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高级地下水充电对山地地下水系统和地下水依赖性生态系统的影响。美国西部的山地含水层是区域短期储藏库，为农业活动，城市附近和威胁生态社区提供稳定的供水。项目活动将发生在内华达州的Sagehen实验森林（SEF）中，包括现场水文，地球化学，弹簧生态界分析以及对生态系统压力指标的评估。在SEF中，春季地下水年龄与化学风化和生态系统丰富度相关。这些观察结果是与现代观察结果进行比较的水文和生态健康的重要基线。这项工作的更广泛影响着重于三个领域：1）通过支持本科研究人员和两位早期职业科学家之间的合作来加强人事发展； 2）通过参加SEF的年度Bioblitz活动来支持社区科学努力； 3）通过与沙漠研究所的科学活着团队合作的“绿色盒子”的开发来支持K-12 STEM教育。该项目将调查SEF的降水量下降和升高的降水量和升高，从而改变了对Springflow发电的流动性的分布。该研究计划包括在SEF中进行两年的春季水文采样，用于一套地球化学分析物，地下水年龄示踪剂和物理弹簧特征。该项目还将调查底栖大型无脊椎动物群落（BMI）在过去30年中在塞夫（SEF）中发生了如何变化，这些变化与流道的变化如何相关，以及BMI社区结构与现代氢和地球化学特征的更广泛关系。该研究将使用BMI的生态和稳定的同位素分析来揭示社区结构和食物网络动态。这项研究将确定揭示山地地下水系统中多年生弹簧流和地下水依赖生态壁ni的崩溃（即水文阈值）的指标。该奖项由水文科学和生态系统科学计划共同资助。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并使用基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响评估标准，通过评估诚实地表示支持。