AI, People & Planet is a research initiative hosted by the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Princeton Institute for International Regional and Studies at Princeton University, The Urban Systems Lab at The New School and, the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University.

The USL is exploring advances in urban data science, availability of real-time data, advanced spatial modeling, machine learning, cloud-based GPU processing, and cutting-edge visualization of urban social and infrastructure systems to ask new questions to be asked about key climate change risks and opportunities to advance adaptation in cities. Our interdisciplinary team includes scientists, planners, NGOs, industry, and other stakeholders working around the world to plan and envision positive urban futures, assessing heat and flood risk, and analyzing nature-based solutions and other strategies for building SETS resilience in cities.

City of Atlanta Power Infrastructure

City of New York Synthetic Power Infrastructure

This initiative brings together researchers at the Urban Systems Lab, Arizona State University (ASU) and Georgia State University (GSU) to co-develop synthetic infrastructure models for Phoenix, New York City and Atlanta that will simulate critical failure in energy distribution systems and potential cascading impacts on other power, water, and transportation infrastructure during extreme events to optimize solutions, and improve reliability and robustness. The custom coded synthetic infrastructure modeling environment (SyNF model) links multiple data sources to ultimately generate new synthetic energy network data that attempts to mimic real-world energy networks and therefore not only fills energy network data gaps, but provides the novel ability to examine failure scenarios and their cascading impacts to other energy dependent infrastructure networks.

The effort will seek to answer the following research questions:

• How can new and emerging data and modeling approaches, such as synthetic infrastructure modeling, be used to diagnose energy system vulnerabilities, reveal potential for cascading failure that impacts energy and connected power, water, and transportation infrastructure?

• Additionally, how vulnerable are critical energy infrastructure components from internal or external disruptions such as extreme weather and climate? How can these new modeling approaches generate new knowledge to drive development of more adaptive urban energy infrastructure design?

Support provided by the Sloan Foundation.

The Milwaukee Flood and Health Vulnerability Assessment (FHVA) is a collaborative effort between Groundwork Milwaukee and The New School’s Urban Systems Lab to develop an assessment tool which identifies communities across Milwaukee where exposure to urban flooding and pre-existing health, housing and socioeconomic conditions intersect and create disproportionate vulnerabilities to the impacts caused by extreme flooding. The aim of the project is to provide critical information on both flood exposure and social vulnerability to support community-based advocacy and future planning to mitigate potential flood and health risks. 

Link to Storymap

Link to Report (PDF)

Milwaukee Flood and Health Vulnerability Assessment Storymap

The Climate Ready Uptown Plan (CRUP) is a guide and map to help Northern Manhattan community members understand their individual risk to climate related disasters – specifically extreme heat, coastal and inland flooding – and provides pertinent information to help prepare themselves and their families. Designed by WE ACT for Environmental Justice in partnership with East Harlem COAD, Harlem Emergency Network and Urban Systems Lab, the Plan is tailored to residents of Northern Manhattan to better understand their flood risk. From the onset, CRUP was designed with community at the forefront. WE ACT’s Climate Justice Working Group helped with the initial planning, research and layout of the tool, and scenario planning meetings as well as focus groups with Northern Manhattan residents helped WE ACT refine the messaging and language included in the plan to make it as effective and relatable as possible.

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The Town+Gown: Climate Vulnerability, Impact, and Adaptation Analysis (VIA) project is co-led by Professors Joel Towers and Dr. Timon McPhearson at The New School to carry out a $2.5M study on future climate change and its potential impacts to inform decision-making by the City of New York and assessment reports by the NYC Panel on Climate Change and the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice (MOCEJ).

