USL Project Index

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 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 Climate Ready Uptown Plan (CRUP) is a physical pamphlet that helps Northern Manhattan community members understand their individual risk to climate related disasters – specifically extreme heat, coastal and stormwater (pulluvial) flooding developed by WE ACT for Environmental Justice in partnership with East Harlem COAD, Harlem Emergency Network and Urban Systems Lab.

A research 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.

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.

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.

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.

The objective of this NSF RAPID project is 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).

Ocellus XR is a prototype for an Extended and Augmented Reality (XR) mobile app that allow participants to explore 3D visualizations of climate risks and experiment with augmented reality layers (eg. heat maps, social vulnerability, resiliency plans) while also adding a capability to upload ‘climate equity narratives’ (images, text, videos).

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.

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.

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.

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? Our group of urban ecologists, social scientists, GIS analysts, and environmental historians is working together to discover how to best improve the equity of GI through policy and practice. This practical goal requires learning three things: How equitably is GI distributed across neighborhoods in Baltimore? How do residents in underserved neighborhoods in Baltimore perceive existing and planned GI? Do sustainability plans in 20 diverse cities include social equity as a criterion for developing GI?

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 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.

The NYC Stormwater Resiliency Study was a joint effort with New York City governmental stakeholders, including the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), Mayor’s Office of Resiliency (MOR), and Emergency Management (NYCEM). The aim was to improve service reliability and resiliency of stormwater systems by planning and implementing effective and viable green infrastructure strategies across the city through integrated stormwater management.

In September 2019, the Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) organized a 5-day workshop and learning journey for IFAD staff and partners. The objective of the workshop and learning journey was to introduce attendees to transformational approaches to mainstreaming climate change, nutrition, gender, and youth. The fifth day of the event involved the analyzing and discussion of transformation agendas at the country and project levels under future socio-economic and climate scenarios. Junior Researcher Rohan Bhargava led the development of these scenarios and co-led the one-day workshop.

The Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network (UREx SRN) focuses on integrating social, ecological, and technical systems to devise, analyze, and support urban infrastructure decisions in the face of climatic uncertainty.

As part of the Natural Capital Project, USL is developing the Urban InVEST valuation model with colleagues from Stanford University, University of Minnesota, the Stockholm Resilience Centre, and the Beijer Institute for Ecological Economics. Urban InVEST integrates spatially explicit biophysical and socio-economic data to allow users to quantify and map the impacts of alternative urban designs on ecosystem services — showing their associated benefits and costs for different communities.

The Networked Urban Ecology project is dedicated to linking fragmented habitats that promote biodiversity and provide important services to society. Through a program called Connect the Dots, it merges ecological research with participatory design to build innovative corridors between parkland, street vegetation, green roofs/walls, and other elements throughout the city — with emphasis on places where greenery is lacking.