Coastal SEES Collaborative Research: Salinization of the Coastal Plain through Saltwater Intrusion - Landscapes in Transition along the Leading Edge of Climate Change

由于人为因素和自然因素的共同作用，海水正在渗透并影响依赖淡水的沿海景观。到本世纪末，由于海平面逐渐上升，美国南部沿海平原外缘的低洼地区将大部分被海水淹没。地表水和邻近土地的盐碱化可能导致受管理生态系统的作物和木材产量大幅下降，未受管理生态系统的生态系统固碳量大幅下降，以及由于海盐提取土壤养分而导致沿海水质退化。这个项目将增进对影响地表水和邻近土地盐碱化的人类和自然耦合过程的了解。调查人员将建立并参与一个专家利益相关者联盟，包括州和地方政府成员、区域规划小组、土地所有者和倡导组织。与利益相关者的伙伴关系将有助于研究人员确定沿海生态系统的现状，确定关键的知识差距，分享新的研究成果，并开发和探索未来的土地利用和气候情景。该项目将在沿海系统中产生具有预测价值的结果，这些结果易于利益相关者理解，同时代表气候、水文、土地利用和生态过程之间的复杂相互作用，并确定可用于增强沿海可持续性的结果的途径。总之，这些活动将有助于指导在今后几十年到几百年对该地区和同样受影响的地区进行可持续管理。其他更广泛的影响包括培养四名博士生从事自然科学和社会科学的跨学科研究，让本科生参与有指导的研究经验，以及通过支持早期职业研究者和努力从代表性不足的群体中招募学生来扩大代表性不足群体在科学领域的参与。该项目是美国国家科学基金会海岸科学、工程和教育可持续发展项目的一部分。这个项目的重点是咸水入侵，咸水从海岸向海岸平原向陆地移动。代表四个学科（水文学、生物地球化学、群落生态学、区域规划）的一组研究人员将把社会、水文、气候和生态数据整合到模型情景中，不仅研究人类决策如何影响生态系统，而且研究有关这些生态影响的信息如何反过来影响人类决策。该项目将促进北卡罗来纳州Albemarle-Pamlico半岛的盐水入侵脆弱性指数（SIVI）的开发、验证和完善，该指数考虑了影响水和溶质在景观中的运动的物理环境过程，以及从根本上改变该地区水流的广泛的运河、沟渠、道路和泵站网络。该指数将与对该地区一系列脆弱景观的地表水、土壤和植被状况进行广泛和反复的地面调查一起使用，以更好地了解盐水入侵的生态影响。通过对该地区土地所有者、管理者和其他利益相关者的研讨会和调查，该项目将揭示气候变化情景下土地利用决策对盐水入侵的可能影响。

Ocean waters are infiltrating and influencing freshwater-dependent coastal landscapes due to a combination of human and natural factors. By the end of this century, lower-lying parts of the outer edge of the Southern U.S. coastal plain will be largely inundated by saltwater due to gradual sea level rise. The salinization of surface waters and adjacent lands may lead to significant reductions in crop and timber yields in managed ecosystems, significant declines in ecosystem carbon sequestration in unmanaged ecosystems, and degradation of coastal water quality due to extraction of soil nutrients by seasalts. This project will enhance understanding of the coupled human and natural processes influencing salinization of surface waters and adjacent lands. Investigators will build and engage a coalition of expert stakeholders, including members of state and local governments, regional planning groups, landowners and advocacy organizations. Partnerships with stakeholders will help investigators define the current status of coastal ecosystems, identify critical knowledge gaps, share new research findings, and develop and explore future land use and climate scenarios. This project will yield outcomes with predictive value in coastal systems that are easily understood by stakeholders while representing complex interactions between climate, hydrology, land use, and ecological processes and identify pathways by which outcomes could be used to enhance coastal sustainability. Together, these activities will help guide sustainable management of this region and similarly affected regions over the next several decades to centuries. Additional broader impacts include training four Ph.D. students in interdisciplinary research that spans natural and social sciences, engaging undergraduate students in mentored research experiences, and broadening participation of underrepresented groups in the sciences by supporting early career investigators and working to recruit students from underrepresented groups. This project is supported as part of the National Science Foundation's Coastal Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability program - Coastal SEES.This project focuses on saltwater intrusion, the landward movement of salinity from the coast onto the coastal plain. A team of investigators representing four disciplines (hydrology, biogeochemistry, community ecology, regional planning) will integrate social, hydrological, climate and ecological data into model scenarios to examine not only how human decisions affect ecosystems but also how information about those ecological impacts in turn affect human decisions. This project will facilitate development, validation and refinement of a saltwater intrusion vulnerability index (SIVI) for the Albemarle-Pamlico peninsula of North Carolina that accounts for physical environmental processes influencing the movement of water and solutes across the landscape as well as the extensive networks of canals, ditches, roads and pump stations that fundamentally alter the flow of water across the region. The index will be used, along with extensive and repeated ground-based surveys of surface water, soil and vegetation conditions across a range of vulnerable landscapes within the region, to better understand ecological impacts of saltwater intrusion. Through workshops and surveys for landowners, managers and other stakeholders in the region, the project will reveal the likely impact of land-use decisions on saltwater intrusion under scenarios of climate change.