Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for the Global Environment Nutrient Network (GEN-2)

工程研究中心规划拨款竞赛是ERC项目的试点征集。规划补助金不需要作为ERC竞赛的一部分，但它旨在在团队之间建立能力，以规划聚合的、中心规模的工程研究。包括氮(N)和磷(P)在内的水生营养物污染对人类和生态系统都构成了生存威胁。它的影响遍及整个海岸和世界各地，包括溪流、河流和沿海海洋中的有毒藻类大量繁殖，海洋缺氧和酸化，内陆和沿海渔业的损失，以及造成环境温度升高的强效温室气体的产生。的吗?三个R s ?减少：减少能量(N)和食物（N和P）生产过程中释放的养分；去除：在产生和使用后，保留P并将生物可利用的N反硝化为N2气体；和回收：从废物流中捕获和再利用N和P。环境工程师在开发从废物流中去除和回收营养物质的处理系统方面取得了巨大进展。下一个前沿是优化流域到大陆尺度的处理系统网络，同时考虑到：(1)所有三个R？S（不仅仅是移除和恢复）；(2)陆地植被、湿地和河流廊道（即河流及其相关的河岸和潜流带）的自然衰减；(3)生态系统对养分负荷的非线性响应。在这笔拨款中，我们将开展规划练习和三个研讨会，目标是建立一个融合工程研究中心（C-ERC）来应对这些重大挑战。我们的NSF C-ERC将建立在一个计算平台（GEN-2）上，该平台汇集了工程师、水文学家、海洋学家、生态学家、经济学家、政治学家、教育专家和广泛的利益相关者，以寻求从大陆到全球范围内营养污染的实际解决方案。通过规划练习和三个研讨会，我们将选择和完善我们的：(1)学者、学习者和利益相关者团队；(2)研究问题与方法；（三）教育和宣传活动；(4)促进团队成员深度协作所需的领导结构和分析工具；(5)如何确保工程教育和少数族裔的招聘/包容？在DNA里？我们所做的一切；(6)评估本中心的分析工具？s的影响。我们的规划产品将以边界组织理论为依据，由不同的高素质学者（包括来自11所大学和3个国家的23名研究人员）组成四个互补的团队共同制作。分水岭小组将开发GEN-2，并确保其与其他大陆尺度建模框架无缝集成，吸收实时和历史数据，并推进下一代水质观测网络的设计。海洋小组将利用现有的区域海洋模型来评估陆基营养源和自然海洋学过程（如营养物上涌）对沿海海洋水质的相对重要性。政策小组将通过成本效益分析、行为经济学（使用随机试验来评估拟议干预措施的长期效果）和政治学（使用案例研究来发现可能促进管理转型的治理创新）来评估营养物污染的可能解决方案。最后，社会团队将利用NSF I-Corps原则来阐明目标和？痛点?建立一个由学习者、学者和利益相关者组成的包容性生态系统，反映更广泛社区的人口构成。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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。

The Planning Grants for Engineering Research Centers competition was run as a pilot solicitation within the ERC program. Planning grants are not required as part of the full ERC competition, but intended to build capacity among teams to plan for convergent, center-scale engineering research.Aquatic nutrient pollution, including nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P), poses an existential threat to both humans and ecosystems. Its impacts, which are felt coast-to-coast and around the world, include noxious algal blooms in streams, rivers and the coastal ocean, ocean hypoxia and acidification, loss of inland and coastal fisheries, and the production of potent greenhouse gases that disproportionately contribute to an increase in temperature in the environment. The ?Three R?s? for mitigating aquatic nutrient pollution are: Reduction: decrease nutrient released during the production of energy (N) and food (N and P); Removal: retain P and denitrify bioavailable N to N2 gas following its creation and use; and Recovery: capture and reuse N and P from waste streams. Environmental engineers have made great strides in developing treatment systems for the removal and recovery of nutrients from waste streams. The next frontier lies in optimizing networks of treatment systems at the watershed-to-continental scale while taking into account: (1) all three R?s (not just removal and recovery); (2) natural attenuation by terrestrial vegetation, wetlands, and stream corridors (i.e., the stream and associated riparian and hyporheic zones); and (3) the non-linear responses of ecosystems to nutrient loading. In this grant we will carry out planning exercises and three workshops with the goal of developing a Convergent Engineering Research Center (C-ERC) to address these grand challenges. Our NSF C-ERC will be founded on a computational platform (GEN-2) that brings together engineers, hydrologists, oceanographers, ecologists, economists, political scientists, education experts, and a broad cross-section of stakeholders, in pursuit of practical solutions to nutrient pollution at continental-to-global scales.Through planning exercises and three workshops we will select and refine our: (1) team of scholars, learners, and stakeholders; (2) research questions and approaches; (3) educational and outreach activities; (4) leadership structure and analytical tools needed to promote deep collaboration among team members; (5) approach for ensuring that engineering education and under-represented minority recruitment/inclusion is ?in the DNA? of everything we do; and (6) analytical tools for assessing the Center?s impact. Our planning products will be informed by boundary organization theory, and co-produced by a diverse group of highly qualified scholars (including 23 researchers across 11 universities and three countries) working in four complementary teams. The Watershed Team will develop GEN-2 and assure that it seamlessly integrates with other continental-scale modeling frameworks, assimilates real-time and historical data, and advances the design of next generation water quality observational networks. The Ocean Team will utilize existing regional ocean models to evaluate the relative importance of land-based nutrient sources and natural oceanographic processes (such as nutrient upwelling) on coastal ocean water quality. The Policy Team will evaluate possible solutions to nutrient pollution through the lens of cost-benefit analysis, behavioral economics (using randomized trials to evaluate the long-term efficacy of proposed interventions), and political science (using case studies to uncover governance innovations likely to facilitate management transitions). Finally, the Society Team will utilize NSF I-Corps principles to elucidate goals and ?pain points? of stakeholders and foster an inclusive ecosystem of learners, scholars, and stakeholders that reflects the demographic make-up of the broader community.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.