CROCUS project focuses on community and research partnerships to study climate change in Chicago’s urban environment
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From UIC Today:
Climate change is one of humanity’s most pressing emergencies and it is usually framed in global terms. But most of us encounter climate change on a more intimate scale — where we live and can see and feel changes in heat, flooding and severe weather.
Through the Community Research on Climate and Urban Science project, or CROCUS, University of Illinois Chicago researchers from several disciplines bring climate science down to the neighborhood level. In collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory and universities across the Midwest, UIC scientists and students deploy advanced sensors around the city, study the influence of trees and skyscrapers on Chicago’s climate and meet with communities to understand their most urgent problems and questions.
On the West and South sides of Chicago, researchers and partnering organizations are helping community members understand the local effects of climate change so they can design science-driven solutions. In Humboldt Park, researchers found measurable temperature differences between the east and west sides of the neighborhood, identifying priority areas for heat mitigation. And as the scale becomes more local, the focus expands to encompass areas such as public health, gentrification and housing policy.
“Science cannot remain isolated from the social problems of the world,” said Ralph Cintron, professor of English and Latin American and Latino studies at UIC. “It’s a catalyst that pulls all the disciplines together. It’s urban planning, economics and politics; it’s sociology and anthropology. Climate change is collapsing those barriers and forcing us to rethink what the relationships are.”
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