We all know that trees provide all sorts of benefits to people, right? But different trees provide different benefits and trees will only provide those benefits if we can make sure they stay healthy.
In this episode, Stephen Elser (@stephen_elser) interviews Jenna Rindy (@msjerindy), a PhD student at Boston University, about her research urban tree research. She tells us about how two species of oak tree vary in how much soot they remove from the air, and why that's so important for human health. We then discuss how human-caused fragmentation of forests affects tree health, and how that in turn affects us. We wrap up with a brief conversation about some challenges that climate change brings to urban forests.
Jenna wrote a haiku about her research:
Trees help cities to breath But cities can hurt trees too. What is the real cost?
If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, e-mail us at futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @FutureCitiesPod. Learn more about the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network (UREx SRN) at www.sustainability.asu.edu/urbanresilience.
In this episode, we explore the field of urban ecology and the challenges of doing social-ecological research. Stephen Elser (@stephen_elser) interviews Dr. Dan Childers, a professor at Arizona State University and director of the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long Term Ecological Research (CAP LTER) program. Dan emphasizes how important it is to be willing to learn the language and approaches of other disciplines on order to do better urban ecological research. But urban ecology didn’t always have an interdisciplinary approach, and the social aspects of cities were frequently ignored. Dan describes what he calls the “prepositional journey” from an ecology *in* cities to an ecology *of* cities to an ecology *for* cities. He discusses what some of the major challenges are in pursuing urban sustainability and what CAP LTER (@caplter) is doing to address those challenges in order to create more positive futures for the city of Phoenix.
Stephen wrote a haiku inspired by this conversation with Dr. Childers.
No more Birkenstocks. Go beyond your field – listen. Improve our cities.
If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, e-mail us at futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @FutureCitiesPod. Learn more about the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network (UREx SRN) at www.sustainability.asu.edu/urbanresilience.
As their first topic, Tessa Martinez and PhD candidate, Stephen Elser (@stephen_elser), discuss the Novel Coronavirus, COVID-19, and how it relates to city life. They then talk about green spaces and how they have a role in decreasing depression and improving human livelihood!
As their first topic, Tessa Martinez and Jason Sauer discuss Arizona’s goal of getting rid of their 43 food deserts. They then talk about the local Phoenix business, Agriscaping, and how they are making a difference in Arizona’s urban agriculture!
If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, e-mail us at futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @FutureCitiesPod. Learn more about the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network (UREx SRN) at www.sustainability.asu.edu/urbanresilience.
In our first current events minisode, Tessa Martinez and Alysha Helmrich discuss the Australian wildfires and their implications on Sydney’s infrastructure. They then explore Portland’s new way of filtering their water supply before it reaches the sewers- rain gardens! Listen to the full Infrastructure and Climate Change episode on Buzzsprout.
If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, e-mail us at futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @FutureCitiesPod. Learn more about the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network (UREx SRN) at www.sustainability.asu.edu/urbanresilience.
We talk with two researchers, Dr. Nazli Uludere Aragon and PhD student Michelle Stuhlmacher (@MFStuhlmacher on Twitter) about their recent publication, “Urban agriculture’s bounty: contributions to Phoenix’s sustainability goals.” The researchers explain what Phoenix’s sustainability goals currently are, how and where to develop agriculture in a desert city. We talk about how urban agriculture in Phoenix can get so-called food desert communities access to fruits and vegetables that they do not currently have, and how to balance demands for low water usage with a desire for a greener city. Our guests wrote a haiku to summarize their paper: Urban farms provide the bounty of the garden, open space, clean air.
Urban farms provide the bounty of the garden, open space, clean air.
If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, e-mail us at futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @FutureCitiesPod. Learn more about the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network (UREx SRN) at www.sustainability.asu.edu/urbanresilience.
As we continue to witness the devastating impacts of climate change, there is a consensus that we as a human population need to transition to a more sustainable way of living. But with so many ideas and proposals, how do we decide which pathways are best? Experts from Arizona State University have created a tool to help: The Sustainable Future Scenarios (SFS).
According to a new paper published in the journal of Landscape and Urban Planning, "The co-production of sustainable future scenarios," the SFS “offers guidance to co-produce visions and transition pathways of positive futures that develop and integrate interventions for sustainability transformations of social-ecological-technological systems.”
Climate change is a large source of uncertainty for infrastructure managers. It is easy to feel immobilized by future uncertainty, however, that does not have to be the case. In this podcast, the hosts interview a city practitioner, social scientist, and climate modeller to understand how infrastructure managers integrate climate modelling data into the decision process.
