Doctoral Dissertation Research: Nutrient Pollution, Riverine Mud Investment, and Environmental Governance

在上个世纪，将氮和磷等营养物质纳入农业施肥方法，使农业生产的规模和效率都得到了显著提高。然而，另一个后果是，当地生态系统承受的压力增加了，需要从农田中吸收过量的这些营养物质。这种被称为营养物污染的现象已被明显发现，严重威胁着关键淡水供应的健康，因为过量的营养物会促使有害藻类大量繁殖，向人类和非人类种群释放有害毒素。因此，最近在工业农田周边的河泥上进行了科学和法律投资，尽管人们对这种方式知之甚少，但它对农田向水道的养分转移起到了至关重要的调节作用。该项目支持对一名人类学研究生进行经验、科学数据收集和分析方法的培训，研究河流泥浆的科学和法律框架如何为应对营养物污染问题创造一种新工具，以及这种工具对地方和国家健康和治理的影响。通过参与观察、访谈、焦点小组、民族志电影、档案研究以及建立河泥的社会和环境意义的区域特定历史数据库，研究人员将检查由国家资助的科学家和政策制定者进行的实际、科学和官僚工作，以将河泥转化为环境治理的宝贵资源。通过在靠近主要淡水供应地的农田、研究营养物污染的实验室和制定营养物污染政策的办公室进行这些实践，本研究旨在更广泛地阐明环境治理实践的技术复杂性。此外，通过关注河流泥的特定材料及其与营养物污染治理实践问题的关系，本研究旨在更好地理解具体的材料和历史问题如何影响当代国家以环境可持续和经济上可行的方式进行治理的努力。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The incorporation of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorous into agricultural fertilizing practices over the last century has enabled a dramatic increase in both the scale and efficiency of agricultural production. An additional consequence, however, has been an increase in the pressure placed upon local ecosystems to absorb the excess leaching of such nutrients from agricultural fields. This phenomenon, referred to as nutrient pollution, has notably been found to significantly threaten the health of critical freshwater supplies as excess nutrients can encourage the growth of harmful algae blooms which release harmful toxins to both human and nonhuman populations. As a result, there has been recent scientific and legal investment in riverine mud located on the periphery of industrial farmlands, which mediate the transference of nutrients from fields to waterways in critical, albeit little understood ways. This project, which supports the training of a graduate student in anthropology in the methods of empirical, scientific data collection and analysis, investigates how scientific and legal framings of riverine mud create a new tool for confronting the problem of nutrient pollution and the consequences of such a tool for local and national health and governance.Through participant observation, interviews, focus groups, ethnographic film elicitation, archival research, and the creation of a regional-specific historical database of the social and environmental significance of riverine mud, the investigators will examine the practical, scientific, and bureaucratic work carried out by state-funded scientists and policy makers to transform riverine mud into a valuable resource for environmental governance. Following such practices across scientific field sites in farmlands near major freshwater supplies, laboratories where nutrient pollution is studied, and offices where nutrient pollution policy is created, this research aims to clarify the technical complexities of environmental governance practices more broadly. Additionally, by focusing on the specific material of riverine mud and its relation to the problem of the nutrient pollution governance practices, this research aims to better understand how specific material and historical concerns inflect contemporary state efforts to govern in ways which are both environmentally sustainable and economically viable.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.