CAREER: Linking Upstream Land-Use Dynamics and Downstream Sedimentation

该学院早期职业发展奖将支持一项综合研究、保护、教育和推广计划，该计划将研究新英格兰南部上游土地利用实践和下游沉积之间的联系。该项目将加强对该地区人类影响的规模和历史土地使用方式、土地使用方式对土壤和侵蚀的影响、长期和最近的地貌变化以及地质记录中人类活动的标志的基本科学了解。该项目将加强地理学、地貌学、水文学、考古学和其他学科方法之间的协作互动。作为职业奖励，该项目将为本科生和研究生提供研究与教育和培训机会，重点是了解土地利用做法的物理和环境后果以及可持续发展的影响。该项目将为与区域森林内的历史文化风貌相关的保护和保护工作创造新的机会，并将通过让公众接触自然和文化资源、历史遗迹的教育机会和新的保护机会来促进文化旅游。作为环境变化的强大推动者，人类活动已经改变了景观，并引发了广泛的土壤侵蚀。土壤侵蚀具有重大影响，包括河流和水坝中的泥沙堆积；湿地、湖泊和泛滥平原生态系统的破坏；以及污染。新英格兰南部是一个充满活力的景观，它保留了从17世纪初到现在的广泛砍伐森林和农业，然后是重新造林的戏剧性转变。研究人员将使用从光探测和测距(LiDAR)测量获得的高分辨率地形数据、土壕、沉积物岩心和地球化学来探索人类对旱地土壤的影响与下游流域沉积之间的联系。他将量化历史土地利用的空间安排；量化土地利用做法对当地土壤的影响；并评估与不同历史土地利用做法有关的沉积特征档案。在每个地区收集的数据将有助于更全面地审查具体土地利用做法的风格和持续时间与整个景观中人类影响的遗留问题之间的联系。虽然该项目侧重于新英格兰南部，但它将提供新的信息和见解，可用于美国其他冰川消融地区以及发生了不同历史土地利用活动的全球景观的可比分析。

This Faculty Early-Career Development (CAREER) award will support an integrated research, conservation, education and outreach program that will examine the links between upstream land-use practices and downstream sedimentation across southern New England. The project will enhance basic scientific understanding of the scale of human impacts and pattern of historic land-use practices in the region, the effects of land-use practices on soils and erosion, long-term and more recent landscape change, and markers of human activity in the geologic record. The project will enhance collaborative interactions among geography, geomorphology, hydrology, archaeology, and other disciplinary approaches. As a CAREER award, the project will integrate research with education and training opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students focused on understanding the physical and environmental consequences of land-use practices and implications of continued development. The project will create new opportunities for preservation and conservation efforts related to historic cultural features within area forests, and it will promote cultural tourism by engaging the public with natural and cultural resources, educational opportunities about historic sites, and new conservation opportunities.As powerful agents of environmental change, human activities have transformed landscapes and triggered widespread soil erosion. Soil erosion has significant implications that include sediment accumulation in rivers and dams; disruption of wetland, lake, and floodplain ecosystems; and contamination. Southern New England is a dynamic landscape that preserves a dramatic transformation of widespread deforestation and agriculture followed by reforestation spanning the period from the early 17th century to the present. The investigator will use high-resolution topographic data derived from light-detection and ranging (LiDAR) measurement, soil trenches, sediment cores, and geochemistry to explore the links between human impacts on upland soils and downstream watershed sedimentation. He will quantify the spatial arrangement of historic land use; quantify local soil impacts from land-use practices; and evaluate archives of sedimentation characteristics associated with different historic land-use practices. The data collected in each area will facilitate a more holistic examination of the link between the style and duration of specific land use practices and the legacy of human impacts throughout a landscape. Although focusing on southern New England, this project will provide new information and insights that can be adapted for comparable analyses in other deglaciated regions of the United States as well as global landscapes where diverse historic land-use activities have occurred.