The team includes scientists from nine academic institutions (The New School, Columbia University, Cornell University, City University of New York, Drexel University, Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, Sarah Lawrence College, Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay, and Stevens Institute of Technology), four governmental institutions and nonprofit organizations (Natural Resources Defense Council, Population Council, NASA/GISS, and USDA Forest Service) and from the private sector (Arcadis). Together, this team will work collaboratively to develop a comprehensive analysis of future potential climate conditions and associated socio-economic impacts in New York City. Specifically, the team will:

• Develop climate projections for the NYC region, including high resolution heat risk and exposure projections, storm surge risk analysis, and coastal flood mapping,

• Characterize current and future extreme heavy rainfall in New York City,

• Conduct a systematic assessment of health-related economic costs from climate-sensitive events in New York City, and

• Create a Coastal Flooding Vulnerability Index for New York City

Press Release

Project Team: Timon McPhearson, Daniel Sauter, Jen Ventrella, Luis Ortiz, Ahmed Mustafa, Elizabeth Cook, Mikhail Chester, Nancy Grimm, Tischa Muñoz-Erickson, David M. Iwaniec, Daniel Childers, Nathan Johnson

The Converging Social, Ecological, and Technological Infrastructure Systems (SETS) for Urban Resilience project is a 5 year initiative to accelerate advances in convergent urban systems science capable of providing cities with the knowledge and methods for building integrated SETS resilience strategies to extreme events, supported by cutting-edge modeling, simulation, and visualization of infrastructure systems. The project will develop and refine an urban resilience conceptual framework to guide an emerging, convergent urban systems science for cities to test and deploy in San Juan (PR), Atlanta, New York, and Phoenix.

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SETS Convergence: Phase 1 Accomplishments

Project Team: Pablo Herreros, Elizabeth Cook, Timon McPhearson, Claudia Tomateo

The Environmental Justice of Urban Flood Risk and Green Infrastructure Solutions project aims to better understand the environmental justice impacts of climate change related flooding on minority and low-income communities and assess social equity in green infrastructure planning for reducing urban flood risks. Through data visualization and modeling future flood risk, the project will address two central questions concerning flood risk, and green infrastructure development: (1) Who is more exposed to flooding? And (2) who benefits most by current green infrastructure plans or developments?

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Project themes

Environmental Justice & Equity · Urban Climate Resilience

Project Team: Timon McPhearson, Nancy Grimm, Elizabeth Cook, Chris Kennedy, Yeowon Kim, Tessa Martinez

The Nature-based Solutions for Urban Resilience in the Anthropocene (NATURA) project links networks in Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe, North and Latin America, and globally to enhance connectivity among the world's scholars and practitioners and improve the prospects for global urban sustainability. NATURA exchanges knowledge, shares data, and enhances communication among research disciplines and across the research-practice divide to advance urban resilience in face of growing threats of extreme weather events.

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Project theme

Nature-Based Solutions

Project Team: Timon McPhearson, Luis Ortiz, Ahmed Mustafa, Chris Kennedy, Claudia Tomateo, Daniel Sauter, Z. Grabowski, Pablo Herreros-Cantis, Veronica Olivotto

The USL’s Covid-19 related research aims to integrate survey, social media, building infrastructure, energy demand and use, and social-demographic data with simulations of potential emerging weather-related extremes to examine interdependent social vulnerability to COVID-19 and weather in New York City (NYC).

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Project themes

Urban Climate Resilience · Urban Policy and Planning

Ocellus XR is a mixed reality application that leverages the Urban Systems Lab’s (USL) Data Visualization Platform to present users with unique interactive geospatial information of heat, flood risk and other climate indicators in New York City. Integrating environmental studies and data visualization into place-based research on social vulnerability and equity, the app provides a novel experience to understand climate risk, allowing users to explore first-person 3D visualizations of social, ecological, and technological data by projecting interactive maps and implemented resilience interventions onto physical surfaces and experiment with augmented reality layers. The Ocellus XR project builds on the USL’s expertise in advancing spatial agent-based modeling, machine learning, social media data, and cutting-edge visualization of urban social, ecological, and infrastructure systems to ask new questions about key climate change risks and opportunities to advance adaptation in cities.

Acknowledgements

Ocellus XR is developed by members of the Urban Systems Lab at The New School. The current Ocellus XR team includes Urban Systems Lab associate diretor Daniel Sauter; USL director Timon McPhearson; Joe Steele, MS Data Visualization ’18; Xinyue Elena Peng, BFA Design & Technology ’22; and Schools of Public Engagement research fellow Claudia Tomateo; and Urban Systems Lab Associate Director Chris Kennedy. Support for OcellusXR is provided in part by the Architecture League of New York’s 2022 Independent Project Grant which is made possible through support from the New York State Council on the Arts.

