MSA: Integrating multi-scale remote sensing and mechanistic modeling to assess riparian ecosystem dynamics and feedbacks to hydroclimate variability

森林覆盖的河流和溪流生态系统提供关键的水和碳服务、生物栖息地和娱乐活动。这些生态系统在时间和空间上都是动态的，以应对气候、水流、水管理和生物入侵的变化。目前，我们关于河岸生态系统如何对环境变化作出反应并进而影响环境变化的知识仍然相当有限，尽管这种知识对于有效的养护和管理至关重要。该项目旨在研究河岸(即溪边)植被随时间的变化，并评估各种驱动因素在这种变化中的作用。这项研究将为了解近几十年来河岸植被的变化以及预测未来可能发生的变化提供新的基础。此外，该项目将评估河岸植被对大规模水和碳通量的贡献。目标是使用尖端的测绘和建模技术来确定河岸带可能对生态系统功能和稳定性产生更大影响的地方。这些信息将有助于制定恢复优先事项，并促进在气候变化和径流条件变化的情况下进行干预和管理的决定。该小组由生态水文学模型和遥感专家组成，将向研究界和公众公开传播研究工具、数据集和成果。在此过程中，该团队将进行跨学科的本科生和研究生培训，为应对环境和数据科学挑战培养多样化的下一代科学家。该项目的目标是将河岸植被动态与水文气候变化机械地联系起来，以评估河岸生态系统对大系统碳和水通量的功能重要性。具体地说，该项目将利用霓虹灯空中观测平台调查的高分辨率数据、卫星图像的长期记录和深度学习技术来描述过去几十年河岸植被覆盖的动态。这些信息将与基于过程的建模相结合，以探索河岸植被变化的潜在机制，并量化不同水文气候因素的相对重要性。最后，将综合多个数据和模拟产品，以评估河岸植被在区域流域和全球模型尺度上对大系统水和碳通量的贡献和稳定的作用。这项工作将生成过去几十年美国大陆河岸植被动态的新数据集，为预测这些系统未来可能发生的变化提供有用的基线。在霓虹灯领域进行密集的数据模型比较，将能够评估与河岸生态系统结构和功能的时空动态有关的多种假说，同时产生可广泛应用于各种河岸条件的更具预测性的宏观尺度理解。研究小组将邀请来自当地社区和代表不足的STEM团体的本科生和高中研究人员参与项目活动。该团队还将通过在当地博物馆举行的年度系列讲座来接触公众，以提高对环境变化和生态系统可持续的认识。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。

Forested river and stream ecosystems provide critical services of water and carbon, biological habitats, and recreational activities. These ecosystems are temporally and spatially dynamic in response to changes in climate, streamflow, water management, and biological invasions. Currently, our knowledge of how riparian ecosystems respond to and in turn influence environmental change remains considerably limited, although such knowledge is critical for effective conservation and management. This project aims to study the changes in riparian (i.e., streamside) vegetation over time and evaluate the role of various driving factors underlying this change. This research will provide a new basis for understanding how riparian vegetation has changed during recent decades, and for predicting how it is likely to change in the future. Further, this project will evaluate the contribution of riparian vegetation to large-scale fluxes of water and carbon. The goal is to use cutting-edge techniques of mapping and modeling to identify where riparian zones are likely to have greater impacts on ecosystem function and stability. This information will be useful in developing restoration priorities and facilitating decisions about intervention and management under changing climate and altered streamflow conditions. The team, composed of ecohydrological modeling and remote sensing experts, will publicly disseminate research tools, datasets, and results to the research community and general public. In the process, the team will conduct interdisciplinary undergraduate and graduate training to prepare diverse, next-generation scientists to tackle environmental and data science challenges.The objective of this project is to mechanistically link riparian vegetation dynamics to hydroclimate variations in order to assess the functional importance of riparian ecosystems to macrosystem fluxes of carbon and water. Specifically, this project will leverage high-resolution data from NEON’s airborne observational platform surveys, long-term records of satellite imagery, and deep learning techniques to characterize the dynamics of riparian vegetation cover over the past several decades. This information will be combined with process-based modeling to explore mechanisms underlying changes in riparian vegetation and quantify the relative importance of different hydroclimate factors. Finally, multiple data and modeling products will be synthesized to assess the role of riparian vegetation in contributing to and stabilizing macrosystem fluxes of water and carbon at regional watershed and global model scales. This work will generate new datasets of riparian vegetation dynamics across the continental U.S. during the past several decades, providing a useful baseline for predicting how these systems are likely to change in the future. Intensive data-model comparisons across NEON domains will enable the evaluation of multiple hypotheses related to the spatial-temporal dynamics in riparian ecosystem structure and function, while generating more predictive macroscale understandings that can be broadly applied to a range of riparian conditions. The research team will engage undergraduate and high school researchers from local communities and underrepresented STEM groups in project activities. The team will also reach public audiences through an annual lecture series at local museums to increase the awareness of environmental change and ecosystem sustainability.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.