Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for the Global Environment Nutrient Network (GEN-2)

工程研究中心规划奖助金竞赛是作为ERC计划的试点征集活动进行的。计划拨款不是ERC全面竞赛的一部分，而是旨在建立团队之间的能力，以计划集中的、中心规模的工程研究。包括氮(N)和磷(P)在内的水生营养污染对人类和生态系统都构成生存威胁。从海岸到海岸和世界各地都能感受到它的影响，包括小溪、河流和沿海海洋中有害的藻类大量繁殖，海洋缺氧和酸化，内陆和沿海渔业的损失，以及产生强烈的温室气体，这些气体不成比例地导致环境温度上升。S？三分球？减少：减少：减少在生产能量(N)和食物(N和P)过程中释放的养分；去除：保留P，并在其产生和使用后将生物有效N反硝化为N 2气体；以及回收：从废流中捕获和再利用N和P。环境工程师在开发处理系统以去除和回收废流中的营养物质方面取得了长足的进步。下一个前沿在于优化流域到大陆尺度的处理系统网络，同时考虑：(1)所有三个R？S(不仅仅是迁移和恢复)；(2)陆地植被、湿地和河流廊道(即河流及其相关的河岸和潮汐带)的自然衰减；(3)生态系统对养分负荷的非线性反应。在这笔赠款中，我们将进行规划工作和三个研讨会，目标是建立一个融合工程研究中心(C-ERC)来应对这些重大挑战。我们的NSF C-ERC将建立在一个计算平台(Gen-2)上，该平台汇集了工程师、水文学家、海洋学家、生态学家、经济学家、政治学家、教育专家和广泛的利益相关者，以寻求从大陆到全球的营养污染的实用解决方案。通过规划练习和三个研讨会，我们将选择和完善我们的：(1)学者、学习者和利益相关者的团队；(2)研究问题和方法；(3)教育和外联活动；(4)促进团队成员之间深度合作所需的领导结构和分析工具；(5)确保工程教育和代表不足的少数族裔的招募/纳入的办法？我们所做的一切；以及(6)评估中心的分析工具？S的影响。我们的规划产品将由边界组织理论提供信息，并由四个互补团队的不同高素质学者(包括来自11所大学和3个国家的23名研究人员)共同制作。流域团队将开发GEN-2，并确保它与其他大陆尺度的建模框架无缝集成，吸收实时和历史数据，并推进下一代水质观测网络的设计。海洋小组将利用现有的区域海洋模型，评估陆地营养源和自然海洋过程(如营养物上升流)对沿海海洋水质的相对重要性。政策小组将通过成本效益分析、行为经济学(使用随机试验评估拟议干预措施的长期有效性)和政治学(使用案例研究揭示可能促进管理过渡的治理创新)的视角来评估可能的营养污染解决方案。最后，学会团队将利用NSF I-Corps原则来阐明目标和痛点？这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Planning Grants for Engineering Research Centers competition was run as a pilot solicitation within the ERC program. Planning grants are not required as part of the full ERC competition, but intended to build capacity among teams to plan for convergent, center-scale engineering research.Aquatic nutrient pollution, including nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P), poses an existential threat to both humans and ecosystems. Its impacts, which are felt coast-to-coast and around the world, include noxious algal blooms in streams, rivers and the coastal ocean, ocean hypoxia and acidification, loss of inland and coastal fisheries, and the production of potent greenhouse gases that disproportionately contribute to an increase in temperature in the environment. The ?Three R?s? for mitigating aquatic nutrient pollution are: Reduction: decrease nutrient released during the production of energy (N) and food (N and P); Removal: retain P and denitrify bioavailable N to N2 gas following its creation and use; and Recovery: capture and reuse N and P from waste streams. Environmental engineers have made great strides in developing treatment systems for the removal and recovery of nutrients from waste streams. The next frontier lies in optimizing networks of treatment systems at the watershed-to-continental scale while taking into account: (1) all three R?s (not just removal and recovery); (2) natural attenuation by terrestrial vegetation, wetlands, and stream corridors (i.e., the stream and associated riparian and hyporheic zones); and (3) the non-linear responses of ecosystems to nutrient loading. In this grant we will carry out planning exercises and three workshops with the goal of developing a Convergent Engineering Research Center (C-ERC) to address these grand challenges. Our NSF C-ERC will be founded on a computational platform (GEN-2) that brings together engineers, hydrologists, oceanographers, ecologists, economists, political scientists, education experts, and a broad cross-section of stakeholders, in pursuit of practical solutions to nutrient pollution at continental-to-global scales.Through planning exercises and three workshops we will select and refine our: (1) team of scholars, learners, and stakeholders; (2) research questions and approaches; (3) educational and outreach activities; (4) leadership structure and analytical tools needed to promote deep collaboration among team members; (5) approach for ensuring that engineering education and under-represented minority recruitment/inclusion is ?in the DNA? of everything we do; and (6) analytical tools for assessing the Center?s impact. Our planning products will be informed by boundary organization theory, and co-produced by a diverse group of highly qualified scholars (including 23 researchers across 11 universities and three countries) working in four complementary teams. The Watershed Team will develop GEN-2 and assure that it seamlessly integrates with other continental-scale modeling frameworks, assimilates real-time and historical data, and advances the design of next generation water quality observational networks. The Ocean Team will utilize existing regional ocean models to evaluate the relative importance of land-based nutrient sources and natural oceanographic processes (such as nutrient upwelling) on coastal ocean water quality. The Policy Team will evaluate possible solutions to nutrient pollution through the lens of cost-benefit analysis, behavioral economics (using randomized trials to evaluate the long-term efficacy of proposed interventions), and political science (using case studies to uncover governance innovations likely to facilitate management transitions). Finally, the Society Team will utilize NSF I-Corps principles to elucidate goals and ?pain points? of stakeholders and foster an inclusive ecosystem of learners, scholars, and stakeholders that reflects the demographic make-up of the broader community.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.