A major study of the impact that household choices and behaviors have on urban ecosystems has been published in the April issue of the journal Ecological Applications. The project team includes Professors Joe McFadden and Jennifer King of the UCSB Department of Geography, with collaborators from the University of Minnesota.
According to the press release issued by the UCSB Office of Public Affairs, the researchers explained that the project is unique in both its scale and comprehensive approach to studying urban ecosystems. It covers the whole span of a major metropolitan region in Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota, from the city center to the exurban fringe. They compiled a highly detailed data set of 3100 individual households, based on a 23-page survey, energy utility billing records, vehicle odometer readings, on-site vegetation measurements, GIS data, and satellite imagery.
“We measured an enormous range of different activities that make up each household’s impacts on the environment,” said McFadden. “All of those measurements were made on the same set of households at the same point in time. That allows us to see the connections between different household activities and their impacts.”
The data were integrated through a Household Flux Calculator software tool, which converts the major household activities into the “common currency” of kilograms of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus that flow into and out of each household. The new paper details the calculations so that they can be used in other cities, and a web-based calculator has been developed for use by the public in partnership with the Science Museum of Minnesota.
The lead author of the study, Dr. Cinzia Fissore, was a post-doc with the researchers and has recently accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Environmental Science at Whittier College. McFadden said, “With the prospect of having Cinzia as a colleague in southern California, we would be excited to continue to study these questions in major urban areas on the west coast.” The study will continue through 2013 with funding of $500,000 from the National Science Foundation (PI: J. McFadden).
