SCC-PG: Connecting communities with real-time data collection and downscaled climate risk models to improve water quality and sustain salt marshes in the Buzzards Bay Watershed

面对气候变化，沿海社区在管理水资源方面面临巨大挑战。营养过剩导致的水质退化，加上海平面上升、河流洪水增加、气温升高和气候变化加剧，将增加向沿海水域输送的营养物质，损害盐沼自我维持的能力。许多城市共用沿海水域，营养负荷往往来自更远的内陆流域。社区管理的水质和盐沼损失受到两个关键因素的抑制。首先，导致最大影响的条件很少发生，而气候变化将增加这种可变性。第二，现有的监测系统没有很好地收集到关于这些事件的数据和资料，使管理人员难以确定适当的解决办法。新兴技术有可能提供有关水质、沼泽和气候的动态信息，从而提供更全面的信息，并在管理水资源的社区之间建立联系。新的自动化传感器可以部署在多个地点，提供时间序列和信息，以更好地识别影响和潜在的解决方案。缩小尺度的气候模式可以预测局部尺度的气候变化。但是，技术只有在其产生的信息既有用又可用，并为社区所信任和接受的情况下才会被采用。该项目将调查持续收集水质信息和区域气候模型的潜力，以支持马萨诸塞州沿海Buzzards湾流域的水质和盐泥的管理。技术开发人员和利益相关者将共同设计数据收集策略，以改善当地水资源研究。该项目将吸引管理、监管和倡导水质和沼泽的科学家和社区成员，以确定：(1)需要哪些信息来更好地确定对水质和盐沼的影响，并指导水和沼泽的管理？(2)哪些新的传感器技术、现场应用和气候模型预测可以结合起来产生所需的知识？(3)如何最好地部署和管理这些新技术，以创建一个智能和互联的社区？科学家和社区成员之间的研讨会和互动将确定新传感器技术的最高优先级和最高价值的潜在未来用途，并确定社区最感兴趣的气候风险。研讨会的成果将用于组织未来的研究，以试点优先技术，并测试社区如何使用新技术的概念模型。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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。

Coastal communities face enormous challenges managing water resources in the face of climate change. Degraded water quality driven by excess nutrients, combined with rising sea levels, increased river flooding, higher temperatures, and greater climate variation will increase nutrient delivery to coastal waters and impair the ability of salt marshes to sustain themselves. Many municipalities share coastal waters, with nutrient loading often originating from watersheds farther inland. Community management of water quality and salt marsh loss are inhibited by two critical factors. First, conditions that lead to the biggest impacts occur infrequently, and climate change will increase this variability. Second, data and information on these events are not well captured by existing monitoring systems, making it difficult for managers to identify appropriate solutions. Emerging technologies have the potential to provide dynamic information on water quality, marshes and climate in ways that can provide more comprehensive information and connect across communities managing water resources. New automated sensors can be deployed across multiple locations to provide time-series and information to better identify impacts and potential solutions. Downscaled climate models can predict climate changes at local scales. However, technologies will only be adopted if the information they produce is both useful and useable as well as trusted and accepted by communities. This project will investigate the potential for continuously-collected water quality information and regional climate models to support management of water quality and salt mashes in the Buzzards Bay Watershed in coastal Massachusetts. Technology developers and stakeholders will co-design data collection strategies to improve local water resources research The project will engage scientists and members of the community who manage, regulate, and advocate for water quality and marshes to determine: (1) What information is needed to better identify impacts to water quality and salt marshes and to guide water and marsh management? (2) What new sensor technologies, field applications, and climate model projections could be combined to produce the knowledge needed? and (3) How can these new technologies be best deployed and managed to create a smart and connected community? Workshops and interactions among scientists and community members will identify the highest-priority and highest-value potential future uses of new sensor technologies and identify the climate risks of greatest interest to the community. The outcomes from the workshops will be used organize future research to pilot the priority technologies and test conceptual models of how the communities use the new technology.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.