Designing a network of critical zone observatories to explore the living skin of the terrestrial Earth
Designing a network of critical zone observatories to explore the living skin of the terrestrial Earth
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DOI：
10.5194/esurf-5-841-2017
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发表时间：
2017-12-18
影响因子：
3.4
通讯作者：
Gaillardet, Jerome
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Brantley, Susan L.;McDowell, William H.;Gaillardet, Jerome
临界区(CZ)是地球的动态活皮肤，从植被树冠的顶部延伸到土壤，向下延伸到新鲜的基岩和地下水的底部。所有的人类都生活在CZ，并依赖于CZ。这一区域有三个共同进化的表面：植被冠层的顶部，地面，以及地球物质不受风化的深层次表面。由9个CZ天文台组成的网络由美国国家科学基金会支持，在与共同演化表面有关的CZ研究的三个广泛领域取得了进展。首先，监测揭示了植被冠层和地表的自然和人为输入如何在相当深的深度引起水、风土层结构、矿物和生物活动的地下反应。这种反应反过来会影响地上生物群和气候。其次，钻探和地球物理成像现在揭示了CZ的深层地下如何在不同的景观中变化，这反过来又影响了地上生态系统。第三，一些新的机制模型现在提供了对CZ次表层空间结构的定量预测。许多国家资助临界区观测站(CZO)来测量CZ中的溶质、水、能量、气体和沉积物的通量，其中一些将这些观测与地貌、生物群、土壤、沉积物和岩石中记录的那些通量的历史联系起来。每个美国天文台已成功地(I)将跨学科的研究综合成统一的方法；(Ii)提供长期测量以进行跨地点的比较；(Iii)测试和开发模型；(Iv)收集和测量基线数据以与灾难性事件进行比较；(V)激发新的基于过程的假设；(Vi)促进新技术和仪器的开发；(Vii)向公众宣传CZ；()指导学生和教授新兴的多学科CZ科学；以及(Ix)发现关于CZ的新见解。其中许多活动只能通过天文台来完成。在这里，我们回顾了CZO在美国的事业，并确定了这样的天文台未来如何作为一个旨在产生关键科学见解的网络来运作。具体地说，我们认识到该网络需要研究网络层面的问题，扩大调查环境，容纳假设检验和监测，并让更多的利益攸关方参与。我们提出了一个未来CZ科学的驱动力问题和一个“中心和活动”模型来解决这个问题，并将CZ作为一个整体。只有通过这种综合努力，我们才能学会管理现在和未来的维持生命的临界区。
The critical zone (CZ), the dynamic living skin of the Earth, extends from the top of the vegetative canopy through the soil and down to fresh bedrock and the bottom of the groundwater. All humans live in and depend on the CZ. This zone has three co-evolving surfaces: the top of the vegetative canopy, the ground surface, and a deep subsurface below which Earth's materials are unweathered. The network of nine CZ observatories supported by the US National Science Foundation has made advances in three broad areas of CZ research relating to the co-evolving surfaces. First, monitoring has revealed how natural and anthropogenic inputs at the vegetation canopy and ground surface cause subsurface responses in water, regolith structure, minerals, and biotic activity to considerable depths. This response, in turn, impacts aboveground biota and climate. Second, drilling and geophysical imaging now reveal how the deep subsurface of the CZ varies across landscapes, which in turn influences aboveground ecosystems. Third, several new mechanistic models now provide quantitative predictions of the spatial structure of the subsurface of the CZ.Many countries fund critical zone observatories (CZOs) to measure the fluxes of solutes, water, energy, gases, and sediments in the CZ and some relate these observations to the histories of those fluxes recorded in landforms, biota, soils, sediments, and rocks. Each US observatory has succeeded in (i) synthesizing research across disciplines into convergent approaches; (ii) providing long-term measurements to compare across sites; (iii) testing and developing models; (iv) collecting and measuring baseline data for comparison to catastrophic events; (v) stimulating new process-based hypotheses; (vi) catalyzing development of new techniques and instrumentation; (vii) informing the public about the CZ; (viii) mentoring students and teaching about emerging multidisciplinary CZ science; and (ix) discovering new insights about the CZ. Many of these activities can only be accomplished with observatories. Here we review the CZO enterprise in the United States and identify how such observatories could operate in the future as a network designed to generate critical scientific insights. Specifically, we recognize the need for the network to study network-level questions, expand the environments under investigation, accommodate both hypothesis testing and monitoring, and involve more stakeholders. We propose a driving question for future CZ science and a "hubs-and-campaigns" model to address that question and target the CZ as one unit. Only with such integrative efforts will we learn to steward the life-sustaining critical zone now and into the future.