CAREER: Citizens, Conservation, and Climate: Research and Education for Climate Literacy in Managed Landscapes

公共土地提供重要的生态系统服务，如水资源的供应和调节，气候调节以及文化和精神灵感。气候变化影响了这些生态系统服务的可持续性，美国西部有大量的公共土地，管理层必须对这些影响作出反应。土地管理活动（例如，火灾、放牧、选择性间伐）通过直接影响陆地植被的结构和组成并间接改变水、能量和养分循环，影响生态系统服务。地表水分和能量平衡的变化引起区域水文气候的相应变化。对这些反馈以及它们如何传播到生态系统服务（如供水）的定量了解还缺乏。该项目将提高对土地管理实践如何影响区域水文气候的基本理解，同时促进改进耦合水文气候-人类系统的建模。具体而言，现有的模型将被用来开发一个实验框架，明确模拟：（1）自主行为的土地管理机构在应对气候变化的看法，以及（2）如何区域气候和水文景观干扰与这些管理活动。模型之间的信息交换将以管理活动导致的景观植被组织和结构变化的形式发生。这个模型框架将被用来了解如何管理活动和气候变化共同replumb水文系统作为全球气候变化。该项目的重点是量化的变化，如降水量，雪存储，土壤水分和径流量在西南爱达荷州，美国的一个大型供水盆地的关键变量。该项目还将提高爱达荷州k-12教育中的气候素养。该研究小组将开发一个试点计划，以培训和装备教育工作者，让他们的学生参与小型化自动气象站的制造，使用和探索。将该计划与共同核心标准联系起来，参与的k-12教师将通过参加培训计划并担任该计划的大使而获得专业发展学分。该项目将资助服务不足人口的几名教师的旅费。森林砍伐、规定的火灾）将在气候变化中改变公共土地的生态和水文健康。特别是，我们将确定与这些和其他管理活动相关的植被变化如何影响区域降水和供水。我们将通过将人类活动和决策与物理过程相结合的模拟工具来实现这一目标，以创建未来的场景。这些情景将帮助土地管理者调整其做法以适应不断变化的气候，从而更好地保护水资源。该项目还将开发一个程序，以帮助k-12教师教育学生有关气候。该计划将提供培训和材料，使学生能够创建气象站来监测气候，并将这些观测结果带入课堂。总体而言，该项目将影响公共土地的保护，这些土地占西部各州的约50%，提供至关重要的自然资源，并促进改善气候知识，提高我们适应气候变化的能力。

Public lands provide important ecosystem services such provisioning and regulation of water resources, climate regulation, and cultural and spiritual inspiration. Climate change impacts the sustainability of these ecosystem services and with the extensive public lands across the western U.S., a management response to these impacts is necessary. Land management activities (e.g., fire, grazing, selective tree thinning) influence ecosystem services by directly impacting the structure and composition of terrestrial vegetation and indirectly modifying water, energy, and nutrient cycling. Changes to surface moisture and energy balance induce corresponding changes in the regional hydroclimate. Quantitative understanding of these feedbacks and how they propagate to ecosystem services like the provisioning of water is lacking. This project will improve fundamental understanding of how land management practices influence regional hydroclimate while facilitating improved modeling of coupled hydroclimate-human systems. Specifically, existing models will be used to develop an experimental framework that explicitly simulates: (1) the autonomous behavior of land management agencies in response to perceptions of climate change, and (2) how regional climate and hydrology respond to landscape disturbance associated with these management activities. Information exchange between models will occur in the form of changes to the organization and structure of landscape vegetation as a result of management activities. This modeling framework will be used to understand how management activities and climate change jointly replumb the hydrologic system as the global climate changes. The project focuses on quantifying changes in key variables like precipitation, snow storage, soil moisture, and streamflow in a large water supply basin in southwest Idaho, USA. This project will also improve climate literacy in Idaho k-12 education. The research team will develop a pilot program to train and equip educators to engage their students in the fabrication, use, and exploration of miniaturized automated weather stations. Linking the program to Common Core standards, participating k-12 teachers will be conferred professional development credits by taking part in the training program and engaged as ambassadors for the program. Travel expenses for several teachers of underserved populations will be supported by the project.This project will investigate how land management decisions (e.g., forest thinning, prescribed fire) will modify the ecological and hydrological health of public lands in a changing climate. In particular, we will determine how changes in vegetation associated with these and other management activities impact regional precipitation and water supply. We will accomplish this by linking simulation tools that incorporate human activities and decision-making with physical processes to create scenarios of the future. These scenarios will help land managers adapt their practices to a changing climate to better protect water resources. This project will also develop a program to help k-12 teachers educate students about climate. This program will provide the training and materials to enable students to create meteorological stations to monitor climate and bring those observations into the classroom. Overall, this project will influence conservation of public lands, which comprise approximately 50% of western states and provide critically important natural resources, and promote improved climate literacy, increasing our capacity to adapt to a changing climate.