Office of Research and Development
Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research
How can we meet the needs of today without compromising those of future generations? More specifically, how can people protect our shared environment in a way that fosters human health and well-being, is socially just, and promotes economic prosperity?
Providing the science to answer these questions is at the heart of EPA’s sustainable and healthy communities research. EPA researchers and their partners and stakeholders are working together to form a deeper understanding of the balance between the three pillars of sustainability—environment, society, and economy.
Their transdisciplinary work will provide the decision tools and data that communities need to make proactive, strategic decisions aimed at a prosperous, more environmentally sustainable future.
Research Focus Areas
Sustainable and Healthy Communities research is focused on three main areas:
1. Develop comprehensive approaches to help communities become more sustainable
The research will help communities develop sustainable solutions to environmental problems and reduce unintended consequences such as air or water pollution.
Research will focus on problems that are widespread across communities in the U.S. such as water quality and land-use issues as well as comprehensive approaches to help communities address multiple barriers to sustainability in an integrated way.
The research aims to assist decision makers in individual communities and communities in a region where cooperation could help to solve common problems or deal with potentially conflicting goals.
2. Develop decision support tools, models and metrics that can be used to improve sustainable community practices
The research will develop decision support tools, models, and metrics that can be used to improve community sustainability.
Examples include web-based decision support tools to help local managers and stakeholders analyze and visualize the consequences of alternative policy decisions. These tools would extend beyond particular problems such as traffic congestion or water use to include consequences with respect to other environmental issues, economic impacts, and social impacts on different segments of the community.
These tools will use the latest advancements in decision analysis to be sure that they are as useful and accurate as possible.
Research will also develop models and data bases that will enhance the capabilities of the decision support tools. The models will take into account the interactions between human health, ecosystem services, and the costs and benefits of alternative choices about how to solve environmental problems in ways that are sustainable over time.
EPA scientists will help communities identify and/or develop indicators that can be used to measure and evaluate the environmental integrity of their community, diagnose problems, and track the performance of various approaches.
3. Meet EPA’s regulatory requirements
EPA has high-priority needs for research and expertise to develop and support regulations, protect environmental health and conduct environmental monitoring, and other priorities.
Sustainable and Healthy Communities research will conduct highly focused, short-term research to meet specific regulatory or other operational needs of EPA in the areas of waste management, site remediation, ecosystem services, community health, green technology, and environmental justice.
Resources
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Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research Fact Sheet (PDF) (2 pp, 161KB)
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Research Framework Document (PDF) (65 pp, 1.15 MB)