Environmental Policy

Glen S. Krutz

Dear Ramon:

I wanted to let you know that your new project idea really interests me. I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of
Political Science. I'm one of the few highly quantitative political scientists at ASU, having taken a field in methods in my
doctoral program at Texas A&M University and featuring multi-variate quantitative analysis in published research.  One of my
areas of interest is environmental policy.

I've been attending the CAP-LTER monthly meetings since my arrival at ASU in August 1999 (and was present yesterday when you made
your remarks).  I am currently completing a small project on Phoenix area water policy that is funded by CAP-LTER for summer and
fall 2000.  I am meeting with Profs. Redman and Grimm tomorrow to discuss the continuation of the effort.  We (a graduate student
named Gina Woodall and I) are collecting water data from CAP, SRP, ADWR, and the cities in order to construct a annual (that is
aggregated, not real time at this point) database of where the water come froms and for what purpose and where it is used.  The
purpose of the data collection is to ultimately test a social science hypothesis about institutional change (the dynamic
institutions) and policy output change (water flows from different sources to different purposes).

I also helped the Morrison Institute for six months on their study of growth in greater Phoenix (Hits and Misses).  We collected
tons of data for that (mostly at yearly increments) and conducted a survey of cities on growth mgt. strategies.

Best regards,
Glen Krutz

Glen S. Krutz, Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science
Arizona State University
 
 

Bob Bolin

I've reviewed your preliminary draft on the ITR proposal.  A couple of
possible additions come to mind that could also lead to other funding
possibilities.  While I'm out of my depth on the technical aspects of
IT, one area not discussed in the draft is that of environmental hazards
and how changing land uses, urban growth, economic transformations, etc.
changes the 'riskscape' of  city.  This could include data sources on
technological hazards, point-source polluters, area sources of hazardous
emissions, mobile sources etc. Our LTER 'Risk Group' has done some work
in this area,   This could also include modeling ambient pollution in
the valley and how changing urban land uses/transportation networks
shifts these over time. These could be coupled with other data on
natural hazards-- floods, storms, etc. looking at all of these at
different temporal and spatial scales.

Second area I didn't see mentioned was developing sustainability
indicators.  This might involve using the data modeling and integration
as a basis for identifying baseline indicators of
susustainability/non-sustainability of the urban region.  Seems to be
increasing amounts of discussion of such indicators in the environmental
literature although they are admittedly difficult to pin down.  They
would probably involve a set of both environmental and social (quality
of life) indicators. There are various examples in the literature that
might be tapped.

 The environmental  hazards angle might be able to generate NSF support
in the CMS division, particularly through the Infrastructure Management
and Hazard Response program.

Anyhow just thought I'd pass those your way as some possible 'hooks' for
some social science participation in the project.