Themes-based Research Projects

Project Name: Decarbonization of corporate America: Multi-scalar and environmental justice perspectives
Themes: Cities + Mobility + Built Environment; Climate + Energy
Principal Investigator: Thomas Lyon
SEAS Collaborators: Joshua Newell, Kyle Whyte
Non-U-M Collaborators: ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability; Urban Climate Change Research Network; German Marshall Fund; Carbon Disclosure Project/City Business Climate Alliance
Project Summary: The project will build new, immediate capacity to understand drivers of greenhouse gas emissions at the level of corporations. The project will also address whether corporations pollute more in indigenous American territories.

Project Name: Developing an interdisciplinary approach to studying urban stream water quality
Theme: Water
Principal Investigator: Sara Hughes
SEAS Collaborator: Runzi Wang
U-M Collaborator: College of Engineering
Project Summary: The project will explore and evaluate interdisciplinary methods for capturing drivers and consequences of urban stream water degradation. The focus will be on the interactive effects of urban form, decision-making, and policy/governance institutions.

Project Name: Avoiding human health disparities in a changing climate through a multi-infrastructure framework for mitigation and adaptation
Theme: Climate + Energy
Principal Investigator: Michael Craig
SEAS Collaborators: Parth Vaishnav, Drew Gronewald
U-M Collaborators: Institute for Social Research; Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
Project Summary: The funds will be used to research downscaling climate projections, create future electric power system risk profiles, create future building load and temperature profiles, and examine potential health outcomes for residents.

Project Name: Sustainable Future Hub: Moving the needle by supporting and understanding engagement through novel digital visualization of social, behavioral and environmental data
Theme: Cities + Mobility + Built Environment; Climate + Energy; Conservation + Restoration; Cross-Cutting; Food Systems; Water
Principal Investigator: Mark Lindquist
SEAS Collaborator: Derek Van Berkel
U-M Collaborators: School of Information; Ross School of Business
Project Summary: The funds will be used to purchase VR/AR equipment to create a VR/AR/Visualization lab (Collaboratory) for a new lab on Liberty St. The project will emphasize visualization of sustainability problems, including visualization of data, and support of dialogues with stakeholders. The multidisciplinary team will collaborate on activities to lay the foundation for addressing the research question of how to develop, implement and evaluate novel methods of using digital and visualization techniques for decision-making.

Project Name: Mapping Community Vulnerability to Climate Change
Themes: Cities + Mobility + Built Environment; Climate + Energy; Water
Principal Investigator: Joshua Newell
U-M Collaborators: SEAS Sustainability Clinic - Detroit; School of Public Health; Institute for Social Research
Project Summary: Climate change will cause risks to communities (flooding, rising sea levels, heat stress); socially vulnerable communities will be disproportionately affected. This project will develop and map an integrated climate vulnerability index for Michigan, serving as a proof of concept to write grant proposals to extend the map to the US.

2020 Projects

Project Name: Building a transdisciplinary sustainable food systems program at the University of Michigan
Theme: Food Systems
Principal Investigators: Ivette Perfecto, Jennifer Blesh
SEAS Collaborators: Meha Jain, Arun Agrawal, Karen Alofs, Jose Alfaro, Bilal Butt, Ray De Young, Bob Grese, MaryCarol Hunter, Pam Jagger, Shelie Miller, Tom Princen
U-M Collaborators: Sustainable Food Systems Initiative; U-M Sustainable Food Program; Campus Farm; MDining
Project Summary: Global food systems continue to present fundamental ecological, human health, and economic crises that urgently need analysis and transformation. This project brought together the Sustainable Food Systems Initiative, Campus Farm, MDining and other campus partners to promote the development of food systems that are productive, sustainable, health promoting, and equitable.

Project Name: Tradeoffs in forest resilience to satellite-based estimates of water and productivity losses
Themes: Conservation + Restoration; Climate + Energy
Principal Investigator: Inés Ibáñez
SEAS Collaborators: Paige Fischer, Ivan Eastin, Arun Agrawal, María Natalia Umaña
U-M Collaborators: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering; Biological Station
Project Summary: The funds were used to conduct research on forest ecosystems. Climate change is expected to intensify the global hydrological cycle via increased evapotranspiration (ET). Changes in ET have important consequences for water-related ecosystem services as well as for forest productivity. Forests play a critical role in ET: active trees sequester carbon at the expense of losing water, yet if they are not active, water remains in the trees, but productivity stalls. We estimated the capacity of forests to recover (resilience) from extreme water or productivity losses based on modeled ET through remote sensing methods across the conterminous USA. Results show a spatial tradeoff in resilience to water or productivity losses. Forests were more resilient to water loss in the drier west, and more resilient to productivity loss in the wetter east. Still, resilience was highly heterogeneous across the continent. Projections under climate change indicate both declines and increases of up to 13% in forest resilience, with broad regional trends but high spatial heterogeneity within regions. This study brings crucial satellite-based insights on how water dynamics, and consequentially productivity and water provision in forests, might be impacted by climate change. Read the full study here.

