ABI Development: Building advanced numerical simulation technology for the lake ecology community

地球上有数百万个湖泊，其中许多用于娱乐，渔业和旅游业。为了有效地管理这些湖泊，资源管理者和科学家必须能够重建和预测复杂的物理，化学和生物相互作用。计算机模型是将观测数据转化为可用输出的一种手段，可以重现历史变化，并为湖泊和水库管理提供信息。还可以测试未来景观和大气变化的情景，以提供水质预测。使用开源计算机模型，来自世界各地的科学家和管理人员，教室里的学生以及湖泊协会可以可视化复杂的物理和生物数据，并传达环境变化的相关性。该项目将把已被科学和管理应用专家使用的通用湖泊模型-水生生态动力学（GLM-AED）模型开发成强大、易于使用的软件，以满足更广泛的生态社区对研究、教育的需求和推广。目前，由于设置和运行GLM-AED模拟需要投入过多的时间，因此培训和采用之间存在差距。该项目将通过开发新的文档和数据集、教程和用户工具以及模块开发和多平台测试工具来克服这些障碍。GLM-AED的开发将与两项研究计划相联系，这两项研究计划将展示GLM-AED如何促进我们对湖泊和水库的生物学理解。这两个奖项分别是对北美大陆湖冰持续时间的建模，以及对美国中西部和东北部一系列湖泊磷滞留的建模。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并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，被认为值得支持。

There are millions of lakes on Earth, many of which are used for recreation, fisheries, and tourism. To effectively manage these lakes, resource managers and scientists must be able to recreate and predict complex physical, chemical, and biological interactions. Computer models are a means of transforming observational data into useable output that recreates historical changes and informs lake and reservoir management. Future scenarios of landscape and atmospheric changes can also be tested to provide forecasting of water quality. Using an open-source computer model, scientists and managers from around the world, students in the classroom, and lake-associations can visualize complex physical and biological data and communicate the relevance of environmental change. This project will develop the General Lake Model-Aquatic EcoDynamics (GLM-AED) model, which has been used by specialists in science and management applications, into robust, easy to use software that meets the demands of the broader ecological community for research, education, and outreach. Currently there is a gap between training and adoption, due to the excessive time investment needed to setup and run a GLM-AED simulation. This project will overcome these obstacles by developing new documentation and datasets, tutorials, and user tools, as well as module development and a multi-platform test harness. GLM-AED development will be linked to two research initiatives that showcase how GLM-AED can advance our biological understanding of lakes and reservoirs. These are the modeling of lake ice duration across the continent of North America, and modeling of phosphorus retention across a series of lakes in the Midwest and Northeast of the United States.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.