Doctoral Dissertation Research Award: Investigating the Role of Scale in the Development of Flexible Irrigation Structures.

学者们一直在努力阐明有助于当代基础设施恢复力的潜在机制，这些基础设施越来越容易受到环境和社会经济风险的影响。考古学在提供相关见解方面具有独特的地位，因为它可以系统地调查维持某些基础设施存在了数千年的因素。在这篇博士论文中，论文学生正在研究一个特别持久的基础设施-坎儿井灌溉系统-作为一个案例研究，以评估其在众多外部社会和环境变化中的持续运行。根据初步研究，研究人员假设这些坎儿井系统的弹性可以归因于它们的小规模管理，这使它们能够迅速适应环境压力。这项研究通过研究规模在维持技术运行的社会网络中的作用，为物质性、人与环境关系和基础设施方面的新兴文献做出了贡献。从更广泛的意义上讲，该项目的研究结果为分散管理在当前生态危机中增强基础设施恢复能力的潜在优势提供了宝贵的见解。此外，该研究还倡导保护未被充分代表的维吾尔族社区的文化遗产。论文学生记录、评估和综合了坎儿井系统的长期轨迹，以应对气候波动、政治重构和农业实践系统的演变，这些可以追溯到一千多年前。该项目包括对研究地区200多个功能坎儿井系统进行为期9个月的实地调查，利用跨学科的系统调查、古生态重建、地理年代学分析和民族志观察。该奖项支持对量子系统进行广泛的光学激发发光（OSL）测年，该技术已被证明在多个地区的类似系统中是可靠的。为了建立这些系统的严格类型学，揭示坎儿井进化与环境变化之间的关系，以及这些系统在几千年来表现出非凡的恢复能力的机制，获得日期是必要的。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。

Scholars have endeavored to explicate the underlying mechanisms that contribute to the resilience of contemporary infrastructure, which is increasingly vulnerable to environmental and socio-economic risks. Archaeology holds a unique position to provide relevant insights, as it can systematically investigate the factors that have sustained certain kinds of infrastructure that have existed for millennia. In this doctoral dissertation award the dissertation student, is examining a particularly enduring piece of infrastructure — the qanat irrigation systems — as a case study to evaluate its continued operation amidst numerous episodes of external social and environmental shifts. Based on preliminary research, the investigators it is hypothesized that the resilience of these qanat systems can be ascribed to their management of small scale, which allows them to rapidly adapt to environmental stressors. This research contributes to the burgeoning literature on materiality, human-environmental relations, and infrastructure by examining the role of scale in maintaining the social networks within which technology operates. In a broader sense, the findings of this project offer valuable insights into the potential advantages of decentralized management in bolstering infrastructural resilience amid current ecological crises. Additionally, the study advocates for the cultural heritage of the underrepresented Uyghur community.The dissertation student documents, assesses, and synthesizes the long-term trajectory of qanat systems in response to climatic fluctuations, political reconfiguration, and evolving agricultural practices system which can be traced back over a thousand years. The project involves nine months of fieldwork on over 200 functional qanat systems in the study region, utilizing an interdisciplinary program of systematic surveys, palaeoecological reconstruction, geochronological analyses, and ethnographic observation. This award supports extensive Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating of the qanat systems, a technique that has proven reliable for analogous systems in multiple regions. Obtaining dates are necessary to establish a rigorous typology of these systems and reveal relationships between qanat evolution and environmental transformations, as well as the mechanisms by which these systems have demonstrated exceptional resilience for millennia.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.