Collaborative Research: Determining the eco-hydrogeologic response of tropical glacierized watersheds to climate change: An integrated data-model approach

最近冰川的迅速退缩，特别是在厄瓜多尔安第斯山脉等热带地区，提出了关于水资源的重要问题。 了解这些地区冰川退缩对供水的影响，可以揭示全球冰雪覆盖的山区流域未来的水安全威胁。 冰川是山脉的“水塔”：在潮湿时期储存冰，在干燥时期逐渐释放融水。然而，地下水含水层是否作为扩展水库，以及植物是否也吸收了大量的冰川融水仍然是悬而未决的问题。 这些不确定性使得很难预测山区流域未来供水的可靠性，因为冰川融化首先加速，然后最终消失，植物为了应对气温变暖而迁移到更高的海拔地区。 该项目将开发一个新的通用计算流域模型，该模型将纳入化学和同位素数据，用于追踪水流来源地区，并采用创新的低成本、开源环境监测技术进行测量。该模型的结果可以告知依赖冰雪覆盖的山区流域的河流排放的社区关于未来水资源脆弱性的现状，并随着冰川退缩的加速，可以促进适应战略。 冰川的消退将削弱它们调节河流流量及其变化的能力。对这种水文后果的研究通常将融水和地下水归类为径流的不同贡献者，但这过度简化了冰川、其底层地下水系统和生态水文途径之间潜在的复杂关系。研究人员建议在四个迅速变化的、冰川化的厄瓜多尔流域（钦博拉索火山和卡扬贝火山各两个）中使用综合数据模型方法评估这些关系。这项工作将产生一个新的同位素启用流域模型与反应性运输，数据同化将被引入，以条件不确定的模拟数据稀疏流域与强大的环境示踪剂。 用于测量模型输入数据的开源数据记录器和传感器将进一步推动对关键区过程的理解，从数据密集型站点到正在经历世界上最快速环境变化的偏远地区。 这项工作将揭示研究较少的火山范围，可能有助于更多的融水渗透通过其断裂的基岩，以及扩大现有的水源-该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的学术价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

Recent rapid glacier retreat, especially in tropical regions such as the Ecuadorian Andes, raises important questions about water resources. Understanding the current effects of glacier retreat on water supply in these regions can shed light on future water security threats in snow and ice-covered mountainous watersheds worldwide. Glaciers are the "water towers" of the mountains: they store ice during wet periods and gradually release meltwater during dry periods. However, whether groundwater aquifers serve as extended reservoirs and whether plants also take up significant glacial meltwater remain unresolved questions. These uncertainties make it difficult to predict the future reliability of water supply in mountainous watersheds, as glacier melt first accelerates and then eventually disappears, and as plants move to higher elevations in response to warming temperatures. This project will develop a new and general computational watershed model that will incorporate chemical and isotopic data for tracing water flow source regions, as well as measurements from innovative low-cost, open-source environmental monitoring technologies. Results from the model can inform communities that rely on stream discharge from ice and snow-covered mountainous watersheds about present with regard to future water resources vulnerabilities, and can facilitate adaptation strategies as glacier retreat accelerates. The recession of glaciers will curtail their ability to modulate river discharge and its variability. Studies of this hydrologic consequence typically classify meltwater and groundwater as distinct contributors to streamflow, but this oversimplifies the potentially complex relationships among glaciers, their underlying groundwater systems, and ecohydrologic pathways. The investigators propose to assess these relationships using an integrated data-model approach in four rapidly changing, glacierized Ecuadorian watersheds, two each at Volcán Chimborazo and Volcán Cayambe. This work will produce a new isotope-enabled watershed model with reactive transport, to which data assimilation will be introduced in order to condition uncertain simulations in data-sparse watersheds with robust environmental tracers. Open-source data loggers and sensors for measuring model input data will further advance critical-zone process understanding beyond data-intensive sites to remote settings that are undergoing some of the most rapid environmental change in the world. This work will shed light on less-studied volcanic ranges that potentially facilitate greater infiltration of meltwater through their fractured bedrock, as well as expand the established water-resources focus on glacier retreat to also consider vegetation shift when examining the hydrologic response of glacierized mountainous watersheds to glacier retreat.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.