CAREER: A convergent and transformative approach to understanding human access to groundwater and its impact on the hydrological cycle

地下水是社会的重要资源，但与其利用有关的信息有限。这项研究的目标是提高我们对地下水使用地点和数量的理解。研究成果将与水资源管理者、灌溉者和政策制定者直接相关，造福社会。PI将利用水文科学讲习班和科学家聚焦活动，将研究纳入本科生的教育和研究生的培训。综合研究和教育计划将加强与国家水机构的合作，并制作数据产品--按地下水开采的地质地层对地下水井进行分类，以及估计地下水使用量--这些产品将加强研究基础设施。这些数据产品有可能改进现有的水储存和耗竭工具、模型和评估，这些工具、模型和评估依赖于用水数据来限制水的可获得性，有助于更广泛的政策讨论。通过这项工作，国际和平研究所将在其科学传播记录的基础上，通过旨在让公众和政策制定者参与科学发现的短视频，在一般媒体上广泛传播她的研究成果。这项研究优先考虑可扩展的方法以及通过开放获取储存库传播科学方法和成果，这将使进一步的研究能够超越这项工作的预期结果。人类主导着水圈的关键组成部分，但它们的影响很难量化。在美国西部，预计人类对陆地水循环的直接影响将是显著的，从人类系统中提取和整合数据对于确定水文通量至关重要。以美国西部为例，这项工作将把人类系统的大型数据集与水文科学中使用的更传统的信息结合起来，以实现以下目标：(I)根据地下水井所开采的地质构造确定它们的特征；(Ii)量化灌溉农业的地下水抽水量；(Iii)将研究与计划的教育活动结合起来，协同培训本科生并同时产生研究成果。这项研究将采取趋同的方法，结合PI在水文学、水资源工程、大数据分析和水资源法方面的培训，通过描述人类获取地下水的特征来提高对水文循环的理解。这项研究有可能改进现有的工具、模型和对存储和枯竭的评估，这些工具、模型和评估依赖于了解人类对陆地水循环的影响，并依赖于用水数据来限制水的可获得性。这项提议由地球科学部的水文科学和教育与人力资源项目共同资助。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。

Groundwater is a critical resource for society, but information related to its use is limited. The goals of this research are to improve our understanding of where and how much groundwater is used. The research outcomes will be directly relevant to water managers, irrigators, and policy makers, benefiting society. The PI will use Hydrologic Sciences Workshops and Scientist Spotlight activities to integrate research into the education of undergraduate students and into the training of a graduate student. The integrated research and education plan will enhance partnerships with state water agencies and produce data products—groundwater well classifications by the geologic formation they tap, and estimated groundwater use—that will enhance infrastructure for research. The data products have the potential to improve existing water storage and depletion tools, models, and assessments that rely on water-use data to constrain water availability, contributing to broader policy discussions. Through this work, the PI will build upon her track record of science communication by broadly disseminating her research in general media outlets through short videos designed to engage the public and policy makers with scientific findings. The research prioritizes scalable methodologies and dissemination of scientific methods and outputs through open access repositories, which will enable further research beyond the expected outcomes from this work. Humans dominate critical components of the hydrosphere, but their impact is challenging to quantify. In the western United States, where direct human impacts on the terrestrial water cycle are expected to be pronounced, the extraction and integration of data from human systems is critical to characterizing hydrologic fluxes. Using the western United States as a case study, this work will integrate large datasets from human systems with more traditional information used in the hydrologic sciences to meet the following objectives: (i) characterize groundwater wells by the geologic formation they tap; (ii) quantify groundwater withdrawals for irrigated agriculture; and (iii) integrate research with planned educational activities that synergistically train undergraduate students and simultaneously produce research outputs. The research will take a convergent approach, combining the PI’s training in hydrology, water-resources engineering, big-data analytics, and water law to improve understanding of the hydrological cycle by characterizing human access to groundwater. This research has the potential to improve existing tools, models, and assessments of storage and depletion that rely on understanding human impacts on the terrestrial water cycle and that rely on water-use data to constrain water availability.This proposal is co-funded by the Hydrologic Sciences and Education and Human Resources 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.