PIRE: LIFE ON A TECTONICALLY-ACTIVE DELTA: CONVERGENCE OF EARTH SCIENCE AND GEOHAZARD RESEARCH IN BANGLADESH WITH EDUCATION AND CAPACITY BUILDING

PIRE：地质活动活跃的三角洲上的生命：孟加拉国地球科学和地质灾害研究与教育和能力建设的融合

• 批准号: 0968354
• 负责人: Michael Steckler
• 金额: $ 450万
• 依托单位: Columbia University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-09-01 至 2018-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0968354&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: PIRE; LIFE; TECTONICALLY; ACTIVE; DELTA

This PIRE project brings together an international team of U.S., Bangladeshi, Indian, German, and Italian scientists to further our understanding of the dynamics of the world's largest delta, the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta (GBMD). This delta, named for the three large rivers that flow into it from the Himalayan and Burmese Ranges, encompasses most of Bangladesh. In addition to its size, this delta is notable because it is at the active juncture of three tectonic plates and receives over one gigaton of sediment annually from the three large rivers. Only about one-third of this sediment remains in the delta because the delta is sinking so rapidly. This combination preserves a tremendous stratigraphic archive of erosional processes in the Himalaya, the river-based processes that are building the GBMD, the tectonics of the active plate boundaries it overlies, and the interactions among these processes. This record is largely unexplored and little is known about the fundamental interactions between sedimentation and tectonics at this scale. This PIRE team will use a broad suite of disciplines and techniques to collectively study the sedimentary and hydrological processes, tectonics, structural geology, and seismology essential to unravelling GBMD dynamics. The PIRE team will first create a record of the stratigraphic architecture of the delta using a mixture of advanced technical and local manual methods. Core areas of the project include: 1) defining the tectonic plate boundaries that are buried by sedimentation; 2) identifying potential sources of future earthquakes; 3) investigating the relative causes of subsidence rates due to longer term effects (e.g., sediment loading, tectonics, and compaction) vs. shorter term effects (e.g., earthquakes and human interventions); 4) investigating rapid channel switches of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers; and 5) assembling a comprehensive, integrated record of delta dynamics by coupling tectonics and hydrological processes, and by linking long-term steady processes with abrupt, short-term events. Bangladesh is a developing country that is the size of Iowa, but with a 50-fold greater population of almost 160 million people. This impoverished nation is extremely vulnerable to natural hazards related to the dynamism of the delta system. Such hazards include widespread seasonal flooding, river erosion and channel redirections, permanent land loss from sea level rise, naturally-occurring arsenic in groundwater, recurrent cyclones and monsoons, landslides, and huge earthquakes. Because such infrequent geologic events are poorly understood, there is little long-term planning to address the timescales at which the dynamic GBMD landscape is changing, leaving a growing population at risk. Reliable knowledge of geologic processes is therefore a prerequisite for effective infrastructure design, risk-reduction and resource optimization in Bangladesh. The PIRE project provides a compelling international education opportunity for all participants by collaboratively engaging them in research on an important fundamental problem, the results of which could reduce the impact of future delta-related hazards. It will train the next generation of U.S. earth and environmental scientists to work globally via international fieldwork, laboratory experiments and analysis, and modelling. Graduate students and undergraduates from PIRE institutions will be able to conduct research in Bangladesh and enroll in interdisciplinary field courses there; additional research trips and field schools will be open to students from institutions not directly involved in the PIRE research efforts. The project will also broaden participation across PIRE institutions and strengthen the geosciences dimensions of an interdisciplinary course on water issues in Bangladesh taught at the University of Minnesota. The PIRE project will allow the U.S. institutions to build their capacity for international engagement. It will strengthen and link longstanding ongoing research involvement in Bangladesh on several campuses. It will couple the U.S. institutions in an international network of delta experts in Europe and South Asia. Members of the project will also take advantage of the unique "Experimental Earthscape" and computational facilities at the National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics (NCED), an NSF-funded Science and Technology Center at the University of Minnesota. Linkage to NCED, which supports many researchers studying the Mississippi River delta, means this PIRE has the potential to have a large national impact by providing fundamental new insights into the behavior of delta systems. This award will also help build Bangladeshi research capacity and infrastructure via the collaboration with the Delta Study Centre (DSC) and Dhaka University Earth Obseratory (DUEO) at Dhaka University (DU). The project should help position DSC and DUEO as centers of excellence on deltaic sedimentary and tectonic processes and establish them as a focal points for GMBD research with strong faculty, archived sedimentary data, and oversight of critical seismic and GPS networks. The collaborating institutions in the U.S. are Columbia University (NY), Vanderbilt University (TN), the University of Minnesota, and City University of New York, Queens College. Collaborating foreign institutions are the University of Dhaka (Bangladesh), Bremen University (Germany), Physical Research Laboratory (India), the Bengal Engineering and Science University (India), and Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (Italy). This project is cofunded by NSF's Office of International Science and Engineering and the Division of Earth Sciences.

