News

http://sustainablebusinessoregon.com/articles/2010/07/portland_state_lands_3m_grant_for_ecosystem_services.html

Portland State University landed a five-year, $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation for its Ecosystem Services for Urbanizing Regions graduate training program.
The grant is part of the NSF's Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship program - the first of its kind awarded to Portland State and the first to focus on ecosystem services in urban areas.
The grant will support between 25 and 30 doctoral students, called IGERT Fellows, over the next five years.
"Portland and other fast-growing urban areas around the globe face two opposing pressures - rising resource demands and the declining capacity of natural ecosystems to support their populations," said David E. Ervin, a professor of economics and environmental management and a "Sustainability Fellow" at Portland State, in a press release.
Ervin and a team of professors from PSU's Environmental Science and Management, Business, Geography, Sociology and Urban Studies and Planning departments will develop the curriculum for the program. It will integrate ecological, social and economic components of ecosystem management.
The program will also work with outside partners such as the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, Portland General Electric and the U.S. Geological Survey, among others.
The program will study the impact of growing urban areas - both in the Pacific Northwest and beyond - on natural ecosystems and habitats.
Students in the program will study for three years ecosystem management issues, such as dam removal and the management of land use at the edge of urban areas.
The program will be housed in PSU's Center for Sustainable Processes and Pracitices, which administers the school's Graduate Certificate in Sustainability.