Soil Erosion, Floodplain Sedimentation, and Agricultural Sustainability Over Centennial Time Scales.

该项目将研究农业景观中的土壤侵蚀和泛滥平原沉积模式。土壤侵蚀是21世纪社会面临的重大环境挑战。虽然对侵蚀过程中涉及的许多物理机制已有很好的了解，但在百年时间尺度上对侵蚀速率和下游泥沙输移速率的理解存在差距。该项目利用了一个持续了约700年的景观格局的农业环境，提供了一个测试主流侵蚀模型的机会，并改善了对侵蚀和下游泥沙转移的科学理解。该项目将促进美国学生的教学和培训，促进国际科学合作，支持国际知识和技术转让，并为相关领域的研究做出贡献。结果将使本科生受益于实地课程的实践、体验式学习和本科生的研究机会。该跨学科项目将促进与各种相关学科(景观生态学、地球化学、古生态学、水文工程学)的领先科学家的直接科学合作。该研究在景观保护、农用地管理等领域具有广泛的吸引力和应用前景。该项目将在代表1至1000平方公里的流域的一系列空间尺度上构建高分辨率的人类诱导沉积记录。这些河流沉积档案将包括沉积学、地球化学和古生态数据，并将得到浅层地球物理调查的补充。该项目还将采用空间分布的侵蚀模型来预测预期的侵蚀和沉积模式。通过这种模型/数据比较，可以量化农业坡地在水文和沉积方面与下游沉淀池的联系程度。该项目将能够量化几个世纪以来农业沉积所涉及的时间滞后。这项研究的主要理论贡献将增进对水文和沉积学连通性、河流对人为干扰的响应以及农业遗产沉积物的时空分布的理解。虽然这一研究项目将侧重于捷克共和国的侵蚀和沉积，但其结果将为理解和减轻包括美国在内的许多其他国家的农业引起的土壤侵蚀提供新的见解和方法。

This project will examine patterns of soil erosion and floodplain sedimentation in agricultural landscapes. Soil erosion is a significant environmental challenge facing 21st century society. While many of the physical mechanisms involved in the erosion process are well-understood, there are gaps in the understanding of erosion rates and downstream sediment transport rates measured over centennial time scales. This project takes advantage of an agricultural setting in which landscape patterns have persisted over ~700 years, providing an opportunity to test prevailing models of erosion and improve the scientific understanding of erosion and downstream sediment transfer. This project will promote the teaching and training of U.S. students, foster international scientific collaboration, support international knowledge and technology transfer, and contribute to related fields of study. Results will benefit undergraduate students through practical, experiential-learning in field courses and undergraduate research opportunities. The interdisciplinary project will promote direct scientific collaboration with leading scientists in a variety of related disciplines (landscape ecology, geochemistry, paleoecology, hydrologic engineering). The research will have broad appeal and application in fields such as landscape conservation and agricultural land management. The project will construct high-resolution records of human induced sedimentation at a range of spatial scales representing watersheds from 1 to 1000 square kilometers. These fluvial archives will include sedimentological, geochemical, and paleoecological data, and will be supplemented by shallow geophysical surveys. The project will also employ spatially-distributed erosion modeling to predict expected patterns of erosion and deposition. This model/data comparison will permit the quantification of the degree to which agricultural slopes are hydrologically and sedimentologically connected to downstream sediment sinks. The project will enable quantification of time-lags involved in agricultural sedimentation over multiple centuries. The principal theoretical contributions of the research will improve the understanding of hydrologic and sedimentologic connectivity, fluvial responses to anthropogenic disturbance, and spatio-temporal distributions of agricultural legacy sediments. Although this research project will focus on erosion and sedimentation in Czech Republic, the results will provide new insights and approaches for understanding and mitigating agriculturally-induced soil erosion in many other countries, including the United States.