Freshwater Systems

淡水系统是北极景观的一个主要特征，因为永久冻土阻止了排水，蒸发量很低。它们作为北极相互作用系统的重要组成部分，必须在其原始状态下进行研究和理解。该项目的总体目标是了解和预测冻土带、湖泊和溪流的功能以及它们对变化的反应。一个具体的目标是了解资源控制的程度（自下而上的控制）或放牧和捕食（自上而下的控制），并了解土地和水之间的营养交换。该项目的核心是对生态系统进行长期实验操作，以检查变化的过程和影响。该项目的一部分是监测每年的变化并测量长期变化。通过数学建模，在冻土带上的地块和小范围的溪流和湖泊中收集的数据将扩大到整个流域水平。将来，流域模型将与其他数据库进行交互，以便将模型和过程信息外推到更大的区域。这样就可以对诸如当温度和降水发生变化时，阿拉斯加整个北坡未来的养分输出等问题作出预测。

Freshwater systems are a major feature of the arctic landscape because permafrost prevents drainage, and evaporation is low. They must be studied and understood in their pristine condition as a major part of the Arctic interacting system. The broad goal of the project is to understand and predict how the tundra, lakes and streams function and how they respond to change. A specific goal is to understand the extent of control by resources (bottom- up control) or by grazing and predation (top-down control) and to understand the exchange of nutrients between land and water. The heart of the project is the long-term experimental manipulations of ecosystems to examine processes and the effects of change. A part of the project is to monitor year-to-year variability and to measure long-term changes. The data collected in plots on the tundra and in small areas of the stream and lakes will be scaled up to the whole watershed level through mathematical modeling. In the future, the watershed model will be interactive with other data bases so the model and process information may be extrapolated to the larger region. A prediction may then be made for such questions as the future export of nutrients from the whole of the north slope of Alaska when temperature and precipitation changes.