PIs Ramaswami, Russell, and Culligan co-author commentary in Science on smart sustainable healthy cities

“We must move beyond data to the systems-level decisions that we as a society must make to transition toward a smart, sustainable, and healthy urban future,” says SRN lead PI Anu Ramaswami, who led a commentary on the subject published in the special urban issue of the journal Science. 

In January, the University of Minnesota and ICLEI: Local Governments for Sustainability brought together faculty, students, and policymakers from the U.S., China, and India for a workshop on sustainable cities. Inspiration for this paper was a result of that workshop.

In the commentary, SRN faculty Ramaswami (University of Minnesota), Armistead Russell (Georgia Institute of Technology), and Patricia Culligan (Columbia University), along with Mr Emani Kumar (ICLEI South Asia) outline eight basic principles for transforming cities that apply across the world, and resonate with local partners.

One principle focuses on providing basic infrastructure for all, especially in cities where 30-40 percent of the population lives in slums.

The authors cite a few examples already underway: In India, where cities face problems with water scarcity and access in slum areas, ATMs (automatic teller machines) that dispense fresh water are being piloted. Cities in China are exploring “fit-for-purpose” water reuse supply to homes.

It’s not enough for individual cities to develop these smart technologies on their own. Most urban areas get the vast majority of their energy, water, building materials, and food from beyond their boundaries, so developing cleaner and more efficient systems for supplying these goods and services is critical.

SRN PI’s collaborated with ICLEI in the development of footprinting tools that cities can use to measure their energy and water consumption, and then use that data to better understand their impacts on the environment within and outside their boundaries.

Brian Holland (ICLEI USA): “This research is making an important contribution to the growing movement of sustainable and low-carbon cities.  In particular, the emerging approaches to footprinting local environmental and health outcomes across sectors and scales aligns well with the widely-used standards for city-scale GHG accounting we’ve developed with our partners and stakeholders.”

Another guiding principle is to pursue urban health improvements at different scales—from the home, to the neighborhood, to regional pollution, to climate extremes—while recognizing the inequities among residents.  Many U.S. cities are undertaking community-based health planning with a focus on climate events such as extreme heat and cold, and how they might impact vulnerable populations differently.

The authors also recommend the integration of large infrastructure systems with smaller-scale, local systems such as urban farms, community solar gardens, and district energy systems.

Interdisciplinary and Multi-institution Collaboration

The principles and recommendations are the results of insights developed from two large multi-institution grants supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, which are both led by professor Ramaswami.

The Sustainability Research Network (SRN) on Sustainable Healthy Cities is a network of scientists, industry leaders, and policy partners, committed to building better cities of the future through innovations in infrastructure design, technology and policy. The network connects across nine research universities, major metropolitan cities in the U.S. and India, as well as infrastructure firms, and policy groups.

The Partnership for International Research and Education (PIRE), a collaboration of the University of Minnesota, Yale, Georgia Tech, and four universities in India and China, developed an international and interdisciplinary curriculum. The project connects study tours with research and outreach, and allows for deep engagement with nonprofit government organizations and policymakers from the U.S., China, and India. The workshop mentioned earlier was the culmination of one such tour of various cities in India and China to study how those cities were transforming their infrastructure to meet future needs.

The special issue of Science can be found here: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/05/rise-urban-planet

Paper Published in Journal of Infrastructure Systems

SRN Director, Anu Ramaswami, and researcher, Mark Reiner, recently published a paper in the Journal of Infrastructure Systems on What is Remedial Secondary Infrastructure? Implications for Infrastructure Design, Policy for Sustainability, and Resilience

Read More: http://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/(ASCE)IS.1943-555X.0000285

SRN Faculty and Students to Present at Food-Energy-Water Nexus Conference in D.C.

The National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE) is hosting its 16^th annual conference in Washington, D.C. on January 19-21.  This year’s topic is the Food-Energy-Water Nexus.  Participants will fully understand how the three sectors are a system of interdependent components and how to develop solutions based on multi-sector engagement.

Faculty and students from the Sustainable Healthy Cities Network will be presenting the following symposia:

• January 19^th, 1:45 PM – Opportunities for Science at the Nexus – Joshua Newell (University of Michigan) will be a part of a panel that will identify advances in systems science, modelling, decision-support tools, sensors, and data management.
• January 19^th, 1:45 PM – Cities at the Nexus – Anu Ramaswami (University of Minnesota and SRN Director) will be a part of a panel to introduce how the core needs of food, water, and energy can be, and are being, integrated into sustainable planning of cities and surrounding areas.
• January 20^th, 10:50 AM – The Nexus in Cities: Measuring Impact and Exploring Solutions – Panelists will discuss how urban residents, city planners, and policymakers can shape the sustainability of food, energy, and water demand and supply to cities. The discussion will be moderated by Anu Ramaswami and Patricia Culligan (Columbia University and SRN Co-Director). Panelists will include Joshua Newell and Dana Boyer (University of Minnesota Ph.D. candidate and SRN research assistant).

