Coastal SEES Collaborative Research: Salinization of the Coastal Plain through Saltwater Intrusion - Landscapes in Transition along the Leading Edge of Climate Change

由于人为和自然因素的共同作用，海水正在渗透和影响依赖淡水的沿海景观。到本世纪末，由于海平面逐渐上升，美国南部沿海平原外缘地势较低的部分将大部分被咸水淹没。地表水和邻近土地的盐碱化可能导致受管理的生态系统的农作物和木材产量大幅减少，非受管理的生态系统的生态系统固碳显著下降，以及由于海藻提取土壤养分而导致沿海水质的退化。该项目将加强对影响地表水和邻近土地盐碱化的人类和自然耦合过程的了解。调查人员将建立和接触专家利益攸关方联盟，包括州和地方政府、区域规划团体、土地所有者和倡导组织的成员。与利益攸关方的伙伴关系将帮助研究人员确定沿海生态系统的现状，确定关键的知识差距，分享新的研究成果，并开发和探索未来的土地利用和气候情景。该项目将在沿海系统中产生具有预测价值的成果，利益攸关方很容易理解这些成果，同时代表气候、水文、土地利用和生态过程之间的复杂相互作用，并确定可利用成果加强沿海可持续性的途径。总之，这些活动将有助于指导在今后几十年到几个世纪内对该区域和受类似影响的区域进行可持续管理。其他更广泛的影响包括培训四名博士生从事跨越自然科学和社会科学的跨学科研究，让本科生参与指导研究体验，并通过支持早期职业调查人员和努力从代表不足的群体中招收学生，扩大代表不足的群体在科学领域的参与。该项目作为国家科学基金会海岸科学、工程和可持续发展教育计划-海岸SEES的一部分得到支持。该项目重点研究咸水入侵，即盐分从海岸向陆地移动到沿海平原。一个代表四个学科(水文学、生物地球化学、社区生态学、区域规划)的研究小组将把社会、水文、气候和生态数据整合到模型情景中，不仅研究人类的决策如何影响生态系统，而且还研究关于这些生态影响的信息如何反过来影响人类的决策。该项目将促进北卡罗来纳州Albemarle-Pamlico半岛咸水入侵脆弱性指数(SIVI)的开发、验证和完善，该指数考虑到影响整个景观以及从根本上改变整个地区水流的运河、沟渠、道路和泵站的广泛网络的实际环境过程。该指数将与对该地区一系列脆弱景观的地表水、土壤和植被状况的广泛和重复的地面调查一起使用，以更好地了解咸水入侵对生态的影响。通过为该区域的土地所有者、管理人员和其他利益攸关方举办讲习班和进行调查，该项目将揭示气候变化情景下土地使用决定对咸水入侵的可能影响。

Ocean waters are infiltrating and influencing freshwater-dependent coastal landscapes due to a combination of human and natural factors. By the end of this century, lower-lying parts of the outer edge of the Southern U.S. coastal plain will be largely inundated by saltwater due to gradual sea level rise. The salinization of surface waters and adjacent lands may lead to significant reductions in crop and timber yields in managed ecosystems, significant declines in ecosystem carbon sequestration in unmanaged ecosystems, and degradation of coastal water quality due to extraction of soil nutrients by seasalts. This project will enhance understanding of the coupled human and natural processes influencing salinization of surface waters and adjacent lands. Investigators will build and engage a coalition of expert stakeholders, including members of state and local governments, regional planning groups, landowners and advocacy organizations. Partnerships with stakeholders will help investigators define the current status of coastal ecosystems, identify critical knowledge gaps, share new research findings, and develop and explore future land use and climate scenarios. This project will yield outcomes with predictive value in coastal systems that are easily understood by stakeholders while representing complex interactions between climate, hydrology, land use, and ecological processes and identify pathways by which outcomes could be used to enhance coastal sustainability. Together, these activities will help guide sustainable management of this region and similarly affected regions over the next several decades to centuries. Additional broader impacts include training four Ph.D. students in interdisciplinary research that spans natural and social sciences, engaging undergraduate students in mentored research experiences, and broadening participation of underrepresented groups in the sciences by supporting early career investigators and working to recruit students from underrepresented groups. This project is supported as part of the National Science Foundation's Coastal Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability program - Coastal SEES.This project focuses on saltwater intrusion, the landward movement of salinity from the coast onto the coastal plain. A team of investigators representing four disciplines (hydrology, biogeochemistry, community ecology, regional planning) will integrate social, hydrological, climate and ecological data into model scenarios to examine not only how human decisions affect ecosystems but also how information about those ecological impacts in turn affect human decisions. This project will facilitate development, validation and refinement of a saltwater intrusion vulnerability index (SIVI) for the Albemarle-Pamlico peninsula of North Carolina that accounts for physical environmental processes influencing the movement of water and solutes across the landscape as well as the extensive networks of canals, ditches, roads and pump stations that fundamentally alter the flow of water across the region. The index will be used, along with extensive and repeated ground-based surveys of surface water, soil and vegetation conditions across a range of vulnerable landscapes within the region, to better understand ecological impacts of saltwater intrusion. Through workshops and surveys for landowners, managers and other stakeholders in the region, the project will reveal the likely impact of land-use decisions on saltwater intrusion under scenarios of climate change.