Institute Administered Research
Assessing Decadal Climate Change Impacts on Urban Populations in the Southwestern USA »
In the cities of the southwestern United States, regional warming combined with increasing urban populations and the resulting urban heat effect are straining limited supplies of electricity and water. Cities can be designed that are more resilient, minimizing human impacts and energy and water stresses, under scenarios of decadal warming trends. The project is to modify existing models to transform the design of urban neighborhoods to be be quantifiably more adaptive and resilient to all types of decadal climate change.
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Central Arizona–Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research (CAP LTER) »
Through interdisciplinary projects integrating natural sciences, social science, and engineering, the Central Arizona–Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research project examines the effects of urbanization on a desert ecosystem and vice versa.
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Decision Center for a Desert City (DCDC) »
The Decision Center for a Desert City conducts climate, water, and decision research and develops innovative tools to bridge the boundary between scientists and decision makers and put their work into the hands of those whose concern is for the sustainable future of Greater Phoenix.
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Decision Theater (DT) »
The Decision Theater is an immersive, interactive, 3D-visualization facility for collaborative decision making.
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Ecological Homogenization of Urban America »
This research will transform scientific understanding of an important and increasingly common ecosystem type ("suburbia") and the consequences to carbon storage and nitrogen pollution at multiple scales. In addition, it will advance understanding of how humans perceive, value and manage their surroundings.
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Energize Phoenix »
Energize Phoenix will transform the neighborhoods and commercial districts along a 10-mile stretch of the Phoenix METRO Light Rail line into a Green Rail Corridor that will become a model of energy efficiency and sustainability.
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Impacts of Urbanization on Nitrogen Biogeochemistry in Xeric Ecosystems »
This research will help identify sources of surface water and groundwater nitrate contamination in arid and semi-arid deserts.
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Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training in Urban Ecology (IGERT) »
The IGERT 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.
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Land and Water Use Decision-Making and Ecosystem Services along a Southwestern Socio-Ecological Gradient »
The principal question of this proposal is to understand how decision makers respond to and make land and water use decisions based on measured and preferred ecosystem services on the wildland-rural-urban fringe in the arid Southwest.
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LightWorks »
ASU LightWorks is a multidisciplinary effort to leverage ASU's unique strengths, particularly in renewable energy fields including artificial photosynthesis, biofuels, and next-generation photovoltaics.
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Managing Biodiversity under Climate Change: Enhancing Capacities in Mexico for Conservation Planning, Decision-making and Sustainability Assessment »
The School of Sustainability at the Arizona State University and the Institute of Ecology at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México are developing a sustainable academic program to create competency and expertise for policy and planning in the area of biodiversity conservation and climate change.
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Multi-scale Effects of Climate Variability and Change on Hydrologic Regimes, Ecosystem Function, and Community Structure in a Desert Stream and Its Catchment »
The primary objective of this project is to understand how long-term climate variability and change influence the structure and function of desert streams via effects on short-term responses to hydrologic disturbance.
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National Center of Excellence on SMART Materials for Urban Climate and Energy at ASU »
The National Center of Excellence (NCE) on SMART Innovations provides climate and energy system solutions based on sound science and engineering to governments and industries around the globe.
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Phoenix Area Social Survey (PASS) »
This survey studies the relationships between people and the natural environment in the Phoenix metro area.
Resilience and Vulnerability to Climate Change: A Collaboration between NABO and LTVTP »
This research will address the impacts of social responses to climate change, an issue central to contemporary policy and relevant to public and private organizations, policy makers, and resource managers interested in promoting resilience to climate change.
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Southwest Environmental Information Network (SEINet) »
SEINet is a center of biodiversity information, organizing Southwestern natural-history collections into one portal.
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Sustainability Consortium »
The Sustainability Consortium is an independent organization of diverse global participants who work collaboratively to build a scientific foundation that drives innovation to improve consumer product sustainability through all stages of a product's life cycle.
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The Complexities of Ecological and Social Diversity: A Long-Term Perspective »
This research project will examine how social and ecological diversity interact to influence the resilience of societies facing major changes in their social or environmental circumstances. The goal of the investigators conducting this project is to discover configurations of diversity in ecological landscapes and in forms of social organization that make systems more or less able to cope with significant environmental or social changes without undergoing an unpleasant transformation.
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The Relative Importance of Generic vs. Specific Capacity in Addressing Drought Vulnerability in NE Brazil »
This research examines how the vulnerability of rainfed farm households to drought has changed through time as a function of both specific and generic government-led interventions. The research also explores how these two categories of interventions are related, both in terms of their relative importance in defining overall adaptive capacity, and in terms of how they may create synergies or be mutually conditioning.
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Urbanization and Global Environmental Change (UGEC) »
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.
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