If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, e-mail us at futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @FutureCitiesPod. Learn more about the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network (UREx SRN) at www.sustainability.asu.edu/urbanresilience.
In recognition of her distinguished and continued achievement in research, co-founder and director of the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network (UREx SRN), Nancy Grimm was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2019, and will be inducted into the Academy in April 2020. This mark of excellence in science is considered one of the highest honors that a scientist can receive. This fall, she also was honored by Arizona State University, being named Regents Professor.
Grimm’s research interests include the interaction of climate variation and change, human activities, and ecosystems. Her long-term stream research focuses on how variability in the hydrologic regime affects the structure and processes of desert streams, especially wetland plant distribution, metabolism, nitrogen cycling, and hyporheic processes. Her related research in cities addresses how stormwater infrastructure affects water and material movement across an urban landscape. As the founding director of the interdisciplinary Central Arizona-Phoenix LTER program, she brought together earth, life, and social scientists to develop new frameworks for understanding urban social-ecological-technological systems (SETS). For UREx SRN, the SETS framing is central.
School of Sustainability PhD graduate, Melissa Guardaro has made an impact on heat action planning in Phoenix, Arizona. As part of the Nature’s Cooling System Project, Guardaro strove to address social and geographical equity concerns related to heat mitigation and adaptation strategies in under-served areas. She partnered with local groups including the Nature Conservancy, community based organizations, city officials, and the public health department to develop heat action plans for three low-income communities: Edison-Eastlake Community, Mesa Care Neighborhood, and Lindo Park-Roesley Park Neighborhood.
In this episode, Dr. Marissa Matsler (@oh_the_urbanity) talks with Dr. David Manuel-Navarrete about the evolutionary forces working against wider adoption of green infrastructure in cities today. They discuss his recent publication in Anthropocene titled "Intentional disruption of path-dependencies in the Anthropocene: Gray versus green water infrastructure regimes in Mexico City, Mexico", in which he uses human niche theory to analyze the feedback loops which encourage cities to continue investment in grey infrastructure at the expense of green infrastructure solutions that could help with the social and environmental challenges of climate change. Dr. Manuel-Navarrete shares more about his case study research in Mexico City and his transdisciplinary approach to science. This interview is wide-reaching touching on historic infrastructure transitions, the ways in which humans differ from termites, the need to bring the subjective and the objective together in scientific inquiry, and a hopeful message describing how we can work collaboratively to change our current destructive path dependencies. You can listen to Dr. Manuel-Navarrete discuss some of these topics in Spanish in our previous episode, Paradigmas Insostinebles en Nuestras Ciudades.
If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, e-mail us at futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @FutureCitiesPod. Learn more about the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network (UREx SRN) at www.sustainability.asu.edu/urbanresilience.
We're not the Mob but we here at Future Cities still care a lot about waste management! Co-host Jason Sauer talks with Dr. Erin Rivers (@soilandthecity) about how solid waste, AKA trash, is potentially exacerbating flood risk in cities by clogging up green and gray drainage infrastructure. We discuss trash reduction and removal efforts in Baltimore (Mr. Trash Wheel!) and beyond, and how a reframing of who is responsible for trash has benefits far beyond our work on green infrastructure and urban resilience. Apologies for in advance for the cuts at the beginning: I (Jason Sauer) was sick when I recorded this and had to cut out a lot of noise my sinuses were creating. TMI!
If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, e-mail us at futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @FutureCitiesPod. Learn more about the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network (UREx SRN) at www.sustainability.asu.edu/urbanresilience.
In 1988, U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed Hispanic Heritage Month, a month long event (Sept 15 - Oct 15), into law in order to honor the contributions of persons of Hispanic, Latina/o, Latin@, Latinx heritage; thus recognizing this period as a time for millions of individuals to celebrate their collective and country-specific ethnicities. Over the years, identity monikers have changed, with the most recent update as Latinx and Latinxs (plural for Latinx), pronounced la-teen-ex; this change was made to include non-binary, gender-neutral, LGBTQ, and gender-fluid individuals as an extension of what has already been recognized as a heterogeneous, U.S. Latin culture as a whole.
As celebration comes to a close on Oct 15th, the UREx SRN would like to acknowledge the contributions of all Latinx SRN members and communities who are working on extremes research within the network!
