SG: Can green infrastructure maximize ecosystem processes related to nitrogen?

SG：绿色基础设施能否最大化与氮相关的生态系统过程？

• 批准号: 2006308
• 负责人: Jennifer Follstad Shah
• 金额: $ 19.98万
• 依托单位: University of Utah
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-05-01 至 2024-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2006308&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SG; green; infrastructure; maximize; ecosystem

Nitrogen pollution causes many environmental and human health problems. These include harmful algal blooms, acid rain and smog. In cities, fossil fuel burning and fertilizer application add large amounts of nitrogen to stormwater. City infrastructure carries stormwater downstream, which may pollute downstream ecosystems with excess nitrogen. Nature-based designs that use ecological processes to remove nitrogen from stormwater may provide a solution. These green infrastructure designs are popular in cities globally. Questions remain, however, about their effectiveness. Should green infrastructure design mimic natural ecosystems as closely as possible? Or can new combinations of soils and species more effectively mitigate pollution? This research will seek answers to these questions by studying several types of stormwater management facilities in Salt Lake City, UT. Results from this research will provide useful guidance to the design of stormwater management systems. It also has the potential to advance fundamental understanding of the nitrogen cycle. Researchers will also conduct extensive public outreach and educational activities to highlight the importance of ecological processes in urban spaces.The scientific community currently lacks a theoretical framework to guide design of ecosystems that maximize nitrogen retention. This is due largely to the complexity of nitrogen cycling in ecosystems. The researchers propose to quantify the relative influence of two key paradigms of ecosystem science on nitrogen retention: biodiversity-ecosystem function and thermodynamic ecological stoichiometry. The project will involve quantifying rates of nitrogen retention processes (microbial & plant uptake, plant biomass and soil nitrogen accumulation, and permanent gaseous removal) over event-scale and seasonal-scale in two sets of replicated stormwater management experimental facilities, as well as replicate plots in an adjacent natural area. The first experimental facility includes nine plots planted with three levels of plant functional diversity. The second includes eight plots with two levels of plant community composition: ornamental vs. native, xeric-adapted species. Researchers hypothesize that plots with high plant diversity and/or xeric-adapted traits will have higher nitrogen retention if physiological traits related to rapid resource acquisition are an important driver of nitrogen cycling. Further, researchers hypothesize that variation in microbial community diversity across plots and over time following plot establishment will correlate with higher nitrogen immobilization and denitrification if biodiversity is an important driver of these processes. Conversely, if biodiversity is not an important driver of ecosystem scale nitrogen fluxes, we expect to find retention rates follow thermodynamic and stoichiometric models without significant variation across plant communities.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.

氮污染导致许多环境和人类健康问题。这些包括有害的藻类水华、酸雨和烟雾。在城市中，化石燃料燃烧和化肥的施用给雨水增加了大量的氮。城市基础设施将雨水带到下游，这可能会用过量的氮污染下游生态系统。基于自然的设计，利用生态过程来去除雨水中的氮，可能会提供一个解决方案。这些绿色基础设施设计在全球城市中很受欢迎。然而，关于其有效性的问题仍然存在。绿色基础设施设计是否应尽可能模仿自然生态系统？或者新的土壤和物种组合能更有效地减轻污染吗？本研究将通过研究犹他湖城的几种雨水管理设施来寻求这些问题的答案。研究结果将为雨水管理系统的设计提供有益的指导。它也有可能促进对氮循环的基本理解。研究人员还将开展广泛的公众宣传和教育活动，以强调生态过程在城市空间中的重要性。科学界目前缺乏一个理论框架来指导生态系统的设计，以最大限度地提高氮的保留。 这主要是由于生态系统中氮循环的复杂性。研究人员建议量化生态系统科学的两个关键范式对氮保留的相对影响：生物多样性生态系统功能和热力学生态化学计量学。该项目将涉及在两套复制的雨水管理实验设施以及相邻自然区的复制地块中，量化事件规模和季节规模的氮保留过程（微生物植物吸收，植物生物量和土壤氮积累以及永久性气体去除）的速率。第一个实验设施包括九个地块种植三个水平的植物功能多样性。第二个包括8个地块，两个层次的植物群落组成：观赏与本地，旱适应物种。 研究人员假设，如果与快速资源获取相关的生理特性是氮循环的重要驱动力，则具有高植物多样性和/或耐旱适应特性的地块将具有更高的氮保留。此外，研究人员假设，如果生物多样性是这些过程的重要驱动因素，那么随着时间的推移，地块之间和地块建立后微生物群落多样性的变化将与更高的氮固定和反硝化作用相关。相反，如果生物多样性不是生态系统尺度氮通量的重要驱动因素，我们预计会发现保留率遵循热力学和化学计量模型，而不会在植物群落中发生显著变化。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得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来支持。

项目成果

Ethical considerations of urban ecological design and planning experiments

城市生态设计与规划实验的伦理考量

• DOI: 10.1002/ppp3.10204
• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: PLANET
• 作者: Pataki, Diane E.;Santana, Carlos G.;Hinners, Sarah J.;Felson, Alexander J.;Engebretson, Jesse
• 通讯作者: Engebretson, Jesse

The Wasatch Environmental Observatory: A mountain to urban research network in the semi‐arid western US

瓦萨奇环境观测站：美国半干旱西部山区到城市的研究网络

• DOI: 10.1002/hyp.14352
• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: Hydrological Processes
• 影响因子: 3.2
• 作者: Follstad Shah, Jennifer J.;Bares, Ryan;Bowen, Brenda B.;Bowen, Gabriel J.;Bowling, David R.;Eiriksson, David P.;Fasoli, Benjamin;Fiorella, Richard P.;Hallar, Anna Gannet;Hinners, Sarah J.
• 通讯作者: Hinners, Sarah J.