Defining research and educational priorities in Near-Surface Geophysics: a workshop and survey in light of the Vision for NSF 2020-2030 Earth in Time report

人类社会和地球上的所有生命都依赖于地球的“近地表”环境。土壤、水、地下水、微生物和岩石提供资源，允许建筑，塑造当地环境及其恢复能力。这是各种自然灾害的发生地，如山体滑坡、火山灾害、地震和洪水，以及持续的土壤和水污染。地球科学家最近开发了各种各样的技术，以越来越详细地探测和研究这种环境，以帮助了解它并改进对这些危害和挑战的反应。将这些方法整合起来，将这些研究的各种数据和观察结果标准化，并广泛和集体地共享，这将带来巨大的潜在效益——既有利于推进科学问题，也有利于直接的社会用途和效益，例如在规划和应对气候变化方面。该提案将调查整个近地表研究界，并支持一个研讨会，为未来规划和发展这种方法、数据和培训的整合。因此，该提案将支持美国国家科学院在《地球及时》共识报告中概述的关于美国国家科学基金会未来地球科学优先事项的建议。关于地球浅层地下（或最上层~100米）的高优先级问题，岩石圈、水圈、生物圈和大气交汇的地方，可以通过综合近地表地球物理仪器、数据和训练来解决。我们建议对不同的科学家进行调查，并将他们聚集在一起进行市政厅讨论和虚拟研讨会系列，以创建和传播这样一份清单和计划，以便将来整合不同的方法和数据，包括围绕解决科学目标以及社会需求和挑战的培训，同时广泛强调多样性和公平性。这项工作的成果将有助于确定这种整合的优点和路线图，包括美国国家科学院报告中关于近地表地球物理中心的建议，以促进综合近地表研究。讲习班成果的一个目标是确定近地表地球科学界认为最有价值的科学研究目标，并提出建议，以改进对地球科学界和相关界，如工程界和参与减轻自然灾害的界，就近地表地球物理主题的教育和宣传。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。

Human society, and all life of Earth, depends on Earth’s “near-surface” environment. The soils, water, ground water, microbes, and rock provide resources, allow construction, and shape local environments and their resilience. This is the locus of diverse natural hazards, such as landslides, volcanic hazards, earthquakes, and floods, and persistent soil and water pollution. Geoscientists have recently developed a diverse range of techniques to probe and study this environment in increasing detail, to help understand it and improve responses to these hazards and challenges. There is huge potential benefit in integrating these approaches and standardizing and sharing broadly and collectively the diverse data and observations of these studies—both for advancing science questions and for immediate societal uses and benefits, for example in planning and resilience to climate change. This proposal will survey the full near-surface research community and support a workshop to plan and develop this integration of approaches, data, and training for the future. This proposal will thus support a recommendation from the National Academies on future Earth science priorities for NSF outlined in the Earth-in Time consensus report.High-priority questions about the shallow subsurface (or uppermost ~100 m) of the Earth, where lithosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere meet, could be addressed with integrated near- surface geophysics instrumentation, data, and training. We propose to survey diverse scientists and bring them together in a town hall discussion and virtual workshop series to create and disseminate such an inventory and plan for future integration of diverse approaches and data, including around training to address scientific targets as well as societal needs and challenges while stressing diversity and equity broadly. The products of this work would help define the merits, and roadmap, of this integration, including the recommendation of the National Academies report Earth-in-Time for a near surface geophysical center to facilitate integrated near-surface studies. A goal of the workshop’s outcomes is to identify what the near-surface Earth Science community considers the highest-value scientific research targets as well as provide recommendations to improve education and outreach on near-surface geophysics topics to the geoscience community and related communities such as engineering and those involved in natural hazard mitigation.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.