Urban infrastructure refers to engineered systems that provide water, energy, transport, sanitation and information services to more than half of the world's population living in cities today. With rapidly increasing human populations, projected resource scarcities and vulnerability to natural and man-made disasters, cities require new, high-performing, cost-effective, and environment-friendly infrastructures for future urban sustainability. The over-arching question addressed in this Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) project is: What are the inter-connections between infrastructure engineering, urban planning, public policy, health and human behavior that must be explored today to design effective and sustainable urban infrastructure systems of the future? This question will be answered through a unique, multi-disciplinary graduate curriculum on sustainable urban infrastructure linking engineering, architecture and planning, public affairs, and health and behavioral sciences. IGERT research will integrate emerging technologies, urban development patterns, economic instruments, policy strategies, and human behavioral factors for design of future urban water supply, energy supply, transportation, waste management and public health infrastructures. Active fieldwork will occur in collaboration with the City of Denver, Colorado and Chennai, India. The project has the potential to directly impact more than 200 graduate students at UCDHSC, the 580,000 residents of Denver and the 4 million people of Chennai. The dissemination potential is high for cities world-wide, where about 3 billion people currently live. IGERT is an NSF-wide program intended to meet the challenges of educating U.S. Ph.D. scientists and engineers with the interdisciplinary background, deep knowledge in a chosen discipline, and the technical, professional, and personal skills needed for the career demands of the future. The program is intended to catalyze a cultural change in graduate education by establishing innovative new models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries.
In 2007, The University of Colorado Denver was awarded an Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT), which supported twenty-seven doctoral students in the development of new models for graduate education and collaborative research across disciplines. With unprecedented increases in urban populations, constrained access to resources, and a plethora of climate change mitigation strategies, cities worldwide are seeking more sustainable infrastructures that are resilient, cost-effective, environmentally-effective and efficient. Designing such infrastructures requires emerging technologies and collaboration, and during the 2007 to 2014 grant period, the UC Denver IGERT was an impetus for innovative programs in urban planning, public policy and community-based outreach. Some examples of research projects carried out in the grant period included the development of new urban infrastructure designs using environmental/economic life cycle assessments. In addition, there was a research focus on linking emerging technologies, urbanism, population growth and resource distribution, and assessing environmental impacts through the use of analytical tools such as energy-material flow analysis. Finally, students and faculty carried out a multi-dimensional benefit-cost analysis of alternative infrastructures, and implemented a Human Behavior and Sustainability Outcomes Assessment. The foundation of the UC Denver’s IGERT success was the development of a common framework for integrating the different disciplines under a common language and goal. This framework was originally written in 2012 by IGERT student and faculty, published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology, and entitled, "A Social-Ecological-Infrastructural Systems Framework for Interdisciplinary Study of Sustainable City Systems: An Integrative Curriculum Across Seven Major Disciplines." The new SEIS framework for sustainable city systems builds on trans-boundary and cross-scale linkages between the natural system, engineered infrastructures, and actors and institutions that are essential to a city’s sustainability efforts. The framework integrates the concept of "urban metabolism" with life cycle assessment to inform emission footprints associated with the biophysical subsystem of cities. In addition, SEIS draws on multiple theories to address the interactions between individual resource users, infrastructure designers and operators, and policy actors who impact sustainability outcomes in a city’s social subsystem (Ramaswami et. al, 2012). In order to be resource-efficient and environmentally sustainable requires cities to begin looking at the linkages between actors in the social subsystem, institutions that govern these social systems, and city infrastructures. Thus, it is argued social actors are primary agents of change and institutions are the venues through which these actors shape urban infrastructures and sustainability outcomes through resource use, pollution control, climate and health mitigation programs (Ramaswami, 2012). The SEIS framework incorporates a breadth of theoretical models which are integrated across various disciplines. Hence, one of the most important applications of the framework is a new set of courses under the umbrella of "Sustainable Infrastructure, Sustainable Cities." The Certificate in Sustainable Urban Infrastructure at UC Denver is structured around this concept of an interdisciplinary curriculum, and will provide students the tools necessary to address complex water, energy, built-environment and transportation challenges addressed through engineering and the social sciences. The Certificate in Sustainable Urban Infrastructure core courses include: Introduction to Sustainable Urban Infrastructure, Carbon Accounting and Sustainability Scenario Modeling, Theories of Sustainable Infrastructure Management, and Infrastructure and Public Health. This SEIS Framework continues to inspire innovative research and teaching. The framework now serves as the organizational platform for two additional interdisciplinary projects including a Research Collaborative Network Award (RCN-SEES-1140384) and a Partnerships in International Research and Education Award (#1243535). Both awards build on the successes of the UC Denver IGERT Program, focus on urban sustainability, and are explicitly and deliberately based on the SEIS Framework. Given the pervasive system of social actors who govern the adoption of policies and environmental strategies, new designs in resource-efficient and low-pollution infrastructure are now accessible through the Certificate program. In assuring equity and efficiency is realized in the distribution of resources, as well as addressing urgent environmental health concerns, Certificate participants are proxies for a cities’ sustainability goals. The Social-Ecological-Infrastructural Framework not only provides a platform for opportunity, it encourages integrative research and learning across diverse disciplines. In a practical sense, the Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Urban Infrastructure will only strengthen Denver’s vision for sustainability in fostering the next generation of environmental scientists, engineers, architects, planners, policy makers, government officials and public health professionals to solve the most pressing sustainability issues today. Ramaswami, A., Weible, C., Main, D., Heikkila, T., Siddiki, S., Duvall, A., Pattison, A., Bernard, M. (2012). A social-ecological-infrastructural framework for interdisciplinary study of sustainable city systems: an integrative curriculum across seven major disciplines. Journal of Industrial Ecology, (16)6, 801-813.
