Aquifers, Science, and Spatial Imaginaries

尽管含水层在二十世纪基本上不在公众视野之内，但随着各国政府投入大量资源进行科学研究并试验新的治理模式，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浮现出来。这个跨学科的研究项目调查，随着含水层获得更多的公众关注，地球表面以上的社会生活如何与其下面的物质世界相交。该项目的中心研究问题是，当含水层在公共领域占据突出位置时，地下空间想象是如何变化的。随着水成为全球最濒危的资源之一，政策制定者和专家越来越认识到让当地参与者参与含水层保护的紧迫性。然而，他们关于这些参与者是谁以及他们如何概念化含水层的想法往往假定是对人类经验的单一问题的表述。这项研究包括纵向的、人种学的和多模式的研究，研究关于含水层的科学知识的增加如何重塑地表和地下之间的关系，以及重塑财产和环境责任之间的法律和文化关系。该项目调查了最近制定的两项参与性含水层管理计划，重点是当地居民、业主和公务员为执行这些计划所做的工作。具体而言，该项目(1)确定在参与性含水层管理计划中传播的科学思想；(2)记录日常公民如何了解空间特征(地表和地下)；(3)绘制项目图，参与者通过这些项目履行保护含水层的责任；(4)确定保护含水层的要求与参与者持有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，而不仅仅是等待开采的水量。在方法上，该项目结合了人种学研究、数据可视化技术和协作地图绘制。此外，该项目还为初级学者提供科学培训和专业指导。这一奖项反映了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。

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.