BE/CNH: Impact of Economics-Driven Land-Use Decisions on Watershed Health

BE/CNH：经济驱动的土地利用决策对流域健康的影响

• 批准号: 0308464
• 负责人: Richard Moore
• 金额: $ 10万
• 依托单位: Ohio State University Research Foundation -DO NOT USE
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-09-15 至 2006-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0308464&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CNH; Impact; Economics; Driven; Land

Agriculture is the dominant human influence over most of the world's land surface, including nearly a million square miles in the U.S. Agriculture has changed the structure and function of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems dramatically, so that far from being self-regulating and in equilibrium, agroecosystems depend heavily on non-renewable inputs. Their comparative simplicity makes agroecosystems much less nutrient conservative than their natural counterparts. Furthermore, agroecosystems are a major source of nutrient loading and subsequent loss of biodiversity to aquatic systems worldwide. While complexity in agroecosystems often is low biophysically, these systems are much more complex when the human socio-economic systems are included. Ultimately it is this complex system of human values, beliefs, and social constructs, including economics, that determine the ecological structure and function of agroecosystems. Efforts to restore ecological function to agricultural landscapes will be successful only if they include both the human and biophysical dimensions of these systems. During the past three years, a multidisciplinary team of ecological and social scientists has been developing a framework and approach to agroecosystem restoration that integrates both natural and social capital required for effective restoration of ecological function to the Sugar Creek Watershed in northeast Ohio. The objectives of this research planning grant are: (1) to benchmark the social, physical, and ecological features of the headwater tributaries that most directly relate to understanding the linkages between managed terrestrial and aquatic systems; (2) to create increased awareness of watershed ecology, and motivate farmers to use, and others to encourage the use of agricultural practices that improve water quality, and (3) to restore biodiversity and ecosystem function on a tributary by tributary basis of whole landscapes including both agricultural and non-agricultural areas. The planning process will focus on bringing in additional investigators with expertise in key areas, developing the necessary experiments and data sets on which to build plans for a fuller project, and expanding an education component that ultimately will integrate student participation into the project and further link researchers, farmers, and students in a learning process.Increasing biocomplexity from microbial to human interaction scales in primary headwater watersheds will enhance the social and economic sustainability of agroecosystems and will decrease agriculture's ecological impact. Only by integrating the social dynamics among neighboring farmers as a community will the ecological compatibility between terrestrial and aquatic systems be improved. In the long-term, the investigators expect to evaluate the impact of restored and unrestored headwaters on downstream areas through permanent monitoring stations. They also expect to use the data from these on-site experiments to model impacts at sub-basin and overall watershed levels. The restorations examined through this project will serve as a primary focal point for developing the research framework and team-building efforts. Longer-term educational efforts include training for elementary and secondary school teachers. Farmers from the Sugar Creek watershed will present case studies on agriculture and their restoration efforts to school and other lay audiences. Future emphasis will be on using ecological processes as management strategies at field, farm, and community/subwatershed scales. This project is supported by an award resulting from the FY 2003 special competition in Biocomplexity in the Environment focusing on the Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems.

农业是世界上大多数陆地表面的主要影响，包括美国农业的近一百万平方英里已经改变了陆地和水生生态系统的结构和功能，因此远非自我调节和平衡，农业生态系统在很大程度上依赖于非可再生能源的输入。 它们的比较简单性使农业生态系统的养分保守程度要比其自然对应物少得多。 此外，农业生态系统是养分负荷和随后生物多样性损失到全球水生系统的主要来源。 尽管农业生态系统的复杂性通常在生物物理上较低，但当包括人类的社会经济系统时，这些系统要复杂得多。 最终，正是这种复杂的人类价值观，信念和社会结构（包括经济学）决定了农业生态系统的生态结构和功能。 将生态功能恢复为农业景观的努力只有在包括这些系统的人类和生物物理维度时才成功。 在过去的三年中，一个生态和社会科学家的跨学科团队一直在开发一个框架和方法，以实现农业生态系统的恢复，这将有效恢复生态功能的自然和社会资本整合到俄亥俄州东北部的Sugar Creek流域所需的自然资本和社会资本。 这项研究计划赠款的目标是：（1）基于与理解托管的陆地和水生系统之间的联系最直接有关的源头支流的社会，物理和生态特征； （2）提高人们对流域生态学的认识，并激励农民使用，以及其他人鼓励使用改善水质的农业实践，以及（3）以支流的基础来恢复生物多样性和生态系统的功能，包括整个景观，包括农业和非农业地区。 计划过程将着重于吸引在关键领域具有专业知识的其他调查人员，开发必要的实验和数据集，以构建一个更全面项目的计划，并扩大教育组成部分，最终将学生参与到项目中，并将进一步的研究人员与研究人员和学生联系起来，从而在学习过程中融合了人类交流量表的生物范围。农业生态系统将减少农业的生态影响。 只有通过将邻近农民之间的社会动态整合为一个社区，才能改善陆地和水生系统之间的生态兼容性。 从长远来看，研究人员希望通过永久监测站评估恢复和未修复的源头对下游区域的影响。 他们还期望使用这些现场实验的数据来模拟子碱和整体流域水平的影响。 通过该项目检查的修复体将成为开发研究框架和团队建设工作的主要焦点。长期的教育工作包括对小学和中学教师的培训。 来自Sugar Creek流域的农民将介绍有关农业及其恢复工作的案例研究，并向学校和其他外行观众介绍。 未来的重点将是将生态过程用作现场，农场和社区/子流质量表的管理策略。 该项目得到了2003财年在环境中生物复杂性特殊竞争的奖项，重点是耦合自然和人类系统的动态。