In the spirit of the UREx mission for diversity, equity, and inclusion:
This month's guest, Justin Stewart (@thecrobe), studies air quality and atmospheric microbial communities in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He tells us about how he got interested in microbes and about some of the challenges of studying these organisms in the air. He explains how several components of air quality (including ozone, PM2.5, and microbes) vary across the city, how they can affect human health and ecosystem function, and how those air quality might change in the face of extreme weather events and climate change. We discuss what the city has done to combat poor air quality (spoiler: not much) and whether microbes could actually play a role in helping to make the air safer for everyone to breathe.
If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, e-mail us at futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @FutureCitiesPod. Learn more about the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network (UREx SRN) at www.sustainability.asu.edu/urbanresilience.
In this month's episode we sit down with Matt Smith, a PhD candidate at Florida International University, to talk about Hurricane Dorian and some of his research comparing urban wetlands in Portland, Oregon and Valdivia, Chile. He tells us about storm surges, sea level rise, and the comprehensive Miami-Dade County Hurricane Readiness Guide. Wetlands, as it turn out, are valuable infrastructure surrounding Miami for dealing with sea level rise and mitigating the effects of hurricanes. He also found through his research that urban wetlands in Valdivia and Portland had fairly similar nutrient dynamics. Matt contends that more cities ought to explicitly consider wetlands in their resiliency plans as key infrastructure solutions capable of improving water quality, mitigating floods, and more.
If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, e-mail us at futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @FutureCitiesPod. Learn more about the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network (UREx SRN) at www.sustainability.asu.edu/urbanresilience.
Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network (UREx SRN) were recipients of an award from the Ecological Society of America.
Winners of the award are recognized for their “outstanding contributions to ecology in new discoveries, teaching, sustainability, diversity, and lifelong commitment to the profession,” according to an ESA announcement.
This month, we sit down with two PhD candidates from Arizona State University, Jason Sauer and Yuliya Dzyuban, to talk about their recent trip to Hermosillo, Mexico. We learn the difference between "enchilada" and "enchilado", how temperatures differ in new and old buses, and the unique ways in which people from Hermosillo react to flooding in their city. Despite lacking some of the resources that residents of other cities might have, locals in Hermosillo illustrate a strong capacity to react to and cope with extreme events. Yuliya and Jason wrap up the episode with haikus about their research!
If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, e-mail us at futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @FutureCitiesPod. Learn more about the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network (UREx SRN) at www.sustainability.asu.edu/urbanresilience.
La dimensión del drama social en los países en desarrollo o “Sur Global” es relativamente bien conocida. Las grandes desigualdades socioeconómicas, los bajos ingresos, los bajos niveles de esperanza de vida, la corrupción, la violencia, el crimen, la inestabilidad política, etc.
Es necesario reflexionar si este contexto turbulento del Sur global frente a los países desarrollados se debe a una diferencia estructural en la naturaleza de las sociedades en cada caso, y sobre las implicaciones que esto pueda causar en la implementación de iniciativas de resiliencia.
Es razonable afirmar que los desafíos para la construcción de resiliencia, ya sea en las sociedades desarrolladas o en el Sur global, surgen de la misma naturaleza humana y su fragilidad para la organización social, la coexistencia y la adaptación en el ambiente. La diferencia norte-sur radicaría en la complejidad de los diferentes contextos socioeconómicos, culturales y geográficos. Si las diferencias no son en la naturaleza sino en la intensidad de los procesos, entonces la transferencia de conocimiento en dos vías es, más allá que una oportunidad, un mecanismo conveniente para el aprendizaje social.
El "norte" tiene mucho que ofrecer para la construcción de resiliencia, no solo por sus avances tecnológicos, sino también por la consolidación de sus estructuras sociales que proporcionan ventajas comparativas para crear soluciones más satisfactorias o aceptadas. La mayor legitimidad del Estado, la reducida segregación, el mayor nivel de vida, el acceso regulado a los derechos humanos y los servicios públicos, en general, son, sin duda, condiciones apropiadas para aumentar la resiliencia. Sin embargo, en tanto que el drama social del sur y su complejidad dificultan la construcción de la resiliencia, la gobernanza requerida para resolver estos desafíos demandan de una gran creatividad de estas sociedades como condición básica para su supervivencia.
Estas sociedades que asumen la construcción de la resiliencia en el sur global han consolidado habilidades valiosas para sobrellevar su gran nivel de complejidad. La relevancia de insistir en una comunicación sur- norte para la construcción de la resiliencia es evidente, ante el potencial cualitativo que se resalta desde esta perspectiva. El "Sur" tiene, para ofrecer a la comunidad global de profesionales y académicos de la resiliencia, ésta ventaja comparativa en términos de complejidad y creatividad.
