SUE: 2007 Seed Grant Competition

Sustaining the Urban Environment @ UC

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2007 Seed Grant Competition

In 2005, the program of Environmental Engineering and Science (EES) within the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) in the College of Engineering underwent an external review of its graduate program. The outcome of this review was favorable, and UC elected to invest $400,000 of new funds over a period of five years to stimulate the growth of the program. These funds were matched with graduate research stipends from the College of Engineering and are being used to stimulate multi-disciplinary research collaborations across UC.

The first Seed Grant Competition was hosted by SUE in 2007 providing more than $200,000 in financial support for a diverse portfolio of research projects described below. If you would like to become involved in any of these research efforts, or if you have additional ideas for research thrusts within SUE, please contact us via email

SUE encompasses four research thrust areas, including:

1. Transportation Infrastructure and Sustainable Metropolitan Development: Understanding the relationship between transportation infrastructure and regional economic development and patterns of growth. Investigating how individual-level decisions and interactions lead to emergent macro-level phenomena such as urban sprawl and formation of second cities, through development of urban growth models.

Lin Liu in the CA&S and Ali Minai in the CoE are co-leading a team on a SUE sponsored project entitled, “Agent-based Modeling Linking Spatial Data with Transportation, Sprawl, Crime, and Health.” The main objective of this study is to integrate previously disjoined modeling efforts occurring in the School of Planning, the CoE, the CA&S, and the CECH with health-based outcome measurements previously developed by the CoM. Agent-based modeling is used to simulate micro-level decision processes in an effort to capture emergent behavior that may not have been anticipated under standard assumptions. Model formulation includes: identifying quantities of interest; defining physical connectivity including transportation routes and telecommunication; defining social factors including crime, employment, and income; defining health factors including particulate materials and ground level ozone; and defining agent behavior (e.g., decision making heuristic regarding patterns of homes, recreation, and employment as well as routes of transport). Because agent-based modeling efforts can suffer from ad-hoc design relying on intuition rather than data, a major undertaking of this project is calibration of the model against data sources routinely collected for metropolitan Cincinnati.

2. Human Ecology and Health in Urban Areas: Understanding the increasing impact on human health of high density development and interactions between people and urban infrastructure. For example, measuring different health impacts associated with different transportation modes (automobile, light-rail, bike), variability in street-level atmospheric pollution resulting from automobile emissions within urban "canyons," and transmission and amplification of enteric viruses through drinking water - community transmission - sewer systems.

Sergey Grinshpun in the CoM is leading a team on a SUE sponsored project entitled, “Exposure of school children to traffic-associated particular matter in an urban area with intense highway traffic.” The main objective of this study is to generate a pilot database to characterize the particulate material (PM) and diesel exhaust particles (DEP) exposures in the school children population due to the highway and school bus traffic. The aerosol concentration and size distribution will be measured using real-time instrumentation at two school locations: one at <400 m from an interstate highway and one at >1.5 km from it. In addition, the 24-hour filter samples will also be collected and analyzed to determine PM2.5 and its DEP component using the X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and thermal-optical transmittance (TOT) methods. Selected samples (PM2.5 and ultrafine fractions) will also be analyzed using neutron activation analysis (NAA), a highly sensitive, non-destructive method for detecting trace materials in samples. The NAA will be explored with respect to its potential application for PM samples collected in ambient air environments. A computer-based respiratory deposition model will be used to calculate the dose based on the exposure level to evaluate potential health effects in susceptible child populations.

3. Sustainability Metrics and Urban Monitoring: Measuring and analyzing sustainability through metrics applied at various spatial scales, from neighborhood to regional. Development of unique data related to economic and environmental sustainability, through the use of traditional and novel instruments (e.g., census and transportation data as well as data from survey instruments and cellular phone use to track individual movements).

