Diane Pataki

About

Dr. Diane E. Pataki is a global change ecologist and sustainability scientist appointed as a Foundation Professor in the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University (ASU). She has led several projects and initiatives focused on collaborative partnerships for co-designing innovative solutions to local, regional, and global sustainability challenges. She was the founding co-director of the Sustainability Innovation Science & Technology Center and led a successful proposal for the three-state Southwest Sustainability Innovation Engine (SWSIE), supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation. Dr. Pataki has previously served as the Director of the School of Sustainability in the College of Global Futures at ASU and held positions at the University of Utah, including Associate Vice President for Research and Professor in the School of Biological Sciences, with an adjunct appointment in the Department of City & Metropolitan Planning. Prior to 2012, she was on the faculty of the University of California, Irvine, where she was the founding Director of the UC Irvine Center for Environmental Biology and the Steele Burnand Anza Borrego Desert Research Center. Her research spans the impacts of climate change on ecosystems, coupled human-natural processes related to urban greenhouse gas emissions and water consumption, and the role of nature, greenspace, and forestry in urban sustainability. She has authored or co-authored more than 140 papers on various topics including…

Research topics

• Environmental science
• Ecology
• Geography
• Environmental resource management
• Environmental planning
• Computer Science
• Geology
• Development economics
• Biology
• Natural resource economics

Selected publications

• Integration of urban science and urban climate adaptation research: opportunities to advance climate action

  npj Urban Sustainability · 2023-06-10 · 59 citations

  reviewOpen access

  There is a growing recognition that responding to climate change necessitates urban adaptation. We sketch a transdisciplinary research effort, arguing that actionable research on urban adaptation needs to recognize the nature of cities as social networks embedded in physical space. Given the pace, scale and socioeconomic outcomes of urbanization in the Global South, the specificities and history of its cities must be central to the study of how well-known agglomeration effects can facilitate ada…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Assessing climate risk to support urban forests in a changing climate

  Plants People Planet · 2022-01-18 · 59 citations

  articleOpen access

  Societal Impact Statement Globally, cities are planning for resilience through urban greening initiatives as governments understand the importance of urban forests in improving quality of life and mitigating climate change. However, the persistence of urban forests and the ecosystem benefits they provide are threatened by climate change, and systematic assessments of causes of tree dieback and mortality in urban environments are rare. Long‐term monitoring studies and adaptive management are need…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Evapotranspiration of Residential Lawns Across the United States

  Water Resources Research · 2023-05-31 · 11 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Despite interest in the contribution of evapotranspiration (ET) of residential turfgrass lawns to household and municipal water budgets across the United States, the spatial and temporal variability of residential lawn ET across large scales is highly uncertain. We measured instantaneous ET (ET inst ) of lawns in 79 residential yards in six metropolitan areas: Baltimore, Boston, Miami, Minneapolis‐St. Paul (mesic climates), Los Angeles and Phoenix (arid climates). Each yard had one of f…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Irrigation rates and turfgrass evapotranspiration in cities with contrasting water availability

  JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association · 2024-10-31 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Abstract As water scarcity is worsened by drought and climate change, there is more interest in efficient management of urban irrigation, requiring understanding of the drivers of evapotranspiration (ET) and the role of irrigation inputs. We developed and validated a method to accurately measure ET of turfgrass lawns in contrasting climates using portable static chambers. We made in situ measurements of ET and irrigation inputs in lawns across three metropolitan areas in the United States with v…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Urban forests as essential infrastructure for climate resilience and biodiversity: A call to policymakers

  Plants People Planet · 2025-11-06 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  By 2050, nearly 70% of the global population will live in cities (UN, 2018), increasing the demand for urban green spaces. Urban areas are facing increasing risks from climate change, including heatwaves, flooding, wildfires, and growing social inequality, which challenges urban planning and design. Urban forests form the backbone of green infrastructure supporting resilient, equitable, and sustainable cities. Importantly, their cost-effective benefits advance sustainable development, climate ac…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Mechanisms for the decline of leaf hydraulic conductance with dehydration, and plant and environment level impacts

  NSF · $199k · 2012–2016

• Collaborative Research: Toward a Biogeography of Urban Forests

  NSF · $204k · 2009–2013

• COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Mechanisms for the decline of leaf hydraulic conductance with dehydration, and plant and environment level impacts

  NSF · $97k · 2012–2013

Frequent coauthors

• Peter M. Groffman

  The Graduate Center, CUNY

  49 shared

• Stéphanie Pincetl

  University of California, Los Angeles

  26 shared

• James R. Ehleringer

  University of Utah

  26 shared

• Kristen C. Nelson

  Minnesota Department of Natural Resources

  25 shared

• Elizaveta Litvak

  Arizona State University

  24 shared

• J. Morgan Grove

  23 shared

• Heather R. McCarthy

  University of Oklahoma

  22 shared

• Sharon J. Hall

  Arizona State University

  22 shared

Education

• Ph.D.

  Duke University

  1998

• M.S.

  Duke University

  1995

• B.A.

  Barnard College

  1993

Awards & honors

• Fulbright Global Scholar
• James B. Macelwane Medalist
• Leopold Leadership Fellow
• Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU)
• Fellow of the Ecological Society of America (ESA)

Similar researchers at Arizona State University

• Jianguo Wuh-119
• Marco Janssenh-68
• Jim Millerh-62