Sustainability involves balancing human social and economic needs with a healthy environment. This research addresses questions such as:
- What urban systems in the past have been most resilient to changes in the environment, and why?
- How can we manage limited resources, such as water in the desert, to ensure an adequate supply for future generations?
- What new kinds of materials and processes can we develop to maintain health and quality of life in the face of rapid population growth?
Phoenix Area Social Survey
This survey studies the relationships between people and the natural environment in the Phoenix metro area.
Advancing Conservation in a Social Context
This project investigates the tradeoffs between human well-being and biodiversity-conservation goals, and between conservation and other economic, political, and social agendas at local, national, and international scales.
Social Dynamics of Environmental Equity
This interdisciplinary case study is investigating the spatial and temporal dynamics of environmental-equity patterns and processes in Baltimore, a large, postindustrial city that has undergone profound socioeconomic change.
Central Arizona–Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research (CAP LTER)
Through interdisciplinary projects integrating natural sciences, social science, and engineering, CAP LTER examines the effects of urbanization on a desert ecosystem and vice versa.
Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) in Urban Ecology
This training program in urban ecology prepares young scientists to be flexible, adept at linking science with social issues, and work collaboratively, so that they might apply interdisciplinary knowledge in the world of tomorrow.
Decision Center for a Desert City
This Center studies the decision processes used to plan and manage water resources and urbanization.
Decision Theater
The Decision Theater is an immersive, interactive, 3D-visualization facility for collaborative decision making.
Greater Phoenix 2100
GP2100 is a network of ASU and community researchers dedicated to using knowledge to create better lives for future generations.
Arizona Water Institute
The Water Institute builds economic opportunity in Arizona by improving access to water information, assisting communities and local governments with technology transfer, and helping water-related industries.
National Center of Excellence (NCE) on SMART Innovations for Urban Climate and Energy
The NCE was founded to become the premier national laboratory for developing the next generation of Sustainable Materials and Renewable Technologies (SMART).
Sustainability Partnership
The Sustainability Partnership engages local and state policy-makers, resource managers, and industry leaders in planning for sustainable urban growth, social and economic development, resource management, and environmental protection.
100 Cities Project
This project uses remote-sensing technology to detect patterns of urbanization and their environmental consequences in 100 cities across the globe.
Urbanization and Global Environmental Change
This collaborative project is building greater knowledge and understanding of the bidirectional interactions between global environmental change and cities, present at local, regional, and global scales, and integrating the work of decision makers, practitioners, and academic researchers.
Integrated Analysis of Robustness in Dynamic Social Ecological Systems
This project asks: "Why are some socioecological systems more successful in navigating environmental disturbances and change than others?"
Archaeological Data Integration for the Study of Long-Term Human and Social Dynamics
This integrative project will address the challenge of enabling scientifically meaningful integration and use of the expanding body of archaeological data.
Legacies on the Landscape: Prehistoric Human Land Use and Long-Term Ecological Change
This collaborative project involving ecologists and archaeologists explores how prehistoric agricultural communities have affected plant communities, soil properties, and biogeochemical cycling for thousands of years.
Long-Term Coupled Socioecological Change in the American Southwest and Northern Mexico
In this project, archaeologists, mathematical modelers, ecologists, and environmental scientists are applying archaeological and ecological analyses, resilience theory, and formal dynamical modeling to identify variables that foster stability and promote transformation in coupled socioecological systems.