A multisiciplinary team of researchers at the USEPA have developed and applied metrics fo sustainability to quantify trajectories of organizations. The main objective of this study is to construct a practical sustainable environmental management methodology using scientifically based indexes (Regional Net Product, Emergy, Ecological Footprint, and Fisher Information) that allows managers to assess the efficacy of actions in attaining a sustainable system, and to apply and test the methodology on the Great Sand Dunes National Park which is nested within the larger San Luis Valley and Sangre de Cristo mountain landscape in Colorado. This project aims to produce a protocol that government agencies can use to meet Presidential Executive Order 13101-"Greening the Government Through Waste Prevention, Recycling, and Federal Acquisition"; Executive Order 13123-"Greening the Government Through Efficient Energy Management"; Executive Order 13134-"Developing and Promoting Biobased Products and Bioenergy"; Executive Order 13148-"Greening the Government Through Leadership in Environmental Management"; Executive Order 13149-"Greening the Government Through Federal Fleet and Transportation Efficiency"; and Executive Order 13150-"Federal Workforce Transportation". The outcomes from this project will include: (1) a protocol for using the methodology in the assessment of sustainable environment, and (2) computer software for calculating the indices and assisting with the development of management action.

Makram Suidan in the CoE, Dan Oerther in the CoE, and Jim Uber in the CoE collaborate with the USEPA research team to learn more about metrics of sustainability which could be used to evaluate the sustainability of urban regions. As a good example of sharing information and resources through the Sustaining the Urban Environment program at UC, the research teams currently collaborate to study this issue. A graduate student has been identified, and the task of the incumbent will be to screen and otherwise devise a model of sustainable urban development.

Cynthia Tsao in the CoE is leading a team on a SUE sponsored project entitled, “Fabrication Strategies to Improve the Sustainability of Healthcare Projects.” The main objective of this study is to develop quantitative tools to evaluate alternative uses of energy in the construction and operation of buildings. For example, in the US 54% of energy consumption is directly or indirectly related to buildings and their construction. Commercial buildings have thus far largely focused on material selection and design for energy efficiency. This forgoes the opportunity to reduce other building-related environmental impacts such as emissions due to demolition and construction. Meanwhile, the US is in the middle of the biggest hospital-construction boom in a half-century. Nearly $100 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars has been spent in the past five years on new facilities, up 47% from the previous five years. The effects during all of a building’s life-cycle phases (materials fabrication, construction, use phase, maintenance, end-of-life) must be integrated to determine the actual total environmental impact of a building. This project will quantify the environmental impacts resulting from different fabrication strategies for components that will be installed on healthcare projects. Since material selection during design has a direct effect on a builder’s selection of construction methods, this information can help project participants adjust their product and process design decisions to improve sustainability of projects. By combining such insight with life cycle assessment and lean project delivery, the project expects to aid the architecture-engineering-construction industry to make more informed decisions that improve sustainability and increase reliability.

4. Transformation, Transport, and Cycling of Contaminants in the Urban Environment: While major, acute environmental insults such as oils spills are obvious threats to human and environmental health; the long term, chronic exposure to sub-lethal doses of pollutants in the urban environment (e.g., particulates from burning of diesel engines, indoor air pollution, nanopollutants in personal care products, and discharge of pharmaceuticals to drinking water supplies) are poorly understood. In particular, the analytical capacity to measure low level exposure is absent, and the science to integrate low contaminant levels with a biologic response is non-existent. The worst case scenario is for mixtures of environmental micropollutants which can demonstrate additive and synergistic impacts. Developing technology to track and technology to treat emerging pollutants of potential concern is critical for SUE.

A multisiciplinary team of researchers (aquatic chemist, ecologist, economist, environmental lawyer, and hydrologist) at the USEPA have developed a field project to test the effectiveness of economic incentives to install retrofit stormwater best management practices on parcels that drain to the Shepherd Creek in SW Ohio. The main objective of this study is to test the feasibility of reducing urban stormwater runoff volume and environmental pollution via economic incentives that encourage the adoption of parcel-level stormwater best management practices (BMPs). The project site is located in the Shepherd Creek watershed, a small (2 km^2) mixed-land use watershed located near Cincinnati, OH where suburban development transforms precipitation into high runoff flows, which subsequently degrade stream ecosystem health. Ecological and hydrologic baseline characterizations are complete, and the USEPA team now monitors for treatment effects due to installation of BMPs; this post-installation monitoring phase will be carried out for 3 years.

