CAREER: Humans, Water, and Climate: Advancing Research and Education on Water Resource Sustainability in Managed Land-Water Systems using Integrated Hydrological Modeling Framework

可持续水资源管理的一个关键挑战是确保充足的水供应，以满足对粮食、能源和水的快速增长的需求，同时尽量减少对社会、环境和生态的负面影响。要达到这一平衡，就需要清楚地了解淡水流量和储存、农业系统和生态系统服务方面的人为变化，以及自然和人类系统之间的复杂相互作用和反馈。该项目的目标是通过使用新的数值建模框架以及来自地面和卫星观测、气候模型和社会经济分析的大量数据，推进管理的土地-水系统中水资源可持续性的研究和教育。该框架由一套水文、农业和生态模型组成，通过系统地研究上游流域管理与粮食能源生产（例如，水力发电，灌溉）以及河流洪泛区动态和地下水系统的下游变化（例如，沉积物负荷减少、海水入侵）。该项目将提供新的见解，说明如何最好地利用关于全球变化和做法的信息，通过将其纳入水文-农业-生态耦合模型，制定可持续水资源管理的适应战略，并实现水和粮食安全，促进地方-区域水管理。该研究项目整合了一套实质性的教育举措，以促进高中和社区大学生对水文和水资源的了解，激励他们追求STEM教育，并激励他们研究淡水系统，以应对有关粮食，能源和水安全的紧迫社会挑战。教育部分涉及一个交互式的基于Web的版本的建模系统，用于本科和研究生教学的课堂使用，教育高中和社区大学的学生，并作为教师的资源，特别是在社区大学。该教育计划还包括通过在线计划进行的国际研究和培训。建模框架是基于社区土地模型（CLM），但包括通过纳入先进的计划，代表作物生长，灌溉，地下水抽水，河流洪泛区水库路由的关键增强。这种新框架的优势在于它能够明确地解决一系列自然水文和生物物理过程的耦合行为（例如，地表水文学、地下水动力学、沉积物运移、土地利用变化和作物生长）、人类土地-水管理实践（灌溉、水库运行、地下水抽取）和生态过程（海水入侵、洪泛区-湿地动力学）。该框架的目的是模拟大规模的水循环动力学在区域到大陆尺度，同时也机械地解决精细尺度，地形驱动的水文地下水过程，如横向地下水流和河流-洪泛平原-地下水相互作用。因此，这项研究将大大提高我们模拟耦合地表水，地下水和农业系统的能力，这对于通过更好地评估和预测水资源实现粮食安全至关重要。由于CLM是地球系统模型（ESM）的一个陆地组成部分，从研究中获得的新框架和见解预计将通过纳入人类组成部分来全面研究耦合的自然-人类系统，并评估人类-气候相互作用，从而为下一代ESM的发展提供信息。新的框架还将使我们能够更好地评估和预测世界各地高度管理的陆地水系统中的水资源，包括美国中部的高平原和加州的中央谷，这些地区的水供应下降可能会对区域，国家，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的学术价值和更广泛的影响评审标准。

A critical challenge in sustainable water resource management is to ensure adequate supply of water to meet the rapidly growing demands for food, energy, and water, while minimizing negative social, environmental, and ecological impacts. Striking this balance requires a clear understanding of the human-induced changes in freshwater flows and storages, agricultural systems, and ecosystem services, as well as the complex interactions and feedback among coupled natural and human systems. The goal of this project is to advance the research and education of water resource sustainability in managed land-water systems by using a novel numerical modeling framework and a wealth of data from ground and satellite observations, climate models, and socio-economic analysis. The framework, which comprises of a suite of hydrological, agricultural, and ecological models, is used to identify ways to optimize the use of land and water resources by systematically examining the trade-offs between upstream basin management for food-energy production (e.g., hydropower, irrigation) and downstream changes in river-floodplain dynamics and groundwater systems (e.g., reduction in sediment load, seawater intrusion). The project will provide new insights about ways to best utilize the information on global change and practices for local-regional water management through its integration into coupled hydrological-agricultural-ecological models to develop adaptation strategies for sustainable water resource management as well as achieving water and food security. The research project integrates a substantive set of educational initiatives for promoting knowledge about hydrology and water resources among high school and community college students, motivating them to pursue STEM education and inspiring them to study freshwater systems toward addressing pressing societal challenges regarding food, energy, and water security. The educational component involves an interactive web-based version of the modeling system for classroom use in undergraduate and graduate teaching, for educating high school and community college students, and as resource for teachers especially in community colleges. The education program also includes mentored international research and training through online initiatives. The modeling framework is based on the Community Land Model (CLM) but includes critical enhancements made by incorporating advanced schemes representing crop growth, irrigation, groundwater pumping, and river-floodplain-reservoir routing. The strength of this novel framework lies in its ability to explicitly resolve the coupled behavior of a range of natural hydrologic and biophysical processes (e.g., surface hydrology, groundwater dynamics, sediment transport, land use change, and crop growth), human land-water management practices (irrigation, reservoir operation, groundwater pumping), and ecological processes (seawater intrusion, floodplain-wetland dynamics). The framework is designed to simulate large-scale water cycle dynamics at regional to continental scales while also mechanistically resolving fine-scale, topography-driven hydrologic-groundwater processes such as lateral groundwater flow and river-floodplain-groundwater interactions. Thus, the study will significantly advance our capability to simulate coupled surface water, groundwater, and agricultural systems, which is critical for achieving food security through better assessment and prediction of water resource. Since CLM is a land component of an Earth System Model (ESM), the new framework and insights gained from the study are expected to inform the development of the next generation of ESMs through the incorporation of human components for the holistic study of coupled natural-human systems, and to assess human-climate interactions. The new framework will also enable us to better assess and predict water resources in highly managed land-water system around the world including the High Plains in the central US and Central Valley in California where declining water supplies are likely to adversely impact regional, national, and global food security in the future.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.