The Sustainable Healthy Cities Network consists of universities, cities, governments, NGOs, and industry partners, who together will co-develop the science and practical knowledge that enables urban infrastructure transformation toward environmentally sustainable, healthy, and livable cities.  Their focus is on evaluating key knowledge gaps around distributed infrastructure.  A unique feature of the Network is their systematic studying, comparing, and contrasting of social, behavioral, and institutional phenomena across three testbeds/sectors: Energy and Water/Wastewater, Transportation, and Green Infrastructure and Urban Farming.

The National Council for Science and the Environment is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving the scientific basis for environmental decision-making.  Their national conference will bring together over 1,200 scientific, educational, business, civil society, and government professionals from diverse fields to explore the connections between science and decision-making associated with a particular high-profile environmental issue. Learn more about the event.

The Cleanest Cities? It’s Not So Simple

University of Minnesota professor and SRN director, Anu Ramaswami, is quoted in a New York Times article on the variety of ways to assess a city’s efficiency when it comes to energy and impact on the environment.

Columbia University holds an Interdisciplinary Workshop on Urban Green Infrastructure

On November 6th 2015, Columbia University hosted about fifty researchers, government, industry and non-for-profit stakeholders at a workshop focused on urban green infrastructure solutions in New York City. Workshop, presentations and discussions explored how advances in monitoring, modeling and design are shaping the future role of green infrastructure in urban stormwater management, sustainability and resilience. SRN co-Director Patricia Culligan presented the results of a multi-year research project to quantify the ability of green roofs to capture stormwater volume and reduce pollutant runoff, while SRN faculty Richard Plunz and researchers from Columbia University’s Urban Design Lab proposed innovative solutions to the management and maintenance of green streets and public right-of-way bioswales.

Much of the work presented at the workshop showcased research evolving from an NSF funded interdisciplinary project aimed at developing high performance green infrastructure systems for coastal cities. Learn more at the Urban Design Lab webpage.

Minnesota and Georgia Tech Collaborate on Pollution Threat to Taj Mahal

A joint study by the University of Minnesota and Georgia Institute of Technology addresses the high level of particulate matter responsible for masking the white marble sheen of the Taj Mahal.

Read the articles:

• Times of India –  Large-scale open burning of garbage damaging Taj: US study
• Wall Street Journal – How Trash Is Adding to Delhi’s Air Pollution Problems
• Times of India – Police lathicharge on colleagues’ kin for protesting against burning of garbage

University of Michigan Hosts Workshop to Reshape Urban Food, Energy, and Water Flows

Approximately fifty researchers and stakeholders participated in an NSF-funded workshop held in Ann Arbor on October 5-6. Disciplines represented range from geography to engineering to architecture and computer science. The workshop focused on the prospects for ‘scaling-up’ urban agriculture to mitigate food, energy, and water impacts.  Cities have become dominant demand drivers in global food-energy-water (FEW) cycles.

Outcomes from the workshop include a white paper to help guide NSF funding in this area and a journal article. The workshop results will also be used by the SRN in this exciting new research area.

SRN member Joshua Newell, University of Michigan (UM), was the principal investigator and Anu Ramaswami was a Co-PI of this initiative. Other Co-PIs included Glen Daigger (UM, Engineering), Nancy Love (UM, Engineering), and Nathan McClintock (Portland State, Urban Planning).

For more information about the workshop, please contact jpnewell@umich.edu.

For more information about urban sustainability initiative at the UM, see http://urbansustainability.snre.umich.edu/.

A better future through “smart cities” research

At the University of Minnesota researchers are teaming up with city planners, nonprofit leaders and industry professionals to form solutions that tackle these emerging challenges and prepare communities for the future.

Read the full article.

Reimagining Cities

If ever a project could be held up as a picture-perfect example of the word “interdisciplinary,” this is it.

The U of M’s Anu Ramaswami is directing a vast new network of academics, scientists, industry leaders, and policy partners studying ways to make cities more environmentally sustainable and more tangibly “livable” in ways that advance human health and well-being. Read the full article.

Helping Cities Navigate a Climate-Changed Future

A Q&A with Anu Ramaswami, an urban sustainability expert at the University of Minnesota, about a new program to make cities sustainable.

Read the full interview on InsideClimate News.