Network Cluster CINet: Critical Interface Network in Intensively Managed Landscapes

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Agricultural lands throughout the world are intensively managed to achieve high levels of crop production. In the US Midwest, intensive management includes frequent working of the soil through tillage, widespread application of fertilizers, and efforts to improve the flow of water off of flat, poorly drained fields by installing pipes within the soil and by enlarging streams. Although these activities enhance crop production, over time they induce changes that can degrade the environmental quality of soil and water, not only locally but far downstream. Sustaining agricultural production while protecting environmental quality depends on an understanding of how natural processes are linked with intensive landscape management. This project seeks to advance understanding of important elements that act as “Critical Interfaces” and play important roles in regulating hydrological, biological, ecological, geological, and chemical processes on which agricultural production and environmental quality depend. Important critical interfaces examined in the project include the soil surface, the root zone in the soil, and river corridors. The project examines the extent to which these critical interfaces are interconnected and control the response of the environment. Using a network of observational sites across the US Midwest having different climates, topography, geologic history, and other landscape attributes, this project will provide a comprehensive understanding of how various components of intensively managed landscapes function together to influence, and be influenced by, high levels of agricultural production. The outcomes of this research will provide basic knowledge and new predictive capabilities for developing sustainable and resilient agro-ecosystems. The project will contribute to society by developing a strong STEM workforce that can tackle multidisciplinary issues, establishing programs to engage community members in critical zone science, communicating results to the public, and facilitating venues for professional development and certifications, and working with citizen groups and stakeholders to communicate findings and gather feedback throughout the course of the project.Critical zone dynamics in intensively managed landscapes (IMLs) do not operate uniformly over time and space. They are intermittent and concentrated at critical interfaces (CIs) of exceptional importance for regulating material (i.e., water, sediment, carbon and nutrients) storage, transport and transformations. The central hypothesis of this research is that the dynamics of critical interfaces exert disproportionately large control on the overall dynamics of critical zones at the landscape scale; and since these critical interfaces are undergoing rapid and co-evolutionary transition due to human and weather stressors across spatial and temporal scales, they constitute the most limiting elements for predictive understanding to guide sustainable management of IMLs. Using a network of observational sites across key environmental gradients, with novel data analytic and integrated modeling approaches, this project will advance understanding of critical interfaces individually as well as their interdependencies to overcome predictability bottlenecks of hydrobiogeochemical phenomena and their trajectories in IMLs from the small scale to the landscape scale, and from the event time scale to seasonal, inter-annual and decadal time scales. The study focuses on three interfaces that are strongly influenced by human action: the near-land surface, the active root zone, and the stream corridor. The project leverages existing infrastructure and knowledge from a network of sites in the glaciated parts of US Midwest and outer reaches of the upper Mississippi River basin, as well as critical zone international networks. The sites, which include CZOs, LTARs and the Great Rivers Ecological Observation Network, incorporate a wide range of geologic, weather, soil, land use and geomorphologic gradients. Synthesis of this work will offer new predictive capability to earthcast critical zone dynamics across the globe to advance convergent research of the human influence on life-sustaining resources and improve our ability to significantly reduce predictive uncertainty and advance environmental sustainability goals. In collaboration with the National Great Rivers Research and Education Center, a program of Lewis and Clark Community College in Godfrey, Illinois, the project will further provide training and education for postdoctoral associates, undergraduate and graduate students, community-college students, and high-school teachers, while engaging stakeholders and members of the broader communities. This project is jointly funded by the Critical Zone Collaborative Network, Geobiology and Low-Temperature Geochemistry, Hydrologic Sciences, and Geomorphology and Land-Use Dynamics programs in the Division of Earth Sciences.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.