MRI: Development of a basin-scale water-balance instrument cluster for hydrologic, atmospheric and ecosystem science

1126887包这个主要的研究仪器补助金支持流域规模（4,500平方公里）综合水文观测系统的发展，在塞拉内华达州山脉跨越美国河流域的雨雪海拔过渡。 流域规模的仪器将包括23个当地传感器集群，每个集群有10-20个雪深传感器和气象传感器，包括温度、降水和湿度。 这些集群的一个子集将有传感器，用于测量入射和反射的太阳辐射、土壤湿度和温度，以及树木液流传感器，后者用于阐明春季蒸发蒸腾开始的海拔时间。 流域尺度的仪器设计考虑到需要综合测量的关键水循环水库，通量及其控制因素在高Sierra与传感器集群的位置在不同的海拔，方面，坡度和植被覆盖。 所有的传感器观测都将与无线通信战略相结合，将实时观测结果传送到中央信息管理系统，该系统将通过网络向公众开放。 需要量化的关键水循环水库和它们之间的平衡，在增加的时空尺度是水文科学界的一个长期目标。 拟议的水文观测系统侧重于积雪为主的山区生态系统，支持加州中央谷农业综合企业帝国的水需求和数千万加州居民的需求。 美国河流流域水文观测站的规模将是前所未有的，并利用现有的NSF投资在较小的原型雪水文观测在南部Sierras和更广泛的分布和重点生态水文观测通过地球科学关键区观测站（CZO）计划的一部分，资助南部Sierras CZO。 与包括加州水资源部和萨克拉门托市政公用事业区在内的相关州机构的伙伴关系将促进和支持这一发展。从这个观测系统产生的数据将告知新的建模工具，以产生定量气候评估，影响水文预报，探测系统对气候和土地覆盖扰动的响应，增加对流域尺度水循环的过程理解，并为基础设施规划提供可防御的情景。利用收集到的观测资料可以解决的科学问题包括：1）自然地理和生态模式如何影响山区水通量的变化？2)水文系统如何对多重扰动作出反应？3)脉动和变化是如何通过水文系统传播的？（4）如何提高这些反应的预测能力？ PI团队包括加州大学默塞德分校的教师，一个非博士。他是一位在水文学和环境工程方面具有专门知识的美国农业部机构水文学家。 该开发将使本科生参与建设，无线电信战略和开发将通过子合同完成，以支持无线电和小型化计算架构的收购，并为加州大学伯克利分校专门从事无线通信开发的合作计算机科学家设计和完成网络拓扑结构。 ***

1126887BalesThis Major Research Instrumentation grant supports development of a basin-scale (4,500 km2) integrated hydrologic observation system in the Sierra Nevada Mountains spanning the rain-snow elevation transition in the American River basin. The basin-scale instrument will include 23 local sensor clusters each with 10-20 snow depth sensors and meteorological sensors to include temperature, precipitation and humidity. A subset of the clusters will have sensors for the measurement of incident and reflected solar radiation, soil moisture and temperature and tree sap flow sensors, the latter to elucidate the elevation dependent timing of the onset of evapotranspiration in the spring. The basin-scale instrument design takes into consideration the needs for integrated measurement of key water cycle reservoirs, fluxes and their controlling factors in the high Sierras with sensor cluster sitings across variable elevation, aspect, slope and vegetation cover. All of the sensor observations will be tied with a wireless communications strategy delivering real-time observations to a central information management system that will be open for public access via the web. The need for quantification of key water cycle reservoirs and the balances between them at increased spatiotemporal scales is a long standing goal of the hydrologic science community. The proposed hydrologic observation system focuses on a snowpack dominated mountain ecosystem that supports the water needs of California's Central Valley agribusiness empire and the needs of tens of millions of California residents. The American River basin hydrologic observatory will be unprecedented in scale and leveraged on existing NSF investments in smaller prototype snow hydrology observations in the southern Sierras and more widely distributed and focused ecohydrologic observations funded through the Division of Earth Sciences Critical Zone Observatories (CZO) program as part of the Southern Sierra CZO. Partnerships with relevant state agencies including the California Department of Water Resources and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District will foster and support the development. Data generated from this observation system will inform new classes of modeling tools to produce quantitative climate assessments, influence hydrologic forecasting, probe system response to climate and land-cover perturbations, increase process understanding of basin-scale water cycles, and provide defensible scenarios for infrastructure planning at a scale currently not possible. Scientific questions that will be addressable using collected observations will include: 1)) How do physiographic and ecological patterns influence the variability of mountain water fluxes?; 2) How do hydrologic systems that are subjected to multiple perturbations respond?; 3) How do pulses and changes propagate through the hydrologic system?; and 4) How can the predictive ability for these responses be improved? The PI team includes faculty at UC-Merced, a non-Ph.D. granting institution, with expertise in hydrology and environmental engineering, and a USDA agency hydrologist. The development will engage undergraduate students in construction and the wireless telecommunication strategy and development will be accomplished through subaward to support acquisition of wireless radio and miniaturized computing architectures and for a collaborating computer scientist at UC-Berkeley who specializes in wireless communications development to design and complete the network topology. ***