Science and Technology Center for Coastal Margin Observation and Prediction

PI建议建立海岸边缘观测与预测科学技术中心。该中心的使命是利用综合观测和预测技术研究沿海边缘，作为研究、教育和知识转移的关键基础设施。STC将通过创建必要的科学基础设施来获得可靠的定量描述和分析河口、淡水柱状流和大陆架的综合物理、化学和生物变量，从而促进对沿海边缘的总体理解，特别是对太平洋西北沿海边缘的理解。这个中心的基本原理是沿海边缘是美国人口最密集和最发达的地区之一。作为河流和海洋之间的界面系统，沿海边缘维持着高产的生态系统和资源，对许多尺度的变率都很敏感，并在全球元素循环中发挥着关键作用。迫切需要更好地了解沿海边缘以及自然事件和人类活动对它们造成的压力。在美国国家科学基金会和国家海洋观测系统倡议的新背景下，这个拟议的STC是及时的，它将提供领导，长期承诺和STC的智力临界质量，这是必要的，使研究人员能够有效地关注变革性技术和科学机会，以解决沿海边缘的重大科学问题。STC研究将受到沿海边缘理解方面的重大挑战的推动：气候和气候变化如何影响沿海边缘？海岸边缘在全球元素循环中扮演什么角色？人类活动对海洋生态系统的影响有多深？研究将分为三个重叠的主题：1 .沿海边缘观测站，通过紧密整合的观测和预测，STC将产生急需的长期物理、化学和生物信息；二世。沿海边缘科学，通过探索微生物群落、生物生产力和碳通量随气候和水利用的变异性的4个假设，将环境信息产品用于获得对生态系统变异性和连通性的新理解；ⅲ。使能技术，将通过开发、评估和加强使能技术来克服长期观测和模拟的技术挑战：(a)建模和模拟；(b)传感器和平台，以及(c)信息和可视化。长期核心项目与每年资助的种子项目、扩展项目和综合项目相结合，将使STC能够在研究工作的连续性和灵活性之间保持平衡。为了让包括女性和少数族裔在内的学生为从事科学、工业和管理工作做好准备，STC将提供多种教育机会。其目标是通过培养K-12学生对科学和技术的终身兴趣，为大学生创造在学习中整合研究和行业经验的机会，并为研究生在职业生涯中的领导地位做好准备，从而培养长期的教育管道。知识转移：STC将使一系列利益相关者参与多方位的信息交换。特别是，科学技术中心将：(a)成为海洋科学界以及信息科学和分子生物学等学科的智力磁石和资源，以帮助形成下一代海洋学；(b)使工业界能够与研究人员和教育工作者合作，而不是仅仅充当供应商和承包商；(c)向地区和联邦机构提供专门知识和科学信息，以管理西北海岸沿岸资源。知识价值：STC将创建一个沿海边缘天文台，作为其研究、教育和知识转移的主要基础设施。该观测系统将是异构建模系统和观测网络的可配置集成，旨在消除沿海边缘科学的一个基本障碍：缺乏对物理、化学和生物参数的长期描述和分析。虽然其他海洋科学观测站已经存在或正在计划中（例如LEO-15、VENUS、MARS），但该系统将是独一无二的，因为它将河流到海洋的环境结合起来，其组成部分和使能技术的多样性和协调程度，包括新的传感方法。提出的科学解决了具有挑战性的假设，并将区域生态系统变化与PNW沿海边缘的气候和水资源利用联系起来。由于观察和预测能力的提高，以及提出的机制、分子水平的方法来理解微生物群落的结构、活性和对环境胁迫的反应，人们对变革性理解的期望很高。更广泛的影响：沿海边缘具有巨大的经济和社会重要性，它们极易受到变化的影响，其复杂性使得海洋资源和社会需求的平衡管理变得困难。(a)经济和社会重要性：沿海地区占美国毗连地区的比例不到20%，但养活了美国50%以上的人口。仅在美国，每年就有超过一万亿美元的沿海基础设施投入使用；(b)脆弱性：沿海地区的自然和人为灾害每年使美国损失超过20亿美元。此外，PNW野生鲑鱼多样性的减少是生态系统脆弱性的一个戏剧性例子，只有在其表现出来之前几十年预测影响才能消除这种脆弱性；和(c)复杂性：沿海边缘的复杂性对人类最具生产力的环境之一的可持续管理提出了巨大的挑战，拟议的STC将帮助社会应对这些挑战。

The PI's propose a Science and Technology Center for Coastal Margin Observation and Prediction. The mission of this Center is to study coastal margins using integrated observation and prediction technologies as critical infrastructure for research, education, and knowledge transfer. The STC will advance the understanding of coastal margins in general and of the Pacific Northwest coastal margin in particular by creating the scientific infrastructure necessary to obtain reliable quantitative descriptions and analyses of integrated physical, chemical, and biological variables in estuaries, freshwater plumes, and continental shelves. The rationale for this Center is that coastal margins are among the most densely populated and developed regions in the United States. As interface systems between rivers and oceans, coastal margins sustain highly productive ecosystems and resources, are sensitive to many scales of variability, and play a key role in global elemental cycles. There is a critical need for better understanding of coastal margins and the stresses placed on them by natural events and human activities. This proposed STC is timely in the emerging context of NSF and national initiatives on ocean-observing systems and will provide the leadership, long-term commitment, and intellectual critical mass of a STC is necessary to enable researchers to focus effectively on transformative technological and scientific opportunities to solve major science questions on coastal margins. STC research will be driven by grand challenges in coastal margin understanding: How do climate and climate change impact coastal margins? What roles do coastal margins play in global elemental cycles? How far seaward do human activities impact ecosystems? Research will be organized into 3 overlapping themes: I. Coastal Margin Observatories, where the STC will generate crucially needed, long-term physical, chemical, and biological information through tightly integrated observations and predictions; II. Coastal Margin Science, where environmental information products will be used to gain novel understanding of ecosystem variability and connectivity, through