LTER CAP IV: Design with Nature

LTER CAP IV: Design with Nature LTER: CAP IV: Design with nature" infrastructure in Phoenix: A research framework for exploring urban ecology and sustainability Overview: Phase IV of the Central ArizonaPhoenix LTER (CAP) centers around the question: How do the services provided by dynamic urban ecosystems and their infrastructure affect human outcomes and behavior, and how do human actions affect patterns of urban ecosystem structure and function and, ultimately, urban sustainability and resilience? The overarching goal is to foster social-ecological urban research aimed at understanding these complex systems using a holistic, ecology of cities perspective while contributing to an ecology for cities that enhances urban sustainability through transdisciplinary partnerships with city practitioners. This goal will be met through four broad programmatic objectives. CAP IV will: 1) use long-term observations and datasets to articulate and answer new questions requiring a long-term perspective; 2) develop and use predictive models and future-looking scenarios to help answer our research questions; 3) employ existing urban ecological theory while articulating new theory; and 4) build transdisciplinary partnerships to foster resilience and enhance sustainability in urban ecosystems while educating urban dwellers of all ages and experiences. CAP IV research will be organized around 13 interdisciplinary questions and 11 long-term foundational datasets and experiments, and researchers will be organized into eight Interdisciplinary Research Themes.