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

1126887 bales该主要研究仪器拨款支持在美国河流域跨越雨雪高程转换的内华达山脉开发一个流域尺度（4,500平方公里）综合水文观测系统。流域尺度仪器将包括23个本地传感器组，每个传感器组有10-20个雪深传感器和气象传感器，包括温度、降水和湿度。集群的一个子集将具有用于测量入射和反射太阳辐射的传感器、土壤湿度和温度以及树液流量传感器，后者用于阐明春季蒸发蒸腾开始的海拔依赖时间。流域尺度的仪器设计考虑了高海拔地区关键水循环水库、通量及其控制因素的综合测量需求，传感器群设置在不同的高程、坡向、坡度和植被覆盖上。所有的传感器观测都将与无线通信策略捆绑在一起，将实时观测结果传送到一个中央信息管理系统，该系统将通过网络向公众开放。在增加的时空尺度上对关键水循环水库及其之间的平衡进行量化是水文科学界长期以来的目标。拟建的水文观测系统侧重于积雪主导的山区生态系统，该系统支持加州中央谷农业帝国和数千万加州居民的用水需求。美国河流域水文观测站的规模将是前所未有的，并将利用现有的NSF投资，在南部塞拉利昂进行较小的原型雪水文观测，并通过地球科学部关键区观测站（CZO）计划（作为南部塞拉利昂CZO的一部分）资助更广泛分布和集中的生态水文观测。与加州水资源部和萨克拉门托市政公用事业区等相关州机构的合作将促进和支持该项目的发展。该观测系统产生的数据将为新型建模工具提供信息，以进行定量气候评估，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过程的理解，并为目前不可能实现的规模基础设施规划提供可防御的方案。利用收集到的观测资料可解决的科学问题将包括：1)地理和生态格局如何影响山区水通量的变化？2)受到多重扰动的水文系统如何响应？3)脉冲和变化如何在水文系统中传播？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员，非博士。在水文和环境工程方面有专长的资助机构，以及美国农业部机构的水文学家。该开发将让本科生参与建设，无线电信战略和发展将通过支持无线无线电和小型化计算架构的获取的子奖励来完成，并由加州大学伯克利分校专门从事无线通信开发的计算机科学家来设计和完成网络拓扑。＊＊＊

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. ***