DISES-RCN: Developing new strategies for urban-rural systems to overcome interconnected social, environmental, and technological challenges

Iowa State University, Ames IA

Investigators

Abstract

This Urban-Rural Systems Research Coordination Network will address challenges facing many regions of the United States. These challenges include urban and suburban sprawl, disconnected food, energy, and water systems. Other challenges include frequent floods and uncontrolled water runoff, urban heat induced hospitalizations, and failure of ecosystem services. These situations have disproportionate impacts on vulnerable populations and are common throughout the Mississippi River Basin. This project will bring together an interdisciplinary group of researchers and stakeholders to develop new research collaborations and directions that address the multi-dimensional natural and human-made challenges faced by communities at urban-rural interfaces. Five metropolitan areas within the Mississippi basin will be studied. This network of mid-sized cities, together with their satellite communities and adjacent rural areas, constitute a large, interconnected social and environmental system from the headwaters of the river to the Louisiana delta. Addressing these social-environmental challenges in mid-sized cities will provide significant societal impacts. The RCN will establish a foundation for innovation in STEM education, preparing students to work in regional, transdisciplinary systems science. Project outcomes will facilitate research that leads to new regional policies and government actions to create more resilient and sustainable urban-rural environments across scales for people living within regional watershed landscapes. The Network will focus on the Minneapolis/St. Paul, Davenport, St. Louis, Memphis, and Baton Rouge metro areas. It will create a comparative classification system describing the similarity of geographically linked cities and nearby rural and agricultural places. Similarity and distinctiveness will be delineated by geographic proximity to the Mississippi River, historical development timelines, and socio-economic qualities. A classification method for urban-rural typologies will be developed across four working groups, their interwoven activities, and a justice lens. The groups will cover; 1) land use housing, food production, and energy use; 2) urban-rural transboundary flows; 3) vacant land and urban ecosystem services delivery; and 4) urban heat island and climate change impacts. Network activities will be based on systems theory. The goal will be development of a system-of-systems interpretation of urban-rural gradients across metropolitan areas within this landscape. Participants in this RCN will consider linkages between social systems governing land policy such as land use and zoning, urban density/floor area ratios, land use patterns, urban nature, urban expansion plans, building designs, and infrastructure, as well as urban environmental systems such as ecosystems, biodiversity, and climate. Further, the network will examine residents’ perceptions actions leading to feedbacks between and changes within systems. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.