a student. Please provide all of your authors' names and addresses so that these can be included in the program.

Sample Submission:

Lead author: Student

M. Howard¹, L. Fine², and C. Howard¹. Effects of urban air quality on aggression in research scientists.

¹School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, PO Box 874501, Tempe AZ 85287-4501: and ²ASU West Department of Physical Education, …..[address].

We assessed levels of aggression in research scientists exposed to different amounts of airborne particulates….

Past judges have noted that successful posters tend to be well-structured. Some key areas to consider including in your poster are:

• Problem statement and discussion of research context
• Presentation and discussion of research findings
• Conclusion and discussion of research significance and contribution

Please also note that layout matters: pay attention to font size, color, and the balance between graphical elements of your poster and text. Ample white space allows the reader to read your poster more easily, and a logical flow of text and graphics communicates your research most effectively.

Submit one electronic copy of the abstract by December 5, 2011 to Cindy.Zisner@asu.edu. Questions can be addressed to Marcia Nation (Marcia.nation@asu.edu) .

Complex computational modeling provides clues to Neanderthal extinction

Computational modeling that examines evidence of how hominin groups evolved culturally and biologically in response to climate change during the last Ice Age also bears new insights into the extinction of Neanderthals. Details of the complex modeling experiments conducted at Arizona State University and the University of Colorado Denver will be published in the December issue of the journal Human Ecology, available online Nov. 17.

ASU Senior Sustainability Scientist Michael Barton authored the article, “Modeling Human Ecodynamics and Biocultural Interactions in the Late Pleistocene of Western Eurasia.” The article was co-authored by ASU Senior Sustainability Scientist John Martin “Marty” Anderies, an associate professor of computational social science in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and the School of Sustainability; as well as Julien Riel-Salvatore, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado Denver; and Gabriel Popescu, an anthropology doctoral student in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at ASU.

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