Makram Suidan in the CoE, Dan Oerther in the CoE, and Jim Uber in the CoE collaborate with the USEPA research team to learn more about urban storm water management via economic incentives, which were administered in this case via a reverse auction protocol. The results of the reverse auction show that there is great potential for placing stormwater management practices on residential parcels with a high-degree of landowner buy-in, and suggests other questions about the extensibility of this approach to other municipal areas. As a good example of sharing information and resources through the Sustaining the Urban Environment program at UC, the research teams currently collaborate to study this extensibility issue. A graduate student has been identified, and the task of the incumbent will be to screen and otherwise devise a modeling approach to impart a physical basis for the hydrologic implications of BMPs installed via economic incentives, which may have different levels of effectiveness across different demographic and topographic settings.

5. Additional Research Projects Related to SUE: The four major research thrusts identified above represent the first generation of activities proposed to be undertaken as part of SUE. In addition the Center will solicit, identify, and support high risk, high return activities in critical areas of metropolitan sustainability. Two additional research projects focusing on alternative energy have been selected to receive SUE sponsorship during the first year of SEED grants.

Joo-Youp Lee in the CoE is leading a team on a SUE sponsored project entitled, “Biomass Utilization for Urban/Suburban Sustainability.” The main objective of this study is to evaluate the use of ligninase producing white rot fungus to catalyze the breakdown of plant material to be used for alternative energy recovery of biodiesel or ethanol. Parameters affecting ligninase expression and activity will be identified, a bioreactor optimized for lignin degradation/depolymerization will be developed, conversion of breakdown products into chemical feed stocks and biofuels will be explored, and an economic analysis (including thermodynamics) will be performed. Lawn grass clippings and deciduous tree leaves as well as corn stover will be collected and inoculated with Phanerochaete chryososporium. Parent and daughter compounds will be identified and quantified using Gravimetric/Noninvasive analysis and High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS) before, during, and after the lignin degradation process. Bioreactor process parameters to be optimized include: temperature, retention time, agitation, aeration, and inoculum loading. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) will also be used to probe morphological changes in the biomass materials. After analytical results are obtained, the feasibility of the use of the ligninases will be evaluated by taking into account operating cost as well as a thermodynamic analysis to verify that the process generates a net production of energy.

Dion Dionysiou in the CoE is leading a team on a SUE sponsored project entitled, “Sustainable Environmental Nanotechnologies: Fundamentals, Applications, and Implications.” The main objective of this study is to explore the development of sustainable nanotechnology-based systems for (1) enhancing the efficiency of nanomaterial-based solar cells for solar to electric energy conversion, (2) direct utilization of solar energy for water purification and disinfection, (3) direct utilization of solar light for improving indoor air quality in urban areas, and (4) fundamental studies on the fate and transport on nanomaterials and their implications in urban environments. Novel solar cells will be manufactured through modifications of nanomaterial morphology and properties, by enhancing the photon to electron conversion efficiency using new types of dye molecules, and by changing the properties of the electrolyte. Further, environmentally friendly nanomaterials which can be activated by visible (i.e., solar) light will be immobilized and evaluated for the destruction of emerging organic contaminants in water and water disinfection, removal of toxic volatile organic chemicals in indoor air and industrial processes in urban areas, and air purification and disinfection. Finally, effort will also be placed in evaluating possible sources of release of toxic nanomaterials in the environment including understanding their mechanism of transport and interaction in environmental systems.

Questions? Contact Center for Sustaining the Urban Environment.
Room 765 Baldwin Hall; P.O. Box 210071
Cincinnati, Ohio 45221-0071, USA
(513) 556-3685; (513) 556-2599 (fax)