Project Name: Advancing Hydrological Science, Modeling, and Decision-Support Capabilities at the University of Michigan
Theme: Water
Principal Investigator: Andrew Gronewold
U-M Collaborator: Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering
Project Summary: Funds were used to envision a new initiative to advance hydrological science, data assessment, and modeling capabilities across all units of the University of Michigan.

Project Name: SEAS Sustainability and Development Initiative
Theme: Cross-Cutting
Principal Investigators: Bilal Butt, Pam Jagger, Arun Agrawal, Maria Lemos, Meha Jain, Jennifer Blesh, Shelie Miller
Project Summary: To strengthen research, education, and interactions between practitioners and researchers to help realize societal goals of sustainability and development, with particular attention to the context and intervention-specific synergies and tradeoffs between these goals. As part of our mission, we have developed plans and undertaken a series of preliminary activities to create a financially self-sustaining foundation for a thriving program of engaged research and fundraising, education and curriculum development, and outreach and international collaboration. We aim to demonstrate that SEAS is a natural home for a transformation in how sustainability and development are taught and researched and to create long-lasting national and international collaborations for solving some of the persistent dilemmas associated with sustainability and development.

Project Name: Examining the impacts of habitat alteration from gold-mining on fish communities
Theme: Conservation + Restoration
Principal Investigator: Karen Alofs
U-M Collaborators: College of Literature, Science, and the Arts; Civil and Environmental Engineering
Project Summary: The project builds on an M-Cubed collaboration between researchers in SEAS, CEE, and EEB which has examined the impact of gold mining on a highly endemic fish fauna in the Upper Mazaruni River on the South American Guiana Shield. Following a research trip to the river, the team has studied fish specimens deposited in the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology. In this project, we have used morphological (body shape) correlates of ecological function, particularly related to swimming and habitat use, to determine whether certain taxonomic or functional groups of fishes are disproportionately affected by mining-related habitat alterations.

Project Name: Western Forest Initiative
Theme: Cross-Cutting
Principal Investigator: Paige Fischer
SEAS Collaborators: Steve Yaffee, Julia Wondolleck, Stella Cousins
U-M Collaborators: Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning; Civil and Environmental Engineering
Project Summary: Funds were used to establish the Western Forest Initiative (WFI), a multi-unit working group of scholars from the fields of ecology, economics, planning, and behavioral sciences to improve scientific understanding of western forests as a social ecological system undergoing change and develop practical solutions to the coupled problems of ecological and socio-economic stress. The initiative's aim is to support the emerging network of fire-prone forest stakeholders in communicating and coordinating their programmatic and policy efforts, and through engaged research, developing innovative ways to manage forests for ecosystem and local community benefits under changing climate conditions. The project grew to become the Western Forest and Fire Initiative.

Project Name: Innovative Pedagogies for Cultivating Leadership amidst the Climate Change Crisis across the University of Michigan
Themes: Cross-Cutting with a focus on Climate + Energy
Principal Investigator: Michaela Zint
SEAS Collaborator: Jessica Michel (postdoc and lecturer)
Project Summary: Initiated an interdisciplinary community of research practice across U-M dedicated to research on teaching about and for climate change leadership to enhance and scale promising innovative practices, and support 10 research projects (from 31 participants from 15 units across U-M) resulting from the community of practice leading to the preparation of a special topics issue on “Innovative Pedagogies for Cultivating Leadership amidst the Climate Change Crisis” published in Sustainability.

2019 Projects

Project Name: Social protection for climate resilience
Theme: Climate + Energy
Principal Investigator: Arun Agrawal
U-M Collaborators: College of Literature, Science, and the Arts; College of Engineering
Project Summary: Develop and submit three proposals for the NSF Convergence, MacArthur Foundation's 100&Change, and the NSF-CNH competitions. The funds were used to organize a meeting of potential collaborators from the US and a number of international research and implementing organizations in preparation for the 100&Change competition.

