Collaborative Research: Co-Organization of River Basin Geomorphology and Vegetation

地球表面的物理过程和生态过程是内在耦合的。这项工作试图检验以下假设：流域通过(植被、土壤和地形之间)局部非线性相互作用来组织，使得可识别的全球模式出现在河网的三维结构和植被的组织上。上述假设表明，植被调制的侵蚀是对随机气候强迫的响应，涉及河网结构和流域植被的共同组织。建模将在来自两个不同草本植物为主的站点的数据的背景下使用。将研究在随机气候强迫、恒定和变化的构造抬升(或基准面下降)下景观形态及其植被格局的共同演化。需要解决的主要问题是：1)流域的植被组织有没有大尺度的特征？2)在景观形态及其植被覆盖的组织方面是否有任何全球战略？3)气候或隆起波动对植被自组织和侵蚀速率在复杂的适应性地形上的影响是什么？4)火和放牧等干扰对联合组织的影响这一结果将增加美国和世界草原和缺水地区不断扩大的工作范围。它将为美国正在进行的草原生态系统监测工作提供额外的科学和业务价值。这类研究的潜在回报包括与供水和水质以及生态系统健康和多样性有关的广泛的社会和经济效益。这是一项高度跨学科的努力，将在一个基于物理的数值框架下将不同地球科学分支(即生态学、地貌学、水文学)的研究成果结合起来。

Physical and ecological processes of the earth surface are intrinsically coupled. This work seeks to test the following hypothesis: River basins organize through local non-linear interactions (between vegetation, soils and topography) in such a way that identifiable global patterns emerge on the 3-D structure of the river network and on the organization of vegetation.The above hypothesis suggests a vegetation-modulated erosion in response to stochastic climatic forcing that involves a co-organization of the structure of the river network and the vegetation of the basin. Modeling will be used within the context of data from two different grass dominated sites. The co-evolution of landscape morphology and its vegetation patterns will be studied under stochastic climate forcing, and constant and varying tectonic uplift (or base level drop). The major questions to be addressed are: 1) Are there any large-scale signatures of vegetation organization in river basins? 2) Is there any global strategy in the organization of landscape morphology and its vegetation cover? 3) What is the impact of climate or uplift fluctuations on vegetation self-organization and erosion rates on a complex adaptive topography? 4) What is the effect of disturbances such as fire and grazing on the co-organizationThe results will add to an expanding body of work in grasslands and water limited regions of US and the world. It will provide added scientific and operational value to the ongoing ecosystem monitoring efforts in grasslands in United States. The potential payoff of this type of research includes broad social and economic benefits related to water supply and quality as well as ecosystem health and diversity.This is a highly interdisciplinary effort that will combine research results from different branches of earth sciences (i.e., ecology, geomorphology, hydrology) under the umbrella of a physically-based numerical framework.