SPECTRA: Soil Processes and Ecological Services in the Karst Critical Zone of Southwest China

SPECTRA项目旨在通过由中英两国科学家组成的综合、互补和多学科团队开展的前沿关键区域科学，促进中国最贫困地区之一贵州的可持续发展。中国西南喀斯特景观管理的关键问题是“如何恢复高度异质性的关键地带资源，以实现生态系统服务的可持续提供？”我们对这些景观中控制土壤肥力和土壤功能的地质、水文和生态过程知之甚少，也不知道如何最好地管理它们，以最大限度地提供生态系统服务。SPECTRA旨在通过一套4个相互关联的工作包来解决这些问题。CZ将跨越一个梯度，从未受干扰的自然植被到人为干扰和高度退化的景观。利用尖端的方法，我们将整合测量：(1)植物（包括根）、土壤、真菌和微生物的三维分布；(2)岩石风化速率、元素释放速率和土壤形成过程；(3)侵蚀速率和土壤再分配速率；(4)土壤有机碳（SOC）、氮(N)、磷(P)的库和通量。这将使我们能够确定CZ养分有效性、土壤形成和流失的生物控制及其对扰动的响应，为贵州省土地管理决策提供所需的丰富证据基础。通过这样做，SPECTRA将直接实现牛顿基金的目标，即通过提供严格的应用科学知识来促进经济发展和社会福利，这些科学知识将支持战略的发展，以改善喀斯特景观的净生态服务提供，为现实的经济和生态补偿计划提供信息，以减轻贫困，特别是对依赖脆弱土壤为生的家庭。该项目还旨在使两国科学界的利益最大化，从而为所有合作伙伴带来重大的机构利益。在英国领先的实验室培训中国早期职业研究人员，使其掌握最先进的方法和技术，是科学合作伙伴关系的绝对优先事项，并结合全球CZ社区项目合作伙伴之间的交流机会，将大大有助于实现牛顿基金在中国建立CZ科学能力的目标。该项目的最终受益者将是贵州喀斯特地区的人民（人口3500万），这是中国最贫穷的地区之一，GDP不到全国平均水平的50%。为应对贵州喀斯特地区环境恶化和社会条件变化，中国政府采取干预措施，推动退化最严重的耕地放弃，向草地、灌丛和森林转变。这一战略取得了好坏参半的成功，但尚未得到充分制定的计划的支持，以偿还土地所有者合理和可持续地利用土地资源的费用。这必须以量化当前和潜在生态系统服务提供的科学为依据。我们对喀斯特关键区对扰动的响应、恢复力和恢复的研究具有很大的潜力，可以为改善土地管理战略提供信息，以满足这些需求，进而改善该地区社区的生态系统服务，提高环境质量，通过长期可持续经济发展的发展解决贫困和人口福利问题。

The SPECTRA programme seeks to enhance the sustainable development of one of the poorest regions of China, Guizhou, through cutting edge critical zone science undertaken by integrated, complementary and multidisciplinary teams of Chinese and UK scientists. The key question for management of the karst landscapes of SW China is "how can the highly heterogeneous critical zone resources be restored, to enable sustainable delivery of ecosystem services?" We know little about the geological, hydrological and ecological processes which control soil fertility and soil function in these landscapes and how best to manage them to maximise ecosystem service delivery. SPECTRA has been designed to address these questions through a suite of 4 interlinked workpackages. The CZ will span a gradient from undisturbed natural vegetation through to human perturbed and highly degraded landscapes. Using cutting-edge approaches we will integrate measurements of: (1) the three-dimensional distribution of plants (including roots), soil, fungi, and microbes; (2) rates of rock weathering, elemental release and soil formation processes; (3) rates of erosion and soil redistribution; and, (4) pools and fluxes of soil organic C (SOC), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P). This will allow us to identify the biological controls on nutrient availability, soil formation and loss in the CZ and their response to perturbation, providing the rich evidence base needed to inform land management decision-making in the Guizhou province. In doing so, SPECTRA will directly address the Newton Fund objective of enhancing economic development and social welfare by providing rigorous applied scientific knowledge that will underpin the development of strategies to improve net ecological service delivery from the karst landscape, informing realistic economic and ecological compensation plans to alleviate poverty, particularly for the households that rely on fragile soils for a living. The project is also designed to maximise the benefits to the science communities of both countries, thereby bringing significant institutional benefits to all partners. Training of Chinese Early Career Researchers in state-of-the-art approaches and techniques in leading UK laboratories is an absolute priority of the scientific partnership, and combined with the networking opportunities between project partners in the global CZ community, will contribute significantly to meeting the Newton Fund objective of building the capacity for CZ Science in China. The ultimate beneficiaries of this project will be the people of Guizhou karst region (population 35 million), which is one of the poorest regions in China with a GDP less than 50% of the national average. In response to the environmental deterioration and changing social conditions in the Guizhou karst region, the Chinese government has intervened to promote the abandonment of the most degraded cultivated land and its succession to grassland, shrub and forest. This strategy has met with mixed success and is not yet underpinned by well-developed plans to repay landowners for rational and sustainable use of land resources. This must be informed by science that quantifies current and potential ecosystem service delivery. There is significant potential for our research on the response, resilience and recovery of the karst critical zone to perturbation to inform improved land management strategies that will meet these demands, leading in turn to improved delivery of ecosystem services to the communities in this region and higher environmental quality, addressing poverty and the welfare of the population through development of long-term sustainable economic development.