the exploration of 4 hypotheses addressing the variability of microbial communities, biological productivity, and carbon fluxes with climate and water use; and III. Enabling Technologies, where technological challenges to long-term observations and simulations will be overcome by developing, evaluating, and enhancing enabling technologies in: (a) modeling and simulation; (b) sensors and platforms, and (c) information and visualization. A combination of long-term core projects and annually funded seed, augmentation, and integrative projects will allow the STC to maintain a balance between continuity and flexibility of research efforts. To prepare students including females and underrepresented minorities for careers in science, industry, and management, the STC will offer multiple educational opportunities. The objective is to foster a long-term educational pipeline by developing in K-12 students a lifelong interest in science and technology, by creating opportunities for college students to integrate research and industry experiences in their studies, and by preparing graduate students for leadership in their careers. Knowledge Transfer: The STC will engage a spectrum of stakeholders in a multi-directional exchange of information. In particular, the STC will: (a) be an intellectual magnet and a resource for the ocean-sciences community and for such disciplines as information sciences and molecular biology to help shape next-generation oceanography; (b) enable industries to work with researchers and educators, as opposed to just serving as vendors and contractors; and (c) lend expertise and scientific information to regional and federal agencies for management of PNW coastal margin resources. Intellectual Merit: The STC will create a coastal margin observatory, as its primary infrastructure for research, education, and knowledge transfer. This observing system will be a configurable integration of heterogeneous modeling systems and observation networks, designed to remove a fundamental barrier to coastal margin science: the lack of long-term descriptions and analyses of physical, chemical, and biological parameters. While other ocean-sciences observatories exist or are planned (e.g., LEO-15, VENUS, MARS), this system will be unique in its integration of river-to-ocean environments and in the multiplicity and level of coordination of its components and enabling technologies, including new approaches to sensing. The proposed science addresses challenging hypotheses and relates regional ecosystem variability to climate and water use in PNW coastal margins. The expectation of transformative understanding is high due to improved capabilities of observation and prediction, and due to the proposed mechanistic, molecular-level approaches to understand the structure, activity and response to environmental stress of microbial communities. Broader Impacts: Coastal margins have enormous economic and social importance, they are highly vulnerable to change, and their complexity makes a balanced management of marine resources and societal needs difficult: (a) Economic and social importance: Coastal areas comprise less than 20% of the contiguous US, but support more than 50% of the US population. Over a trillion dollars of coastal infrastructure are deployed in the US alone every year; (b) Vulnerability: Natural and man-made hazards in coastal areas cost the US more than $2 billion annually. In addition, reduction of wild salmon diversity in the PNW is a dramatic example of ecosystem vulnerabilities that can only be defused by anticipating impacts decades before their manifestation; and (c) Complexity: The complexity of coastal margins presents enormous challenges for the sustainable management of one of the most productive environments available to humans challenges that the proposed STC will help society meet.