CAREER: Re-engineering Agricultural Drainage Infrastructure: Upscaling In-field Conservations for Regional Sustainability

职业：重新设计农业排水基础设施：扩大现场保护以实现区域可持续发展

• 批准号: 2239621
• 负责人: Ruijie Zeng
• 金额: $ 54.34万
• 依托单位: Arizona State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-04-15 至 2028-03-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2239621&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Re; engineering; Agricultural; Drainage

Agricultural drainage systems (ADS) are networks of engineered channels and ditches that have been widely implemented in low relief terrain, such as the Midwest, to manage water, remove excess soil moisture, and increase food and biofuel production. However, ADS also efficiently divert excess water and agricultural wastes from fields into natural river networks, causing adverse environmental impacts including streamflow regime change, water quality deterioration, and aquatic habitat degradation. Understanding and managing regional scale hydrologic and environmental impacts influenced by field scale agricultural drainage systems has remained elusive. The overarching goals of this CAREER project are to 1) identify the coupled natural and engineered drainage networks (CNEDN) including natural rivers and agricultural drainage channels, and 2) investigate the role of CNEDN in upscaling field-scale agricultural water management practices to enhance regional water sustainability. The successful completion of this project will benefit society by advancing the fundamental understanding, prediction, and management of coupled natural river and engineered drainage networks with the goal of enhancing regional agriculture and water sustainability. Additional benefits to society will be achieved through student education and training including the mentoring of one graduate student at Arizona State University.Agriculture in the Midwest is experiencing rapid changes including the switching from food production to biofuel production, expansion of irrigation to mitigate drought impacts, and adoption of resource recovery techniques including nitrogen and phosphorus recovery. However, there are critical knowledge gaps in identifying and characterizing the agricultural drainage systems thereby hindering understanding of hydrologic impacts from farm scale to regional scale and limiting the capability of re-engineering the agricultural infrastructure for environmental sustainability under changing climate and socioeconomic drivers. This CAREER project will address these knowledge gaps. The specific objectives of the research are to (1) delineate agricultural drainage networks by developing efficient and validated algorithms to capture drainage channel features from high resolution terrain data, (2) improve the capability of hydrologic models to simulate the hydrologic effects of agricultural drainage by incorporating engineered drainage channels into natural river networks, and 3) assess the local and regional hydrologic variability and water resource reliability under re-engineering strategies of agricultural drainage infrastructure. The successful completion of this project has the potential for transformative impact through the generation of new models and fundamental knowledge of hydrologic dynamics of coupled natural river and engineered drainage networks to enhance the prediction capability for hydrologic processes under human interferences. To advance the educational goals of this CAREER project, the Principal Investigator (PI) proposes to develop and implement project-based education modules for the undergraduate/graduate curricula at Arizona State University to educate the next-generation of engineers about the impacts of increasing human interferences on the hydrologic cycle. In addition, the PI plans to develop a toolbox for engineered channel delineation and modeling with user-friendly interfaces to encourage adoption by water resources practitioners. The toolbox and other project outcomes will be disseminated through online platforms as well as in-person workshops to engage local collaborators and stakeholders.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.

农业排水系统（ADS）是工程渠道和沟渠的网络，已广泛应用于低起伏地形，如中西部，以管理水，去除多余的土壤水分，并增加粮食和生物燃料生产。然而，ADS也有效地将多余的水和农业废物从农田转移到天然河流网络中，造成不利的环境影响，包括径流状况变化，水质恶化和水生栖息地退化。了解和管理区域规模的水文和环境影响的影响，田间规模的农业排水系统仍然难以捉摸。该CAREER项目的总体目标是：1）确定耦合的自然和工程排水网络（CNEDN），包括天然河流和农业排水渠道，2）调查CNEDN在扩大实地规模的农业水管理实践中的作用，以提高区域水的可持续性。该项目的成功完成将通过推进对自然河流和工程排水网络的基本理解、预测和管理，以提高区域农业和水资源可持续性，造福社会。通过学生教育和培训，包括指导亚利桑那州立大学的一名研究生，将为社会带来额外的好处。中西部的农业正在经历快速的变化，包括从粮食生产转向生物燃料生产，扩大灌溉以减轻干旱影响，以及采用资源回收技术，包括氮和磷回收。然而，在确定和描述农业排水系统方面存在重大知识差距，从而阻碍了对从农场规模到区域规模的水文影响的理解，并限制了在不断变化的气候和社会经济驱动因素下重新设计农业基础设施以实现环境可持续性的能力。这个职业生涯项目将解决这些知识差距。研究的具体目标是：（1）通过开发有效和经过验证的算法，从高分辨率地形数据中捕获排水通道特征，从而划定农业排水网络;（2）通过将工程排水通道纳入自然河流网络，提高水文模型模拟农业排水水文效应的能力;（3）评估农业排水基础设施改造策略下当地和区域水文变异性和水资源可靠性。该项目的成功完成具有潜在的变革性影响，通过生成新的模型和耦合自然河流和工程排水网络的水文动力学的基本知识，以提高人类干扰下水文过程的预测能力。为了推进这个职业生涯项目的教育目标，主要研究者（PI）建议开发和实施基于项目的教育模块，在亚利桑那州州立大学的本科生/研究生课程，教育下一代的工程师有关增加人类干扰对水文循环的影响。此外，PI计划开发一个工具箱，用于工程河道划定和建模，并具有用户友好的界面，以鼓励水资源从业人员采用。该工具箱和其他项目成果将通过在线平台以及面对面的研讨会进行传播，以吸引当地合作者和利益相关者。该奖项反映了NSF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。