Es razonable sugerir que el futuro de los Estados Unidos está crecientemente ligado a lo que ocurre en América Latina, y aún más, a lo que sucede con la expansión interna de las culturas latinoamericanas dentro de su territorio. El acercamiento a las experiencias del Sur es un mecanismo de anticipación o acercamiento frente a múltiples dinámicas, que tarde o temprano se revelarán con mayor notoriedad dentro de los espacios urbanos. La capacidad de dialogar con esa complejidad del sur resultará cada vez más crítica para abordar de manera resiliente los desafíos.
The Department of Environmental Health from the University of Puerto Rico-Medical Sciences Campus led in collaboration with the Institute for Sustainable Solutions from Portland State University, the CAPA Heat Watch Program in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The heat campaign took place on Sunday June 23rd, 2019. Citizen science volunteers gathered ground-based temperature measurements and humidity all over the city. They drove on 10 designated areas, termed polygons, with temperature sensors mounted at about 2 meters from the ground. Data was collected throughout three one-hour intervals (6am, 2pm, and 7pm) to account for ambient variations in the metropolitan area. In total, we recorded around 30-hours of meteorological data. The overall goal is to produce detailed maps of the Urban Heat Island in San Juan. Results will be tested with collaborating city practitioners and officials to test support decision-making models in different stakeholder groups.
Thanks to Dr. Vivek Shandas for his technical support and for providing the instrumentation. Special thanks to all volunteers and the National Weather Service-San Juan Office for providing “Weather Briefing for the Metropolitan Area of San Juan and Northeast Puerto Rico”. A total of 25 volunteers were involved, which included professors, undergraduate and graduate students from different institutions. The activity was coordinated by Dr. Pablo Méndez-Lázaro, Dr. Vivek Shandas, Antonio de la Flor-Rosario and Jazmin Díaz-Rivera.
This campaign was part of Urban Resilience to Extreme Weather Events-Sustainability Research Network. Sponsored by National Science Foundation.
As you’ve probably heard, NSF is funding more than 22 workshops on sustainable urban systems that were proposed in response to the Dear Colleague Letter, “Conference Proposals on Concepts for Advancing Sustainable Urban Systems (SUS) Research Networks.” The EMT members who attended this year’s SRN Awardees’ Conference at NSF learned that the foundation is viewing these workshops as fodder to the development of a new solicitation for urban research networks. We are asking UREx members to keep everyone informed if you attend one of these workshops; you can write a short email and send it to Angela, or submit a piece for the blog or the newsletter. In that vein, I’m writing here to report on a workshop I attended in Cairo, Egypt from 8–14 June.
The workshop, “Sustainable Smart Cities in Arid Regions,” was funded by the NSF’s Office of International Science and Engineering through a grant to the University of Alabama Birmingham’s (UAB) Sustainable Smart Cities Research Center and sponsored by the Egyptian Housing and Building Research Center and Alexandria University. Participants came from ASU, Georgia Tech, MIT, UC Berkeley, and UAB in the USA, Canada, UK, Germany (German International Cooperation Program in Egypt), and several Egyptian universities, governmental, and non-governmental organizations.
After a delightful two days of learning about ancient Egypt and the present-day city of Cairo, the workshop began with just three plenary talks, each setting the stage for in-depth workshop discussions on three themes: informal settlements and sustainable housing, urban health and well-being, and sustainable water management. There were many architects and building engineers, public health/community medicine participants, and hydrologists, but only one ecologist (me). The products of each working group’s discussions over the ensuing two days were potential collaborative proposals. The water group produced five ideas for moderately sized projects and one grandiose scheme (“Sustainable Nile Communities”) featuring activities at the scale of the Nile Basin and target communities, both in the context of wicked water problems of scarcity, climate change, and pollution, with a look to the future. I hope to continue discussions that may lead to new projects in collaboration with Egypt; for example, comparative studies of sustainable water management for the Nile and Colorado basins or sustainable future visions for Cairo or small communities along the Mediterranean.
The NSF program director from OISE made frequent comments about his hope that the outputs of these workshops would both lead to new collaborations and potential funding, as well as provide input to the group at NSF that is developing the new solicitation on sustainable urban systems. —Nancy Grimm, 21 June 2019
We all know that trees provide all sorts of benefits to people, right? But different trees provide different benefits and trees will only provide those benefits if we can make sure they stay healthy.
Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network (UREx SRN) were recipients of an award from the Ecological Society of America.
