WSC-Category 2 Collaborative: WATER QUALITY AND SUPPLY IMPACTS FROM CLIMATE-INDUCED INSECT TREE MORTALITY AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN WEST

据估计，由于持续的山松甲虫(MPB)侵扰，科罗拉多州和怀俄明州超过400万英亩的森林正在死亡。森林死亡和死亡的视觉影响令人震惊，但落基山脉西部重要流域(包括普拉特河和科罗拉多河源头)的水循环发生的无形变化，可能是MPB留下的更持久的遗产。这项工作的目的是通过界定和量化气候变化、MPB影响改变的森林生态系统、生物地球化学过程和资源管理做法之间的反馈，确定MPB疫情造成的潜在水资源变化。被甲虫杀死的树木将改变水文和生物地球化学过程，这些过程控制着森林水源集水区的水量和水质。当与自然资源管理实践相结合时，这些变化可能会影响满足下游水用户需求的能力，并对生态和人类健康需求构成挑战。该项目将直接解决在生态和气候变化下支配水资源供应和质量的社会科学和自然科学因素。对杀死甲虫的森林和流域管理的担忧正在驱使市政当局实施提高水价，对于如何最有效地改善流域健康存在困惑，因为这与这个问题有关。我们的跨学科研究团队将融合实地观察、实验室实验、综合水文模型和高性能计算，以提高我们对社会面临的一个关键问题的理解和预测能力：从前所未有的森林变化到水的可获得性和质量的变化。这项工作将得到以地点为基础的协作学习的赞扬，这些学习针对受影响的社区和具有水处理市政当局的讲习班。这些讲习班将是双向的，将有助于了解关于MPB影响的关切和经验，并交流结果。将利益相关者的看法和管理层的反应结合起来，将进一步丰富和丰富我们对供水的科学分析，并有助于我们研究愿景的独特性。除了利益攸关方外联和情景规划外，还将开发单元，向K-12教师和学生传达关键的水资源问题，并为本科生、研究生和博士后学者提供培训、研究和教育机会。这项工作不仅将为管理普拉特河和科罗拉多河流域的流域生态系统提供更好的科学基础，从而帮助确保3000多万居民用户和180万英亩灌溉农业获得安全可靠的水资源，还将提高我们对落基山脉西部受MPB影响地区的供水和水量挑战的科学和社会理解。

It is estimated that over 4 million acres of forests in Colorado and Wyoming are dying due to the ongoing mountain pine beetle (MPB) infestation. The visual impact of dying and dead forests is stunning, but the invisible changes to the water cycle in vital watersheds in the Rocky Mountain west, including the Platte and Colorado River headwaters, may be a longer-lasting legacy of the MPB. The objective of this work is to determine potential water resource changes resulting from the MPB epidemic by defining and quantifying feedbacks between changes in climate, forested ecosystems altered by MPB impacts, biogeochemical processes and resource management practices. Beetle-killed trees will alter hydrologic and biogeochemical processes that govern water quantity and quality in forested headwater catchments. When coupled with natural resources management practices, these changes can potentially affect the ability to fulfill downstream water user demands and challenge ecological and human health needs. This project will directly address the social and physical science factors that govern water resource availability and quality under ecological and climate change. Concern about beetle-killed forest and watershed management is driving municipalities to implement water rate increases, and there is confusion about how to most effectively improve watershed health as it relates to this issue.Our interdisciplinary research team will merge field observations, laboratory experiments, integrated hydrologic models, and high-performance computing to increase our understanding and predictive capabilities for a critical problem facing society: changes to water availability and quality from an unprecedented change to our forests. This work will be complimented by place-based collaborative learning for impacted communities and workshops with water treatment municipalities. These workshops will be two-way and will serve to both understand concerns and experiences with MPB impacts as well as communicate results. Integration of stakeholder perceptions and management responses will further inform and enrich our scientific analysis of water supply and contribute to the uniqueness of our research vision. In addition to stakeholder outreach and scenario planning, modules will be developed that convey key water resource issues to K-12 teachers and students as well as provide training, research and educational opportunities for undergraduate, graduate students and postdoctoral scholars. Not only will this work provide an improved scientific basis for managing watershed ecosystems in the Platte and Colorado River basins, thus helping to ensure safe and reliable water resources to more than 30 million residential users and 1.8 million acres of irrigated agriculture, it will also improve our scientific and social understanding of the water supply and quantity challenges for MPB-impacted areas across the Rocky Mountain West.