CNH: Suburbanization, Water Use, Nitrogen Cycling, and Eutrophication in the 21st Century: Interactions, Feedbacks, and Uncertainties in a Massachusetts Coastal Zone

CNH：21 世纪的郊区化、用水、氮循环和富营养化：马萨诸塞州沿海地区的相互作用、反馈和不确定性

• 批准号: 0709685
• 负责人: Colin Polsky
• 金额: $ 144.29万
• 依托单位: Clark University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-09-15 至 2013-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0709685&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CNH; Suburbanization; Water; Use; Nitrogen

Suburbanization in coastal zones can generate severe environmental impacts, such as estuarine eutrophication and the impairment of shellfish beds. Suburbanization can also produce substantial social disruptions, as established populations (and their contributions to society and the economy) are replaced by new populations and their land uses. This process of transforming land cover to support suburban land uses is so multi-dimensional that few research projects have analyzed and modeled the process in a holistic manner. One complicating factor is the conflicting character of human-environment interactions, as environmental processes unfold alongside the promotion of single-family, low-density development, the expansion of affordable housing, and the preservation of a sense of place. Another complicating factor is that a single type of land-cover transformation can be associated with various land uses. For example, because two low-density residential areas may exhibit a high proportion of lawn cover but with different water and fertilizer application rates; the two neighborhoods will exhibit different environmental outcomes. There are few empirically based explanations for linking specific suburban land covers with specific land uses and for predicting the associated social and environmental outcomes. This research project will examine how suburbanization affects the environment within a tightly coupled analytical framework, examining questions fundamental to social, natural, and geographic information sciences. Northeastern Massachusetts is a compelling natural laboratory for examining these dynamics, because metropolitan Boston is sprawling into this coastal area. Data gathered through fieldwork and statistical and process-based modeling will be used to characterize, explain, and model these dynamics in a suburbanizing coupled human-watershed-estuary system in a 26-town Massachusetts study area. The investigators will employ a suite of methods, such as conducting interviews, evaluating primary and secondary statistical data, taking in situ measurements, conducting field experiments, processing high resolution satellite imagery, modeling, and utilizing geographic information systems. The project will produce an integrated social and ecological science analysis incorporating a georeferenced land-use/land-cover change projection model.This project will provide new insights into the processes that govern suburbanization, water use, nitrogen cycling, shellfish productivity, and their interactions. These dynamics constitute a pressing national problem for coastal zone managers, land owners and water managers. The significance of this research is manifest by its products, which will include a set of quantitative estimates of spatial and temporal trends in suburbanization and in three of its consequences: sense of place, water use, and waste and fertilizer management. The project also will result in an assessment of likely human responses to these consequences; advances in quantifying river channel-floodplain connectivity to track changes in nitrogen cycling associated with human activities; and improved modeling of estuarine eutrophication and shellfish productivity in response to upstream changes in nitrogen cycling. Integrating across these subactivities, a set of georeferenced and validated scenarios of future land use and land cover will be generated, thereby enabling the investigators to make statements about the likely future vulnerability of the coupled system to continued status quo suburbanization patterns. These products each represent new contributions to the fields of land-use and land-cover change, aquatic ecosystem ecology, and geographic information science. Together, these products will help advance basic understanding of coupled human-environment vulnerabilities to the effects of multiple, interacting stressors. The researchers will produce results that interest not only scholars but also suburbanizing communities. Results will be conveyed directly to relevant government and planning organizations and advocacy groups in an end-of-project stakeholder symposium. The general public will also be reached by engaging science journalists through an established program. Students will be integrally involved at the pre-college, undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral levels. This project is supported by an award resulting from the NSF competition focusing on the Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems.

沿海地区的郊区化会产生严重的环境影响，如河口富营养化和贝类床的损害。郊区化还可能造成严重的社会混乱，因为现有人口（及其对社会和经济的贡献）被新的人口及其土地使用所取代。这一转变土地覆盖以支持郊区土地利用的过程是如此的多维，以至于很少有研究项目以整体的方式分析和模拟这一过程。一个复杂的因素是人与环境相互作用的冲突特征，随着环境进程的展开，促进了单户家庭、低密度开发、经济适用房的扩张和地方感的保护。另一个复杂的因素是，单一类型的土地覆盖变化可能与各种土地用途有关。例如，由于两个低密度小区草坪覆盖比例较高，但水肥施用量不同；这两个社区将表现出不同的环境结果。对于将特定的郊区土地覆盖与特定的土地用途联系起来，以及预测相关的社会和环境结果，很少有基于经验的解释。这个研究项目将在一个紧密耦合的分析框架内研究郊区化如何影响环境，研究社会、自然和地理信息科学的基本问题。马萨诸塞州东北部是研究这些动态的一个令人信服的天然实验室，因为大都会波士顿正在向这个沿海地区扩张。通过实地调查、统计和基于过程的建模收集的数据将用于表征、解释和模拟马萨诸塞州26个城镇的郊区化人类-流域-河口耦合系统的这些动态。调查人员将采用一系列方法，如进行访谈、评估主要和次要统计数据、进行现场测量、进行现场实验、处理高分辨率卫星图像、建模和利用地理信息系统。该项目将产生综合的社会和生态科学分析，其中包括地理参考的土地利用/土地覆盖变化预测模型。该项目将为管理郊区化、水资源利用、氮循环、贝类生产力及其相互作用的过程提供新的见解。这些动态对沿海地区管理者、土地所有者和水资源管理者构成了一个紧迫的全国性问题。这项研究的重要性体现在其成果上，其中包括对郊区化的时空趋势及其三个后果的定量估计：地点感、水利用、废物和肥料管理。该项目还将评估人类对这些后果可能作出的反应；河道-漫滩连通性量化追踪人类活动相关氮循环变化研究进展改进了河口富营养化和贝类生产力模型，以响应上游氮循环的变化。通过整合这些子活动，将生成一套基于地理位置的、经过验证的未来土地利用和土地覆盖情景，从而使研究人员能够对耦合系统未来可能对持续现状的郊区化模式的脆弱性作出陈述。这些成果在土地利用和土地覆盖变化、水生生态系统生态学和地理信息科学等领域都有新的贡献。总之，这些产品将有助于促进对多重相互作用的压力源影响下的人类-环境耦合脆弱性的基本理解。研究人员将得出的结果不仅会引起学者的兴趣，也会引起郊区化社区的兴趣。结果将在项目结束后的利益相关者研讨会上直接传达给相关政府和规划组织以及倡导团体。通过一个已建立的项目，让科学记者参与进来，也可以接触到普通公众。学生将在大学预科、本科、研究生和博士后阶段全面参与。该项目得到了美国国家科学基金会关于自然和人类系统耦合动力学竞赛的奖励。