IGERT: Water, Climate, and Health

这一综合性研究生教育和研究培训(IGERT)奖项将培养一批博士生，使他们成为制定创新适应战略以应对气候变化带来的前所未有的挑战所需的领导者。知识价值：水文循环的变化预计将减少安全水的供应，迫使贫穷国家的脆弱人口饮用脏水，导致疾病增加。由于不可持续的地下水开采受到干旱加剧的影响，粮食生产将变得更加稀缺。随着污染物继续流入水体，水动力模式适应气候变化，人类赖以获取食物的沿海渔业将面临更多的富营养化和缺氧问题。需要综合战略来预测和适应气候驱动的水资源和人类健康压力来源。在这些战略中，包括明智的增长土地利用实践，从而减少温室气体排放，或者是节约用水和能源的水基础设施系统。广泛的影响：受训人员将成为科学领袖，并将参与指导不同的高中生。学生将通过一门以世界上三个非常不同地区的实际问题为中心的顶石课程来解决实际问题：美国温带发达地区的切萨皮克湾流域，秘鲁热带欠发达的亚马逊盆地，以及埃塞俄比亚干旱的欠发达尼罗河盆地。受过高级水处理和管理培训的IGERT学生将学习调整技能和知识，以解决不同文化、政治和经济环境中的问题。IGERT是一个NSF范围的项目，旨在应对培养具有跨学科背景、选定学科的深厚知识以及未来职业需求所需的技术、专业和个人技能的美国博士科学家和工程师的挑战。该项目旨在通过建立创新的研究生教育和培训新模式，在超越传统学科界限的合作研究的肥沃环境中，催化研究生教育的文化变革。

This Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) award will train a corps of doctoral students to become the leaders needed to develop innovative adaptive strategies to respond to unprecedented challenges as a result of climate change. Intellectual Merit: Changes in the hydrologic cycle are expected to decrease the supply of safe water, forcing vulnerable populations in poor countries to drink dirty water, leading to increased disease. Food production will become scarcer as unsustainable groundwater withdrawals are affected by increased drought. As contaminants continue to flow into water bodies and hydrodynamic patterns adjust to climate change, the coastal fisheries upon which human populations depend for food will face increased problems of eutrophication and anoxia. Integrated strategies are needed for predicting and adapting to climate driven stressors on water resources and human health. Among these strategies are smart growth land use practices resulting in reduced greenhouse gas emissions or water infrastructure systems that conserve water and energy.Broader Impacts: The trainees will be scientific leaders and will engage in mentoring diverse high school students. Practical problems will be addressed by students through a capstone course centering on real problems in three very different areas of the world: the Chesapeake Bay watershed in the temperate developed U.S., the tropical underdeveloped Amazon basin in Peru, and the arid underdeveloped Nile basin in Ethiopia. IGERT students, highly trained in advanced water treatment and management, will learn to adapt skills and knowledge to address problems in diverse cultural, political and economic settings.IGERT is an NSF-wide program intended to meet the challenges of educating U.S. Ph.D. scientists and engineers with the interdisciplinary background, deep knowledge in a chosen discipline, and the technical, professional, and personal skills needed for the career demands of the future. The program is intended to catalyze a cultural change in graduate education by establishing innovative new models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries.