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BBISS Wins Supplement to Recent RIPS Award
July, 2015

Researchers involved in a recently awarded project to study urban infrastructure systems have been awarded a supplement to expand their scope to include nutrient flows (i.e. food). In the fall of 2014, The Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems at Georgia Tech was awarded a grant under the National Science Foundation’s Resilient Interdependent Infrastructure Processes and Systems (RIPS) program, entitled, “Participatory Modeling of Complex Urban Infrastructure Systems” (NSF Award # 1441208). In that project, a diverse team of engineers, biologists, computer scientists, social scientists, and planners is studying the interdependencies of the energy, water, and transportation (EWT) infrastructure grids using Atlanta, GA as a place-based focus for research. The supplemental award that BBISS has been given is for $200,000 and expands the scope to include nutrient flows (i.e. food) into their study of how infrastructure networks interact with each other. The results of this small project, among several others that have been awarded, will help shape the agenda of the newly forming $75 million Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy, and Water (INFEWS) NSF program.

A proposed nutrient grid block diagram.

 

The addition of a nutrient flow infrastructure layer blends well with the central idea of the RIPS project, namely that by coordinating the design, construction, and operation of infrastructure, cities can save resources, reduce carbon emissions, and increase sustainability and resilience. In this supplement, the Georgia Tech RIPS team proposes to explore the concept and interconnections of a Nutrient Grid along with the EWT infrastructure (aka NEWT). A nutrient grid can be regarded as similar to other existing infrastructure grids like electricity, natural gas, or water, because it is a network of entities interconnected by virtue of a shared nutrient resource. Nutrient grids can also be viewed as analogous to our understanding of food webs that biologists and ecologists describe in natural systems. When multiple infrastructure grids (e.g. NEWT) are considered collectively and interdependently, it may be possible to conceive of a closed-loop nutrient grid consisting of renewable stocks and flows and whose production, distribution, and recovery are enabled by, and also contribute to, the other grids.

 

One of the most unique aspects of this work is its multi-disciplinary nature. The project team spans across twelve different units, from five of the six colleges at Georgia Tech, plus the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). The project team is:

  • John Crittenden (PI) – Dir., Brook Byers Institute of Sustainable Systems, CEE

  • Baabak Ashuri (Co-PI) – Dir., Economics of the Sustainable Built Environment Lab, BC

  • Richard Fujimoto (Co-PI) - Computational Science and Engineering

  • Marc Weissburg (Co-PI) – Co-Dir., Center for Biologically Inspired Design, Biology

  • Jennifer Clark (Co-PI) – Dir., Center for Urban Innovation, Public Policy

  • Santiago Grijalva – Assoc. Dir. for Electricity, Strategic Energy Institute

  • Nancey Green Leigh – Assoc. Dean for Research, College of Arch., City and Regional Planning

  • Subhrajit Guhathakurta – Dir., Center for Geographic Information Systems, CRP

  • Tom McDermott - Deputy Director and Director of Research, GTRI

  • Valerie Thomas - Industrial and Systems Engineering

  • Bert Bras – Dir., Sustainable Design and Manufacturing Program, Mechanical Engineering

  • Arka Pandit – Research Engineer, Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems

  • James Belanger – Research Scientist, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

 

 

http://sustainable.gatech.edu/spotlight_pages/RIPS_Supplement.html

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