Collaborative Research: EAR-Climate: Ecohydrological responses to climate change: Changing flowpaths, aging groundwaters, and alterations to aquatic ecosystems

合作研究：EAR-气候：对气候变化的生态水文响应：变化的水流路径、老化的地下水和水生生态系统的改变

• 批准号: 2139301
• 负责人: John Umek
• 金额: $ 17.22万
• 依托单位: Nevada System of Higher Education, Desert Research Institute
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-02-15 至 2025-01-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2139301&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; EAR; Climate; Ecohydrological

This project will advance understanding of how decreased groundwater recharge associated with climate change affects mountain groundwater systems and groundwater-dependent ecosystems. Mountain aquifers across the western United States serve as regional short-term storage reservoirs that provide a stable water supply for agricultural activities, nearby cities, and threatened ecological communities. Project activities will occur in the Sierra Nevada Sagehen Experimental Forest (SEF) and include field hydrological, geochemical, ecological community analysis of springs and an assessment of indicators of ecosystem stress. In the SEF, spring groundwater age was previously correlated with increased chemical weathering and ecosystem richness. These observations serve as an important baseline of hydrological and ecological health for comparison with modern observations. Broader impacts from this work focus on three areas: 1) strengthening personnel development by supporting undergraduate researchers and collaboration between two early career scientists; 2) supporting ongoing community science efforts through engagement with the annual BioBlitz event at the SEF; and 3) supporting K-12 STEM education through the development of a “Green Box” focused on project discoveries in collaboration with the Desert Research Institute’s Science Alive team.This project will investigate how decreased precipitation and increased temperature in the SEF have altered the distribution of contributing flowpaths to springflow generation. The research plan includes two years of spring hydrological sampling in the SEF for a suite of geochemical analytes, groundwater age tracers, and physical spring characteristics. The project will also investigate how benthic macroinvertebrate communities (BMI), including endemic and relic species, in the SEF have changed over the last 30 years, how these changes relate to flowpath changes, and how broader BMI community structures relate to modern hydrological and geochemical characteristics. The research will use ecological and stable isotopic analysis of BMI to reveal community structures and food web dynamics. This research will identify indicators that reveal impending collapse (i.e., hydroecological thresholds) of perennial springflow and groundwater-dependent ecological niches in mountain groundwater systems. This award is co-funded by the Hydrologic Sciences and Ecosystem Sciences programs.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.

该项目将促进对与气候变化相关的地下水补给减少如何影响山地地下水系统和地下水依赖生态系统的理解。美国西部的山区含水层作为区域性的短期水库，为农业活动、附近城市和受威胁的生态社区提供稳定的供水。项目活动将在内华达山脉萨吉恩实验森林进行，包括实地水文、地球化学、泉水生态群落分析和生态系统压力指标评价。在SEF，春季地下水年龄与化学风化和生态系统丰富度的增加有关。这些观测结果是水文和生态健康的重要基线，可与现代观测结果进行比较。本研究的更广泛影响集中在三个方面：1)通过支持本科生研究人员和两名早期职业科学家之间的合作，加强人才发展；2)通过参与SEF的年度生物闪电战活动，支持正在进行的社区科学工作；3)通过与沙漠研究所的Science Alive团队合作，开发一个专注于项目发现的“绿盒子”，支持K-12 STEM教育。该项目将研究SEF中降水减少和温度升高如何改变对弹簧流产生有贡献的流动路径的分布。该研究计划包括在SEF进行为期两年的春季水文采样，以获取一套地球化学分析、地下水年龄示踪剂和物理春季特征。该项目还将调查海底大型无脊椎动物群落（BMI），包括特有物种和遗迹物种，在过去30年里是如何变化的，这些变化与流道变化的关系，以及更广泛的BMI群落结构与现代水文和地球化学特征的关系。该研究将利用生物质量指数的生态和稳定同位素分析来揭示群落结构和食物网动态。本研究将确定揭示山地地下水系统中多年生泉流和地下水依赖生态位即将崩溃（即水文生态阈值）的指标。该奖项由水文科学和生态系统科学项目共同资助。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。