CAREER:Quantifying the response of rivers and floodplains to changes in climate and land use

深入了解河流如何应对气候和土地利用的变化，对于减少洪水的影响，设计和维护取水口和桥梁等结构，保护和恢复河流生态系统以及管理水资源至关重要。 这项研究是专门设计来量化河道和毗邻的洪泛区如何应对气候和土地利用的自然和人为变化。这个项目的教育方面是设计与正式的学习活动（康加里国家公园的实地考察、教育实验装置的设计和建造，以及在课程中引入有关可持续河流工程实践的新本科课程），利用协作学习教学法建立教育环境，学生学习如何在多元化、跨学科、国际集团。 这些教育方面的目标是培养下一代工程师解决与水资源管理有关的科学和专业问题。 非正式的学习活动，如为康加里国家公园创建互动数字平台和高中生夏令营，将使公众了解人类和气候变化可能对他们生活的环境产生的影响。该研究的主要科学目标是提高对河流形态动力学的认识，并能够定量预测在现场观察到的河道几何形状和格局的变化。 据推测，床料（砂或砾石）的运输方式和河流与漫滩之间的泥沙交换是控制河流地貌动力学的关键过程在空间尺度从几十到几百公里，在时间尺度从几十年到几个世纪。 这一假设将通过实验室实验进行验证，以深入了解沉积物粒度对河道形态的作用，通过数学建模提供基于物理的河流形态动力学定量工具，并通过实地考察来表征美国Congaree河国家公园Congaree河河段河道几何形状的年度变化。自18世纪以来，它一直在应对水文和土地利用的变化。 该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

A thorough understanding of how rivers respond to changes in climate and land use is fundamental to decrease impact from flooding, to design and maintain structures such as water intakes and bridges, to protect and restore river ecosystems, and to manage water resources in general. This research is specifically designed to quantify how river channels and the adjoining floodplains respond to natural and anthropogenic changes in climate and land use. Educational aspects of this project are designed with formal learning activities (field work at the Congaree National Park, design and construction of experimental installations for education, and the introduction of a new undergraduate level course on sustainable river engineering practices into the curriculum) to build an educational environment using collaborative learning pedagogy in which students learn how to work in a diverse, interdisciplinary, and international group. These education aspects are targeted to prepare the next generation of engineers to tackle scientific and professional problems associated with water resources management. Informal learning activities, such as the creation of an interactive digital platform for the Congaree National Park and summer camps for high school students, will inform the general public on the effects that humans and a changing climate can have on the environment in which they live in. The main scientific objective of the research is to advance knowledge on river morphodynamics, and enable quantitative prediction of changes in channel geometry and pattern observed in the field. It is hypothesized that the mode of bed material (sand or gravel) transport and the exchange of sediment between the river and the floodplain are key processes controlling river morphodynamics at spatial scales ranging from tens to hundreds of kilometers and at temporal scales ranging from a few decades to several centuries. This hypothesis will be tested with laboratory experiments to gain insight into the role of sediment grain size on channel morphology, mathematical modeling to provide physics-based quantitative tools on river morphodynamics, and fieldwork to characterize the annual variability of channel geometry on a reach of the Congaree River in the Congaree River National Park, USA, that has been responding to changes in hydrology and land use since the 1700s. Additional field sites that are being affected by human-induced changes in land use will also be considered.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.