CNH: Collaborative Research: Northern Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia and Land Use in the Watershed: Feedback and Scale Interactions

CNH：合作研究：墨西哥湾北部缺氧和流域土地利用：反馈和尺度相互作用

• 批准号: 1010259
• 负责人: Catherine Kling
• 金额: $ 65.53万
• 依托单位: Iowa State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-10-01 至 2014-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1010259&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CNH; Collaborative; Research; Northern; Gulf

Each year an oxygen-depleted (hypoxia) zone forms in the Northern Gulf of Mexico, negatively impacting coast and marine fisheries and local economies. The spatial extent of this zone is about three times the target goal of the national Hypoxia Action Plan. The scientific assessment of causes and consequences of these hypoxic conditions indicates that both nitrogen and phosphorous loadings from the Upper Mississippi River Basin and Ohio River Basin stream systems are significant contributors to the size and duration of the zone. Land use, primarily from agriculture, is a key driver of these nutrient loadings and is the result of decisions made by more than 500,000 individual producers in those river basins. However, understanding the biogeochemical processes alone is insufficient to understanding the dynamics of this complex system. This project takes a fresh look at the natural and human dynamics of this enormous system by developing integrated and data-rich models that capture the spatial and temporal non-linearity associated with scaling up the impacts from individuals to the watershed under different scenarios. The research will produce the first complete modeling system that traces agricultural land-use decisions, made at the field scale in the Upper Mississippi, Ohio, and Tennessee Basins through both environmental and hydrologic components, to downstream water quality effects, including the size of the hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Uniquely, the modeling effort will incorporate feedbacks via the market, and feedbacks via public policy in the form of adaptive management. This project will demonstrate how to integrate human and natural process models using the powerful tools of evolutionary algorithms. Hypoxia is a growing environmental problem for coastal habitats elsewhere in the United States and many other countries. The development of a general modeling framework from this research will provide an effective tool for the design and implementation of policy to address both Gulf hypoxia and water quality concerns, and identify cost-effective placement of conservation practices within the landscape. This project will strengthen an interdisciplinary collaboration among scientists at five different institutions, and will support the training of graduate and undergraduate students.

每年在墨西哥湾北方形成一个缺氧区，对沿海和海洋渔业以及当地经济产生不利影响。 该区域的空间范围约为国家缺氧行动计划目标的三倍。 这些缺氧条件的原因和后果的科学评估表明，从上游密西西比河流域和俄亥俄州河流域河流系统的氮和磷的负载是显着的贡献区的大小和持续时间。 主要来自农业的土地使用是这些养分负荷的关键驱动因素，也是这些河流流域50多万个体生产者所作决定的结果。 然而，仅仅了解地球化学过程不足以了解这个复杂系统的动力学。 该项目通过开发综合和数据丰富的模型，重新审视这一巨大系统的自然和人类动态，这些模型捕捉了不同情景下个人对流域影响的空间和时间非线性。 这项研究将产生第一个完整的建模系统，跟踪农业土地利用的决定，在现场规模在上密西西比，俄亥俄州和田纳西盆地通过环境和水文成分，下游水质的影响，包括在墨西哥湾的缺氧区的大小。 独特的是，建模工作将包括通过市场的反馈，并通过适应性管理形式的公共政策的反馈。 这个项目将展示如何使用进化算法的强大工具来整合人类和自然过程模型。缺氧是美国其他地方和许多其他国家沿海栖息地日益严重的环境问题。 从这项研究的一般建模框架的发展将提供一个有效的工具，政策的设计和实施，以解决海湾缺氧和水质问题，并确定具有成本效益的景观内的保护措施的位置。 该项目将加强五个不同机构的科学家之间的跨学科合作，并将支持研究生和本科生的培训。