The graphics, text and information included in the “What can I do?” section of Ocellus XR was developed by WE ACT for Environmental Justice, the East Harlem COAD and Harlem Emergency Network as part of the Climate Ready Uptown Plan (CRUP) project. CRUP is a physical pamphlet that helps Northern Manhattan community members understand their individual risk to climate related disasters and provides pertinent information to help prepare themselves and their families.

project theme

Data Visualization and Design

Project Team: Timon McPhearson

Future Earth is an international research platform that helps accelerate transformations to a sustainable world. Its aim is to ensure that scientific understanding is generated in partnership with people throughout society to develop long-term solutions to environmental problems. USL has provided leadership as a member of the core development team, helping to launch the Urban Knowledge-Action Network (UKAN) and the Livable Urban Futures project.

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Project themes

Urban Climate Resilience · Data Visualization & Design · Community Engagement

Project Team: Timon McPhearson, Bianca Lopez, Elizabeth Cook

The MillionTreesNYC Afforestation Study is a multiyear ecological research project focused on succession, soil-plant interactions, and native-invasive species dynamics in 10 parks across New York City. The purpose is to assess the short- and long-term impacts of the MillionTreesNYC tree-planting strategy on the structure and functions of new forest ecosystems.

Led by USL in collaboration with Columbia University and the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, the study involves collecting data on soils, plants, and microbes at 38 permanent afforestation plots since 2008. It also includes evaluating forest-management practices for realizing the long-term goals of MillionTreesNYC.

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project theme

Urban Ecology · Nature Based Solutions

Project Team: Timon McPhearson, Emily Maxwell, Michael Treglia, Cecilia de Corral

We are collaborating with The Nature Conservancy and Columbia University to produce the most comprehensive assessment of New York City’s green roofs to date. Projects such as Aucher Serr’s Envisioning a New Urban Jungle explore the future of New York’s green roofs through data analysis and visualization.

Our research on green roofs is closely linked with teaching and outreach. The New School’s Green Roof Ecology course — a collaboration with local partners at Brooklyn Grange — gives students a chance to study actual sites and develop related design projects. As part of the Green Roof Researchers Alliance since its inception, USL cosponsored the organization’s State of Green Roofs in NYC Conference with the Audubon Society.

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Project theme

Urban Ecology · Community Engagement · Urban Policy & Planning · Big Data & Artificial Intelligence

Project Team: Timon McPhearson, Z Grabowski, Pauline Munga

Green infrastructure (GI) is usually assumed to be a benefit everywhere and for everybody in a city. Is this assumption correct? Or are there differences in where and who is served or burdened by GI? This project is a collaboration with the Cary Institute examining green infrastructure plans in 20 U.S. cities with the goal of understanding how best to improve the equity of green infrastructure through policy and practice. The project includes an interactive website and toolkit for city planners, researchers and others to use in considering the equity dimensions of future green infrastructure planning.

Project themes

Environmental Justice & Equity · Urban Policy & Planning

Project Team: Erik Andersson, Timon McPhearson, Daniel Sauter

SMARTer Greener Cities aims to develop and test novel tools and processes for explicitly converging social, ecological, and technological approaches. The convergence of these approaches will promote resilient and equitable urban futures in Helsinki, Copenhagen, and Stockholm, and generate new opportunities for transformative change and increasing resilience to extreme events in other Nordic cities. The comprehensive integration of emerging science and practice connected to each of the three couplings (social-ecological (S-E), ecological-technological (E-T), and social-technological (S-T)) into a combined SETS framework is essential for the development of “smarter” (through systems) solutions for resilience and equity. We believe, despite the challenge of systems oriented research and practice, that we must cut across silos in disciplines, approaches, and knowledge systems by bringing technology, people, and nature together.

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PROJECT THemes

Urban Climate Resilience · Environmental Justice and Equity

Project Team: Timon McPhearson

The Seeds of Good Anthropocenes project is a collaboration with the Stockholm Resilience Centre funded initially through Future Earth. Our aim is to counterbalance dystopian visions of the future that may be inhibiting the ability to cooperate effectively on problem solving.

USL is working with project participants to solicit, explore, and develop a suite of alternative, plausible “good anthropocenes” — future scenarios that are socially and environmentally desirable, just, and sustainable.

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Project themes

Community Engagement · Environmental Justice & Equity