Network Cluster CINet: Critical Interface Network in Intensively Managed Landscapes

世界各地的农田都得到了密集的管理，以实现高水平的作物生产。在美国中西部，集约化管理包括通过耕作频繁地耕作土壤，广泛使用化肥，并努力通过在土壤中安装管道和扩大溪流来改善平坦、排水不良的田地的水流。虽然这些活动提高了作物产量，但随着时间的推移，它们引起的变化可能会降低土壤和水的环境质量，不仅是当地的，而且是下游的。在保护环境质量的同时维持农业生产，取决于对自然过程如何与密集的景观管理相联系的理解。该项目旨在增进对重要要素的理解，这些要素在调节农业生产和环境质量所依赖的水文、生物、生态、地质和化学过程中发挥重要作用。项目中检查的重要关键界面包括土壤表面、土壤中的根区和河流廊道。该项目检查这些关键接口的互连程度，并控制环境的响应。利用美国中西部不同气候、地形、地质历史和其他景观属性的观测点网络，该项目将全面了解集约化管理的景观的各种组成部分如何共同影响高水平的农业生产，并受到高水平农业生产的影响。这项研究的结果将为发展可持续和有弹性的农业生态系统提供基本知识和新的预测能力。该项目将通过发展一支强大的STEM劳动力队伍来解决多学科问题，建立项目以吸引社区成员参与关键区域科学，向公众传播结果，促进专业发展和认证的场所，并与公民团体和利益相关者合作，在项目过程中传达调查结果并收集反馈，从而为社会做出贡献。它们是间歇性的，集中在对调节物质(即水、沉积物、碳和营养物质)的储存、运输和转化具有特别重要的关键界面(CI)。这项研究的中心假设是，临界界面的动态在景观尺度上对临界区的整体动态施加了不成比例的大控制；由于这些关键界面由于人类和天气压力在空间和时间尺度上正在经历快速和共同进化的转变，它们构成了预测理解指导可持续管理的最有限因素。利用一个跨越关键环境梯度的观测点网络，并采用新颖的数据分析和综合建模方法，该项目将促进对关键界面及其相互依存关系的了解，以克服从小尺度到景观尺度，从事件时间尺度到季节、年际和十年尺度的水生生物地球化学现象及其轨迹的可预测性瓶颈。研究集中在三个受人类活动强烈影响的界面：近地表、活动根带和河流廊道。该项目利用了现有的基础设施和来自美国中西部冰川地区和密西西比河上游外围地区的地点网络以及关键区国际网络的知识。这些地点包括CZO、LTAR和大河生态观测网络，纳入了广泛的地质、天气、土壤、土地利用和地貌梯度。这项工作的综合将为全球范围内的地球预报临界区动力学提供新的预测能力，以推进人类对维持生命资源的影响的汇聚研究，并提高我们显着减少预测不确定性和推进环境可持续发展目标的能力。该项目与伊利诺伊州戈德弗雷的刘易斯和克拉克社区学院的国家大河研究和教育中心合作，将进一步为博士后助理、本科生和研究生、社区大学生和高中教师提供培训和教育，同时吸引更广泛的利益相关者和社区成员参与。该项目由地球科学部的临界区合作网络、地球生物学和低温地球化学、水文科学、地貌学和土地利用动力学项目共同资助。该奖项反映了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。

Agricultural lands throughout the world are intensively managed to achieve high levels of crop production. In the US Midwest, intensive management includes frequent working of the soil through tillage, widespread application of fertilizers, and efforts to improve the flow of water off of flat, poorly drained fields by installing pipes within the soil and by enlarging streams. Although these activities enhance crop production, over time they induce changes that can degrade the environmental quality of soil and water, not only locally but far downstream. Sustaining agricultural production while protecting environmental quality depends on an understanding of how natural processes are linked with intensive landscape management. This project seeks to advance understanding of important elements that act as “Critical Interfaces” and play important roles in regulating hydrological, biological, ecological, geological, and chemical processes on which agricultural production and environmental quality depend. Important critical interfaces examined in the project include the soil surface, the root zone in the soil, and river corridors. The project examines the extent to which these critical interfaces are interconnected and control the response of the environment. Using a network of observational sites across the US Midwest having different climates, topography, geologic history, and other landscape attributes, this project will provide a comprehensive understanding of how various components of intensively managed landscapes function together to influence, and be influenced by, high levels of agricultural production. The outcomes of this research will provide basic knowledge and new predictive capabilities for developing sustainable and resilient agro-ecosystems. The project will contribute to society by developing a strong STEM workforce that can tackle multidisciplinary issues, establishing programs to engage community members in critical zone science, communicating results to the public, and facilitating venues for professional development and certifications, and working with citizen groups and stakeholders to communicate findings and gather feedback throughout the course of the project.Critical zone dynamics in intensively managed landscapes (IMLs) do not operate uniformly over time and space. They are intermittent and concentrated at critical interfaces (CIs) of exceptional importance for regulating material (i.e., water, sediment, carbon and nutrients) storage, transport and transformations. The central hypothesis of this research is that the dynamics of critical interfaces exert disproportionately large control on the overall dynamics of critical zones at the landscape scale; and since these critical interfaces are undergoing rapid and co-evolutionary transition due to human and weather stressors across spatial and temporal scales, they constitute the most limiting elements for predictive understanding to guide sustainable management of IMLs. Using a network of observational sites across key environmental gradients, with novel data analytic and integrated modeling approaches, this project will advance understanding of critical interfaces individually as well as their interdependencies to overcome predictability bottlenecks of hydrobiogeochemical phenomena and their trajectories in IMLs from the small scale to the landscape scale, and from the event time scale to seasonal, inter-annual and decadal time scales. The study focuses on three interfaces that are strongly influenced by human action: the near-land surface, the active root zone, and the stream corridor. The project leverages existing infrastructure and knowledge from a network of sites in the glaciated parts of US Midwest and outer reaches of the upper Mississippi River basin, as well as critical zone international networks. The sites, which include CZOs, LTARs and the Great Rivers Ecological Observation Network, incorporate a wide range of geologic, weather, soil, land use and geomorphologic gradients. Synthesis of this work will offer new predictive capability to earthcast critical zone dynamics across the globe to advance convergent research of the human influence on life-sustaining resources and improve our ability to significantly reduce predictive uncertainty and advance environmental sustainability goals. In collaboration with the National Great Rivers Research and Education Center, a program of Lewis and Clark Community College in Godfrey, Illinois, the project will further provide training and education for postdoctoral associates, undergraduate and graduate students, community-college students, and high-school teachers, while engaging stakeholders and members of the broader communities. This project is jointly funded by the Critical Zone Collaborative Network, Geobiology and Low-Temperature Geochemistry, Hydrologic Sciences, and Geomorphology and Land-Use Dynamics programs in the Division of Earth Sciences.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.