Project Funding: 2014 - 2017

NRA: 2013 NASA: Carbon Cycle Science   

Funded by NOAA

Abstract:
The global population has recently passed the 7 billion mark, with more than half residing in urban regions. Urban expansion has also been occurring rapidly in the U.S. The rise of the global urban population has concentrated anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and pollutants in urban regions, resulting in persistently elevated concentrations over urban areas. As urban expansion proceeds, the following key questions need to be addressed: • How can carbon emissions from urbanizing regions be determined? • How do decisions about urban form, land use transitions, and infrastructure determine the long-term trajectory of carbon emissions? We will address these questions in the rapidly urbanizing American West, which is experiencing major transitions from rangeland to urban and agricultural to urban land use and where population growth has been especially pronounced, with large numbers of people settling in existing metropolitan areas in the region. The nature and form of these transitions have large implications for future carbon emissions. Specific objectives include: • Model and understand current-day carbon emissions in multiple valleys at different stages of development in the Wasatch Range of Utah • Critically test and calibrate a new NASA product of hi-res CO2 emissions (Hestia) with long-term, continuous CO2 and isotope data, combined with targeted mobile lab observations • Transfer info. from calibrated Hestia product to a widely-applied urban planning model • Infer CO2 emissions in the Salt Lake Valley (SLV) going back to 1950, using land use and urban form records and radiocarbon proxies of CO2 in tree rings • Using an urban planning model, integrate stakeholder engagement efforts that have already yielded land use scenarios along Utah’s Wasatch Range to examine resulting CO2 outcomes • Examine the close to century-long transition of carbon emissions associated with urban development in the SLV, from 1950 to 2040 • Extend the carbon emission projections, beyond Utah, to two additional cities in the Western U.S., based on scenarios that bracket likely developmental patterns • Deliver to the research and policymaking community a planning tool that can project the carbon emissions as a result of different urban development patterns in the Western U.S The study region of the proposed project includes 3 contrasting valleys in Utah. By simultaneously monitoring and modeling current-day CO2 in the 3 valleys at different developmental stages, we “trade space for time”. Furthermore, the quantitative relationships between urban land use and CO2 emissions, as encapsulated in Hestia, will be transferred to an urban planning model (ET+), which would both hindcast CO2 emissions within SLV in 1950 and forecast future emissions for all 3 valleys in the year 2040, providing a close to century-long transition of carbon emissions associated with urban development in the SLV, from 1950 to 2040. The proposal directly addresses the Carbon Cycle Science Program’s “carbon dynamics within urban-suburban-forested-agricultural landscapes” theme. The RFP mentions the need for understanding “processes controlling the uptake, storage, and release of greenhouse gases along urban to rural gradients” and the role of development choices that affect “energy consumption, transportation, and construction”. Also, involvement of “stakeholders…throughout the study” is mentioned, as well as the “development of decision support tools”, both critical components of our proposed project. The urban planning tool used in this study is an important decision support tool that is already being used across the country to help policymakers determine implications of land use choices. Our project will add a module on urban carbon emissions that will be calibrated in Utah, but provide the framework for incorporating data from other urban regions, starting in the Western U.S.