Collaborative Research: Community Facility Support: Centers for Transformative Environmental Monitoring Programs (CTEMPs)

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Support under this grant will allow for: 1) continued provision of high resolution temperature sensing equipment to the geosciences community using a recently expanded fiber optic-based distributed temperature sensing (DTS) instrument pool; 2) development and promotion of the use of actively heated optical fiber sensing for the measurement of soil moisture and fluid flux, 3) support to the earth science community users of small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) with both instrumentation and mission training and 4) development of innovative environmental sensor systems that leverage 3-D printing, contemporary sensors and micro-processors, as well as ubiquitous wireless communication. The Center for Transformative Environmental Monitoring Programs (CTEMPs) facility will offer hands-on training and knowledge dissemination, through its formal designation as a Consortium for the Advancement of the Hydrologic Sciences (CUAHSI) Hydrologic Measurement Facility (HMF) Node and formal agreements with CUAHSI to promote two hands-on workshops per year as well as training on both the OSU and UNR campuses. Outreach will also include mission training services for earth sciences users of unmanned aircraft through UNR's Systems Integration Laboratory, and extensive workshops and hackathons to develop a strategy to support dissemination of novel sensing systems to expand the impact of the OPEnS Lab. This support is congruent with NSFs mission of promoting the progress of science and advancing the national health, prosperity and welfare given the societal relevance of targeted research aimed at understanding global and regional water cycles and climate change impacts with implications for improved water resource management and the impact of the acquisition on training the next generation scientific workforce. This grant provides operational facility support for a collaborative effort between Oregon State University (PI: Selker) and the University of Nevada Reno (PI: Tyler) to allow for continued/evolving operations over the next four year of CTEMPs. CTEMPs offers community support for 1) planning, training, equipment loan and field implementation using fiber optic Raman backscatter Distributed Temperature Sensing (DTS); 2) planning and training for sUAS equipment and missions; and 3) Earth Science community engagement in the development of innovative sensor systems that leverage 3-D printing, contemporary sensors and micro-processors, as well as ubiquitous wireless communication through the a new arm of CTEMPs called the "Openly Published Environmental Sensing (OPEnS)" Lab. DTS allows for unprecedented observation of the spatial and temporal distribution of temperature for geoscience and environmental applications including but not limited to, snow, groundwater and watershed hydrology, aquatic and terrestrial ecology, karst geology, soil science (including permafrost studies), physical limnology and oceanography, micrometeorology and glaciology. High resolution DTS systems allow for high spatial (= 0.25 m) and high accuracy (precision to 0.02 oC) observations of river bottom, lake, or estuary bottom, snow pack, soil horizon or atmospheric temperatures over length scales from 0.25 to 10,000 m at high temporal frequency (1 Hz). When placed in a stream or river, fiber optic DTS allows for observation of the location, temperature, and flux of each groundwater inflow, calculation of an exact heat budget to determine hyporheic exchange, and observation of micro-thermal habitats critical to successful larval fish recruitment. CTEMPs DTS systems have been deployed on NSF-funded research projects located on all seven continents and continue to be in demand for hydrologic and earth science field campaigns. Unmanned aircraft support has included photogrammetry, thermal and hyperspectral remote sensing, and future efforts will focus on community training and support. The advent of robust, low-cost sensors, micro-processors, and wireless communication makes possible transformative earth sensing systems, but requires technical expertise that is not common in the earth sciences. Building on a track record of 25 successful projects, OSU will explore the institutionalization of the community infrastructure in the CTEMPs-OPEnS Lab. CTEMPs-OPEnS will explore how to integrate central technical capabilities and outreach to the earth science communities to accelerate the dissemination and application of transformative measurement systems.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.