Humans are rapidly becoming an urban species. It is profoundly important, therefore, to understand urban ecosystems. Cities are consumers of energy and resources and producers of waste. They are also social networks that create innovation, efficiency, and solutions. The Central Arizona-Phoenix LTER Program (CAP) empowers researchers from the environmental and social sciences to study cities as social-ecological systems. The scientific goals of the CAP research are: 1) to use long-term data to articulate and answer new questions about cities that require a long-term perspective; 2) to develop and use future scenarios to help answer research questions; 3) to apply and create new knowledge about urban ecosystems; and 4) to build broad partnerships to make cities more resilient and sustainable places to live. In addition, Ecology Explorers, CAP’s premier education program, will connect teachers and pre-college students with CAP scientists. CAP is also involving Phoenix residents in scientific research by working with community partners and municipal agencies. Finally, CAP’s rich database is a valuable and growing resource for scientists, students, teachers and decision makers.
Understanding urban ecosystems remains central to the CAP enterprise. The central question articulates the interconnectedness of human motivations, behaviors, actions, and outcomes with urban ecosystem structure and function: How do the ecosystem services provided by urban ecological infrastructure (UEI) affect human outcomes and behavior, and how do human actions affect patterns of urban ecosystem structure and function and, ultimately, urban sustainability and resilience? A new theoretical focus for CAP is on Urban Ecological Infrastructure (UEI) as a critical bridge between the system’s biophysical and human/social domains. UEI is thus central in the conceptual framework that guides all CAP activities. CAP researchers explore new social-ecological frontiers of interdisciplinary urban ecology in residential landscapes, urban waterbodies, desert parks and preserves, the flora, fauna, and climate of a ‘riparianized’ desert city, and urban design and governance. CAP research is organized around eight interdisciplinary questions and researchers are organized into eight Interdisciplinary Research Teams to address these questions. CAP now includes research on broader societal impacts, with a theoretical focus on the nexus of ecology and design to enhance urban sustainability and resilience. This focus, combined with ongoing CAP scenarios work, is the translational link between social-ecological research outcomes and city institutions, ultimately making Phoenix, and cities in general, better places to live.
This award reflects NSF’s statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation’s intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
