Collaborative Research: Landsliding, land-use change, and carbon dynamics in a Central American mountainscape

山体滑坡是一个复杂的过程，影响着全球山区的碳收支。这个跨学科项目旨在了解山体滑坡和森林砍伐对土地覆盖变化的相对贡献，并最终了解它们在危地马拉拉斯米纳斯山脉转移和储存有机碳方面的作用。利用一组对比鲜明的干湿流域，该项目将实现三个主要目标：1)量化森林砍伐和山体滑坡对土地覆盖变化的贡献；2)检查山体滑坡和河流之间的耦合；3)估计与山体滑坡和森林砍伐相关的碳通量。从多个时间点的遥感图像获得的土地覆盖数据，以及从植被、土壤和水的实地采样获得的碳含量数据，将在一个地理信息系统（GIS）中结合起来，模拟碳储量和通量。该项目将有助于在认识到生态学与地球科学之间重要联系的新兴领域培养新一代科学家。这一目标将通过让传统上在不同教育水平的科学领域代表性不足的学生参与各种活动来实现，包括实地工作、卫星图像分析和建模以及实验室分析。学生还将受益于国际背景下跨学科科学研究的跨文化方面。该项目的成果将改善热带地区碳缓解项目所需的知识基础，并将增进我们对气候变化、危害评估和森林保护背景下的碳循环和固存的了解。

Landsliding is a complex process that influences carbon budgets in mountainscapes worldwide. This interdisciplinary project seeks to understand the relative contribution of landsliding and deforestation to land-cover change and ultimately, their role in transferring and storing organic carbon in the Sierra de Las Minas, Guatemala. Using a set of contrasting watersheds - dry and wet - this project will address three primary goals: 1) quantify the contribution of deforestation and landsliding to land-cover change, 2) examine the coupling between landslides and streams, and 3) estimate carbon fluxes associated with landsliding and deforestation. Land-cover data obtained from remotely sensed images taken at many points in time, and carbon-content data obtained from field sampling of vegetation, soil, and water, will be combined in a geographic information system (GIS) to model carbon storages and fluxes. This project will contribute to the education of a new generation of scientists in an emergent field that recognizes important links between Ecology and Earth Sciences. This goal will be accomplished by engaging students traditionally under-represented in science across educational levels in a variety of activities, including field work, satellite image analysis and modeling, and laboratory analyses. Students will also benefit from the cross-cultural aspects of interdisciplinary scientific research in international settings. Results of this project will improve the knowledge base needed for carbon mitigation projects in tropical regions, and will enhance our understanding of carbon cycling and sequestration in the context of climate change, hazard assessment, and forest conservation.