Professors Joe McFadden and Jennifer King have been awarded a grant of $499,945 (September 2009 to February 2013) from the National Science Foundation’s Coupled Natural and Human Systems Program. Their proposal, “Collaborative Research: Coupling Human Choice and Biogeochemical Cycling in Urban Ecosystems,” was one of only 9 awarded out of 94 projects that were submitted to the competition. The project builds on their work with collaborators at the University of Minnesota to understand the coupling between household biogeochemical fluxes and socioeconomic factors along an urban to exurban gradient in the Minneapolis-St. Paul (Twin Cities) metropolitan region. As part of their ongoing research, a social survey of households (3100 respondents) was conducted along an urban-to-exurban gradient (from 6 to 1200 houses/km2) over two counties. In addition, landscape characteristics were measured in the field for a subset of the households that responded to the survey. Data about key behaviors that influence biogeochemical fluxes (e.g., motor vehicle travel, air travel, diet, pets, lawn care) were used as input to a Household Flux Calculator to generate total and component carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) fluxes for each household. The survey also gathered demographic data and linked behaviors with household attitudes, norms, and perceived control.
With the new grant, Professors McFadden and King will extend these analyses to the entire metropolitan region using GIS databases and satellite imagery (including the UCSB SPOT archive). The UCSB contribution to the project will focus on urban biogeochemistry, biophysics, and spatial analysis. Dr. McFadden and Dr. King will be recruiting one or two new graduate students and a postdoc to collaborate on the project. In addition, one of our newly minted Geography B.S. graduates, Cheyne Hadley, has signed on as a researcher for the coming year. The study promises to establish a feedback loop between household choices and elemental fluxes with the aim of developing new approaches for making cities more sustainable, reducing urban pollution, and reducing urban contributions to climate change.
