Aquifers, Science, and Spatial Imaginaries

含水层、科学和空间想象

• 批准号: 2043785
• 负责人: Andrea Ballestero
• 金额: $ 45.56万
• 依托单位: William Marsh Rice University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-04-01 至 2021-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2043785&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Aquifers; Science; Spatial; Imaginaries

Despite remaining largely out of public view during the twentieth century, aquifers are emerging from their relative obscurity as governments invest considerable resources in scientific research and experiment with new governance models to face the looming global water crisis. This interdisciplinary research project investigates how, as aquifers gain more public attention, social life above the surface of the Earth intersects with the material world below it. The projects’ central research question examines how spatial imaginaries of the underground change when aquifers acquire a prominent place in the public sphere. With water becoming one of the most endangered resources globally, policy makers and experts increasingly understand the urgency of engaging local actors in aquifer protection. However, their ideas of who those actors are and how they conceptualize aquifers often assume single-issue representations of human experience. This project counterbalances those representations by investigating aquifers as spatial formations laden with cultural meaning.This research consists of a longitudinal, ethnographic, and multi-modal study of how increased circulation of scientific knowledge about aquifers recasts the relations between surface and subsurface, and reshapes the legal and cultural relations between property and environmental responsibility. The project investigates two recently created participatory aquifer management plans and focuses on the work that local residents, property owners, and public servants do to implement them. Specifically, the project (1) identifies the scientific ideas that circulate through participatory aquifer management plans, (2) documents how everyday citizens understand spatial features (surface and subsurface), (3) maps the projects through which participants enact their responsibility to protect aquifers, and (4) identifies the points of friction and the complementarities between demands to protect aquifers and the surface-based notions of property that participants hold. The project develops theoretical resources to conceptualize aquifers as more than water quantities waiting to be extracted. Methodologically, the project combines ethnographic research, data visualization techniques, and collaborative maping. Additionally, the project supports junior scholars with scientific training and professional mentoring.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.

尽管在20世纪，含水层基本上处于公众视野之外，但随着各国政府投入大量资源进行科学研究，并尝试新的治理模式，以应对迫在眉睫的全球水危机，含水层正在从相对默默无闻的状态中脱颖而出。这个跨学科的研究项目探讨了随着含水层越来越受到公众的关注，地球表面上的社会生活如何与地下的物质世界相交。该项目的中心研究问题探讨了当含水层在公共领域获得突出地位时，地下空间的变化。随着水成为全球最濒危的资源之一，决策者和专家越来越认识到让当地行为者参与含水层保护的紧迫性。然而，他们关于谁是这些行为者以及他们如何将含水层概念化的想法往往假定人类经验的单一问题。该项目通过调查含水层作为充满文化意义的空间结构来平衡这些表述，该研究包括一个纵向的、人种学的和多模式的研究，探讨有关含水层的科学知识的流通如何重塑地表和地下之间的关系，重塑财产和环境责任之间的法律的和文化关系。该项目调查了两个最近创建的参与式含水层管理计划，并重点关注当地居民，业主和公务员为实施这些计划所做的工作。具体而言，该项目（1）确定了通过参与式含水层管理计划传播的科学思想，（2）记录了日常公民如何理解空间特征（3）绘制项目图，参与者通过这些项目履行其保护含水层的责任，以及（4）确定保护含水层的要求与参与方所持的基于地表的财产概念之间的摩擦点和互补性。该项目开发了理论资源，将含水层概念化，使其不仅仅是等待抽取的水量。在方法上，该项目结合了民族志研究，数据可视化技术和协作绘图。此外，该项目还为初级学者提供科学培训和专业指导。该奖项反映了NSF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。