CNH-Ex: Balancing Water Needs and Water Uses for Humans and Nature

由于城市发展、私人和公共投资者征用土地、人口增加和气候变化，主要山脉山麓沿着的山区盆地和河流流域的源头正在经历迅速的环境变化。除了供水需求增加外，人为土地使用变化的其他影响是地下水补给区缩小、植被消失、地貌与自然排水系统之间的联系改变。面临的挑战是制定可持续和可靠的水分配政策，最好地支持功能良好的景观，同时满足自然和人类系统及相关基础设施的基本水需求。 该项目将把环境限制的机会成本和养护战略的经济价值纳入流域一级水资源分配政策的水文经济评估。为了实现这一目标，将把一个结合地表水-地下水和植被动态的生态水文模型与一个水分配模型结合起来，并在一个概率水文经济框架内运作，以支持决策。 该模型将用于调查水系统对以下方面的敏感性：（a）快速城市化景观中土地使用的改变和土地转换;（B）根据水文和生态流量界定的生态水文可持续性;（c）基线条件（当前气候、现状政策）和可能的气候变化情景下未来替代适应途径的净现值。将制定一个创新框架，将科学和社会经济原则结合起来，定量和系统地评估城市化的影响和适应战略，以提高耦合的人类-自然系统的水复原力。 建模框架将在阿巴拉契亚山脉南部的法国布罗德河进行测试和评估，这是全国增长最快的农村地区之一。 该项目将与北卡罗来纳州西部的主要地方政府规划机构“天空之地”地区理事会密切合作进行。 该研究涉及国家气候适应优先事项，以使社区具有复原力，并可随时转移到其他经历大环境变化的地区。

Mountain basins and the headwaters of river basins along the foothills of major mountain ranges are undergoing rapid environmental change due to urban development, land acquisition by private and public investors, population increases, and climate change. Besides increased water supply demand, other impacts of anthropogenic land-use change are the shrinking of groundwater recharge areas, removal of vegetation, and the alteration of links between the landscape and the natural drainage system. The challenge is to develop sustainable and reliable water allocation policies that best support a well-functioning landscape while meeting the basic water demands of natural and human systems and the associated infrastructure. This project will factor the opportunity costs of environmental constraints and the economic value of conservation strategies into hydro-economic assessments of water allocation policy at the basin level. To accomplish this goal, an eco-hydrological model with coupled surface-groundwater and vegetation dynamics will be integrated with a water allocation model and operated within a probabilistic hydro-economic framework to support decision-making. The model will be used to investigate water system sensitivity to: a) land-use modification and land-conversion in rapidly urbanizing landscapes; b) eco-hydrological sustainability defined in terms of hydrological and ecological flows; and c) net present value for baseline conditions (current climate, status-quo policy) and for alternative future adaptation pathways under possible climate change scenarios. An innovative framework that brings together scientific and socio-economic principles to evaluate quantitatively and systematically urbanization impacts and adaptation strategies toward improving water resiliency of coupled human-natural systems will be developed. The modeling framework will be tested and evaluated for the French Broad River in the Southern Appalachians, one of the fastest growing rural regions in the nation. The project will be conducted in close collaboration with the Land-of-Sky Regional Council, the lead local government planning agency in western North Carolina. The research addresses national climate adaptation priorities to enable resilient communities, and is readily transferable to regions elsewhere undergoing large environmental change.