Collaborative Research: NSFGEO-NERC: Aeolian dust responses to regional ecosystem change

全球旱地的风蚀和粉尘排放影响生态系统健康、农业生产和粮食安全、人类健康和气候。尽管对风蚀和沙尘排放如何发生以及它们如何影响地球大气和人口进行了广泛的研究，但对于这些过程发生在不同的生态系统中的地点、时间和原因，或者地球生态系统的变化如何随着时间的推移影响不同地点的速率，人们知之甚少。了解这些相互作用对于土地管理者确定哪里可能存在风蚀和扬尘问题，并采取行动长期可持续地管理农业和生态系统非常重要。这项研究将研究由于人类干扰、干旱、火灾和入侵植物物种而在整个北美发生的不同类型的生态系统变化如何影响风蚀和粉尘排放的速度。这项研究将促进美国和英国研究人员之间的国际合作，作为NSF/GEO-UK NERC项目的一部分。它将产生支持北美旱地管理的新信息，并将为K-12学生提供教育材料，并为未被充分代表的本科生和研究生提供科学培训。这项研究将建立风蚀粉尘排放对北美地区生态系统变化的响应，这些变化由三种扰动机制引起：1)大量离散的、小范围(10公顷)的、与能源(石油和天然气)开发相关的突然生态系统变化；2)离散的、大范围(1000公顷)的、与火相关的突然生态变化和促进入侵草地和改变火风侵蚀制度的生态反馈；(3)荒漠草原灌木入侵引起的大范围(1000公顷)弥漫的普遍生态系统变化。将使用遥感和大尺度标准化生态数据集驱动的新的风沙(风生)输沙模型来解决区域生态系统变化对风蚀和沙尘排放的影响。这些模型将使用美国国家风蚀研究网络网站的数据进行校准，然后应用于探索北美各地的粉尘排放模式。将使用国家生态数据集来分析驱动因素，并解释不同干扰制度下区域生态系统变化的粉尘排放响应。这项研究将极大地提高我们对沙尘循环和生态系统变化的人为驱动因素之间的耦合的理解。该项目由地貌学和土地利用动态计划、生态系统科学计划和既定的激励竞争研究计划(EPSCoR)联合资助。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Wind erosion and dust emissions from global drylands impact ecosystem health, agricultural production and food security, human health and climate. Despite extensive study of how wind erosion and dust emission occur, and how they affect Earth's atmosphere and human populations, little is known about where, when, and why the processes take place across different ecosystems, or how changes to Earth's ecosystems influence their rates at different locations over time. Understanding these interactions is important for land managers to identify where wind erosion and blowing dust may be a problem and act to sustainably manage agriculture and ecosystems over the long term. This research will examine how different types of ecosystem change occurring across North America due to human disturbances, drought, fire and invasive plant species impact rates of wind erosion and dust emission. The research will promote international collaboration among researchers in the United States and United Kingdom as part of a NSF/GEO-UK NERC project. It will produce new information that supports management of North American drylands and will generate educational materials for K-12 students and provide scientific training to underrepresented undergraduate and graduate students.The research will establish wind erosion dust emission responses to regional ecosystem changes across North America due to three disturbance regimes: 1) numerous discrete, small scale (10 ha), abrupt ecosystem changes associated with energy (oil and gas) development; 2) discrete, large scale (1000 ha), abrupt ecosystem change associated with fire and ecological feedbacks that promote invasive grasses and altered fire-wind erosion regimes; and 3) diffuse, large scale (1000 ha), pervasive ecosystem changes associated with sustained shrub invasion of desert grasslands. New aeolian (wind-driven) sediment transport models driven by remote-sensing and broad-scale standardized ecological datasets will be used to resolve the impacts of the regional ecosystem changes on wind erosion and dust emission. The models will be calibrated using data from US National Wind Erosion Research Network sites, then applied to explore patterns of dust emission across North America. National ecological datasets will be used to analyze the drivers and interpret dust emission responses to regional ecosystem changes across the disturbance regimes. The research will significantly improve our understanding of the coupling between the dust cycle and anthropogenic drivers of ecosystem change. This project is jointly funded by the Geomorphology and Land-use Dynamics Program, the Ecosystem Science Program, and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).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.