Portland State lands $3M grant for ecosystem services

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Portland State University's business school leads the state according to a new ranking of sustainable business schools.

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. The first group of fellows will start in fall of 2011.

David E. Ervin, a professor of economics and environmental management and a "Sustainability Fellow" at Portland State, said the grant will allow the university to expand on the sustainability program that the school has been building for the last 10 years with more in depth scholarship. He calls urban ecosystem services a "mega issue."

"Seventy percent of the earth's population will be in urban areas by 2050," Ervin said. "These issues are hugely important."

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.