Project Name: Creating circular economies: opportunities in the food-energy-water systems of South Africa
Theme: Cross-Cutting
Principal Investigator: Jose Alfaro
U-M Collaborator: Civil and Environmental Engineering
Project Summary: Used catalytic technologies to create circular economy opportunities in South Africa in the Food-Energy-Water Systems through collaboration with Africa Business Group, and tied those opportunities to established efforts by Sustainability Without Borders in Brazil, Puerto Rico and Costa Rica. The project used gasification and aquaponics as technologies that can create a shift in economic development, increase electrification, and create sustainable intensification of the agricultural systems.

Project Name: Reframing invasions: From the invader to the invaded
Theme: Conservation + Restoration
Principal Investigators: Sheila Schueller, Inés Ibáñez
U-M Collaborators: College of Literature, Science, and the Arts; Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Biological Station
Project Summary: The funds were used to support the development and implementation of a SEAS workshop on resilience-based approaches to invasive species management. Invasive species management is currently heavily geared toward individual species, largely through control and/or eradication measures. The recognition is growing that this single-species resistance approach is in many cases ineffective and unsustainable and that there is a need for research and practice to inform alternatives. We created a space to share research and practice on this topic. The workshop was held on Feb. 28 and March 1, 2020, at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens. SEAS Ph.D. and master's students assisted in the development of research summary materials to share with attendees and the agenda included invited speakers from Michigan Natural Features Inventory and the Inland Fish and Wildlife Department of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. Over 50 area practitioners attended the 2-day conference, representing local, county, and state government, as well as several non-profit organizations, and independent restoration contractors. We presented results of a global meta-analysis on the factors affecting vulnerability and resistance and captured responses to interactive sessions with attendees. Lessons learned from the interactions of the workshop were shared with attendees, and the results of the meta-analysis were published in the peer-review literature: Assessing vulnerability and resistance to plant invasions: a native community perspective.

Project Name: Remote engagement equipment
Theme: Climate + Energy
Principal Investigators: Maria Lemos, Ricky Rood
U-M Collaborator: Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering
Project Summary: Explored the efficacy of different forms of engagement by implementing three treatment methodologies (face-to-face, webinar-assisted, written/self-guided) to complete stormwater vulnerability assessments with municipal practitioners in the Great Lakes and U.S. Gulf regions. Funds were used to install a professional video conferencing system in GLISA's office in the Dana Building to allow GLISA's engagement team to conduct the webinar-assisted treatment type.

Project Name: Professional stewards hikes events
Theme: Conservation + Restoration
Principal Investigator: Sheila Schueller
U-M Collaborators: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Matthei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum; Research Museums Center; Civil and Environmental Engineering
Non-U-M Collaborators: Washtenaw County Parks; The Stewardship Network
Project Summary: The funds were used to organize "Professional Stewards Hike" events with the goal of facilitating learning and collaboration among southeast Michigan area conservation professionals, including academics, land managers from public and private organizations, and private consultants, who are engaged in the decision-making and planning level of on-the-ground restoration work. Field-based programs led by experts provide an opportunity to explore some of the more complicated and advanced management issues in a way that fosters open discussion, debate, and sharing of ideas and information. The events aimed to increase the capacity of local area practitioners to manage adaptively, to better communicate the rationale and outcomes of their efforts, and to preserve or improve the native biodiversity and ecological function of the ecosystems in which they work. All nine planned events took place and were so well-received that the hikes continue in collaboration with The Stewardship Network.

2018 Projects

Project Name: Sustainable Food Systems
Theme: Food Systems
Principal Investigator: Ivette Perfecto
SEAS Collaborators: Arun Agrawal, Jose Alfaro, Karen Alofs, Jennifer Blesh, Bilal Butt, Ray De Young, Bob Grese, MaryCarol Hunter, Pam Jagger, Meha Jain, Shelie Miller, Ivette Perfecto, Tom Princen
U-M Collaborators: Campus Farm at Matthaei Botanical Gardens; Michigan Dining; Summer Bridge Scholars Program
Non-U-M Collaborators: Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, Oakland Avenue Urban Farm
Project Summary: In addition to supporting staff and program operations for the Sustainable Food Systems Initiative, this SEAS theme award supported the Food Literacy for All course, the expansion of the urban agriculture internship, two visiting scholars (see interviews here and here) and campus and community events such as Fast Food for Thought.