Climate change represents one of the most challenging and important research topics of the 21st century. Rising global temperatures, particularly in urban areas, has prompted an influx of research not only on changes in physical conditions, but also on the increasing vulnerability of human health and well-being as a result of global and regional climate change.

Black carbon (BC) is produced from the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels and biomass. It has been detected in many important geochemical pools (soils, sediments, aerosols) and has been shown to be a significant portion of soil organic matter in some locations (45% in frequently burned soils). BC is ubiquitous in nature and its presence in long–term carbon reservoirs is well documented. Uncertainties exist in the BC global and regional budgets with respect to sources and sinks. The terrestrial soil sink is poorly constrained due to the lack of data.

Both increases and decreases in diversity have been documented in urban areas, with suggested explanations ranging from species-productivity relationships to habitat fragmentation, introduced species, disturbance and pollution. For landscape planning and urban wildlife management, it is imperative to understand which processes act in determining diversity in urban habitats. For over ten years we have monitored arthropod communities with pitfall traps in the Central Arizona Phoenix area in residential areas and compared them to desert and desert remnant sites.

Urban lakes provide a range of ecosystem services to their communities but there is little information about the long term biogeochemical behavior of these systems. We have been investigating basic water chemistry and dissolved organic carbon dynamics in Tempe Town Lake, Tempe AZ since Jan 2005. This man-made lake provides both recreational and flood-control services. High-resolution time-series measurements of water chemistry, nutrients, DOC content and DOC composition from Jan.

Increasing land fragmentation, mostly caused by urban sprawl and “leap-frog’ developments, is a major concern in many rapidly growing metropolitan cities of the US. Land fragmentation affects biodiversity and ecosystem processes, as portions of the landscape become isolated without connecting corridors and this, in turn, can change ecological structure and function. This cross-site comparative study, a joint-collaboration of several LTER sites (i.e.

Holistic knowledge of the impact of landscape design and management practices on overall urban ecosystem function is essential to ensure that urban landscapes, particularly the vast portion of landscapes in urban residential areas, are conceived and managed in a sustainable manner. Research was conducted over 4 years (2004-2008) to ascertain effects of four residential landscape treatments on four ecosystem services of regional importance to urban sustainability; water conservation, microclimate regulation, carbon sequestration, and resident satisfaction.