NSF Minority Postdoctoral Research Fellowship: Modeling Traditional Southwestern Water Control Technologies: Flood Water and Seepage Fields

在过去的2500年里，史前和历史上的农业学家在干旱到半干旱的西南部的定居点分布经常发生变化。重新安置可能是由于降水量的减少，尽管所涉及的机制尚不清楚，也不是所有的气候变化都会导致重新安置。重新安置的原因的确定将需要澄清降水变化和传统的西南农业技术的生产力之间的关系。这个博士后研究和培训项目将通过对负责大多数传统农业生产的三种类型的农田中的两种进行物理建模来解决这个问题。物理模型将根据降水量、土壤分布、土壤水文参数和地形来估计整个景观的土壤湿度。要模拟的场类型是洪水场和渗流场，这些场仍然是北方亚利桑那州霍皮人常用的。这些场将为建模提供极好的测试用例，并允许测试场将在单个土壤单元之间的边界处形成的假设。研究工作将包括绘制田地、土壤单元和相关集水区的地图，以及记录和分析土壤水文参数。将建立每个流域的数字模型，并使用物理水文建模软件进行模拟。

Settlement distributions of prehistoric and historic agriculturists in the arid to semiarid Southwest have changed often over the past 2500 years. Resettlements may result from associated decreases in precipitation, although the mechanisms involved are unclear and not all climate changes resulted in resettlement. Determination of the causes of resettlements will require clarification of relationships between precipitation changes and productivity of traditional Southwestern agricultural technologies. This postdoctoral research and training project will address that problem by physically modeling two of the three types of agricultural fields responsible for most traditional agricultural production. Physical modeling will estimate quantities of soil moisture across a landscape based on precipitation, soil distribution, soil hydrologic parameters and land form. The field types to be modeled are flood water and seepage fields which are still in common use by the Hopi of northern Arizona. These fields will provide excellent test cases for modeling and will allow testing of the hypothesis that fields will form at the boundaries between individual soil units. Research will involve mapping of fields, soil units and associated catchments, as well as recording and analysis of soil hydrologic parameters. A digital model of each catchment will be constructed and simulations will be run using physical hydrologic modeling software.