COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: RAPID 2017 Hurricane Irma: How do the effects of pulse disturbance vary with abiotic conditions, disturbance history, and proximity to a transition zone.

合作研究：RAPID 2017 年飓风艾尔玛：脉冲扰动的影响如何随非生物条件、扰动历史以及与过渡区的接近程度而变化。

• 批准号: 1803166
• 负责人: Christine Hladik
• 金额: $ 2.59万
• 依托单位: Georgia Southern University Research and Service Foundation, Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-11-15 至 2018-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1803166&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: COLLABORATIVE; RESEARCH; RAPID; 2017; Hurricane

Storm surge is often considered the greatest threat to life and property associated with a hurricane. Studies of the ecosystem effects of storm surge often focus on exposed coastal areas such as beaches. However, the upstream delivery of salt water can have long-lasting effects and can result in the decline of valuable freshwater tidal areas, which provide habitat to fish and wildlife, protect and improve water quality, and store floodwaters. This is especially important given the fact that these areas are already facing potential loss due to upstream salt water intrusion as a result of sea level rise. Hurricane Irma, which passed over the US on Sept. 11, 2017, caused the highest storm surge ever recorded on the central Georgia coast and resulted in salt water moving much further upstream than usual. The NSF-sponsored Georgia Coastal Ecosystems Long Term Ecological Research Project (GCE-LTER) has long-term experiments and monitoring programs that provide "before" data and a context for understanding the effects of this event. The investigators anticipate that the salt water delivered by the storm surge will affect multiple components of intertidal wetland ecosystems, including plants, animals, water chemistry, and soil surface elevation. The results of this research will be shared with coastal managers through the Georgia Coastal Research Council and the Georgia Coastal Hazards Community of Practice. The LTER researchers will also host K-12 teachers as part of the GCE Schoolyard Program and work with them to use this experience in the classroom.Understanding the effects of disturbances like Hurricane Irma is difficult because they are hard to manipulate experimentally and can act differently on different parts of the landscape. The investigators hypothesize that: 1) the effects of the storm surge will be greater in upstream as opposed to downstream areas, with the greatest effects and longest recovery times in tidal fresh sites; 2) areas that have had previous exposure to salt water will show greater effects based on their history; and 3) changes will be more likely in areas that are at the borders between different wetland habitats (i.e. the edge between salt marsh and brackish marsh plants). They will test these hypotheses by 1) augmenting sampling of the GCE-LTER wetland monitoring sites, which are distributed along and extend inland from the central Georgia Coast; 2) taking advantage of an ongoing GCE-LTER field experiment to determine how prior saline disturbance treatments affect responses to the hurricane storm surge; and 3) collecting aerial imagery that will allow them to look at landscape level shifts in vegetation type compared to pre-storm maps, and doing additional sampling in pre-established transitional plots. The LTER researchers speculate that rare but severe events like this storm are the major occasions that re-set the distribution of habitats in these valuable intertidal wetlands.

风暴潮通常被认为是对与飓风相关的生命和财产的最大威胁。暴风雨激增的生态系统影响的研究通常集中在裸露的沿海地区，例如海滩。但是，盐水的上游输送可能会产生持久的影响，并可能导致有价值的淡水潮汐地区下降，这些地区为捕鱼和野生动植物提供了栖息地，保护和改善水质，并储存洪水。考虑到由于海平面上升，这些地区已经面临上游盐水的侵入，这一点尤其重要。飓风艾尔玛（Irma）于2017年9月11日越过美国，导致佐治亚州中部沿海有史以来最高的风暴潮，导致盐水比平时更大。由NSF赞助的佐治亚州沿海生态系统长期生态研究项目（GCE-ter）具有长期实验和监测计划，可提供“之前”数据和了解该事件效果的环境。调查人员预计，风暴潮提供的盐水将影响潮间湿地生态系统的多个组成部分，包括植物，动物，水化学和土壤表面升高。这项研究的结果将通过佐治亚州沿海研究委员会和佐治亚州沿海危害社区与沿海经理共享。 LTER研究人员还将接待K-12教师作为GCE校园计划的一部分，并与他们合作在课堂上使用这种经验。理解诸如飓风Irma之类的干扰效果很难实现实验性操纵，并且可以在景观的不同部分上采取不同的行动。 研究人员假设：1）在上游而不是下游地区，风暴潮的影响将更大，在潮汐新鲜地点的影响最大，恢复时间最长； 2）以前接触过盐水的区域将根据其历史而显示出更大的影响； 3）在不同湿地栖息地（即盐沼和咸沼泽植物之间的边缘）之间的边界区域的变化更有可能。他们将通过1）提高沿佐治亚州中部海岸的内陆并延伸的GCE-lter湿地监测地点的采样来检验这些假设； 2）利用正在进行的GCE范围实验实验来确定先前的盐水干扰如何影响对飓风风暴潮的反应； 3）收集航空影像，使他们可以查看植被类型的景观水平与预先策略的地图相比，并在预先建立的过渡地块中进行额外的采样。批量研究人员推测，像这场风暴这样的罕见但严重的事件是重新设置这些有价值的潮间带湿地中栖息地分布的主要场合。