这个PIRE项目汇集了一支美国，孟加拉国，印度，德国和意大利科学家的国际团队，以进一步了解我们对世界上最大的三角洲，Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta（GBMD）的动态。这个三角洲以从喜马拉雅和缅甸范围流入其中的三条大河命名，涵盖了孟加拉国的大部分地区。除了它的大小外，该三角洲之所以引人注目，是因为它处于三个构造板的活跃连接处，每年从三个大河流中收到一吉尔顿的沉积物。由于三角洲如此迅速地沉没，因此只有大约三分之一的沉积物保留在三角洲。这种组合保留了喜马拉雅山中侵蚀过程的巨大地层档案，这是建立GBMD的基于河流的过程，其覆盖的主动板界的构造以及这些过程之间的相互作用。该记录在很大程度上没有探索，并且在此规模上沉积与构造之间的基本相互作用知之甚少。该海盗团队将使用广泛的学科和技术来集体研究沉积和水文过程，构造学，结构地质学和地震学对于揭示GBMD动态必不可少的。 PIRE团队将首先使用高级技术和本地手动方法的混合物创建三角洲地层架构的记录。该项目的核心区域包括：1）定义通过沉积掩埋的构造板边界； 2）确定未来地震的潜在来源； 3）研究由于长期效应（例如沉积物加载，构造和压实）而引起的沉降率相对原因与较短的期限效应（例如，地震和人类干预措施）； 4）调查恒河和婆罗门河的快速通道开关； 5）通过耦合构造和水文过程，通过将长期稳定过程与突然的短期事件联系起来，组装全面的，综合的Delta动力学记录。孟加拉国是一个与爱荷华州相似的发展中国家，但人口近50亿人口。这个贫穷的国家极易受到与三角洲系统活力有关的自然危害。这种危害包括广泛的季节性洪水，河流侵蚀和通道重定向，海平面的永久土地损失，地下水中自然存在的砷，复发性的旋风和季风，山地滑坡和巨大的地震。由于这种不频繁的地质事件的理解很少，因此几乎没有长期计划来解决动态GBMD景观正在发生变化的时间表，从而使人口越来越高。因此，对地质过程的可靠知识是孟加拉国有效的基础设施设计，降低风险和资源优化的先决条件。 PIRE项目通过合作地研究重要的基本问题，为所有参与者提供了令人信服的国际教育机会，其结果可以减少未来与DELTA相关的危害的影响。它将培训下一代的美国地球和环境科学家通过国际现场工作，实验室实验和分析以及建模。皮尔机构的研究生和本科生将能够在孟加拉国进行研究，并在那里参加跨学科的野外课程；其他研究旅行和实地学校将向不直接参与PIRE研究工作的机构的学生开放。该项目还将扩大PIRE机构的参与，并加强明尼苏达大学教授的孟加拉国跨学科课程的地球科学层面。 PIRE项目将使美国机构能够建立其国际参与能力。它将加强并将长期正在进行的研究参与在孟加拉国的几个校园中进行。它将在欧洲和南亚的国际三角洲专家网络中融入美国机构。该项目的成员还将利用明尼苏达大学NSF资助的科学技术中心国家地球表面动力学中心（NCED）的独特“实验地球”和计算设施。与许多研究密西西比河三角洲的研究人员的联系与NCED的联系意味着该海盗有可能通过提供对三角洲系统行为的基本新见解，从而产生巨大的国家影响。该奖项还将通过与达卡大学（DSC）和达卡大学（DU）的达卡大学地球观察性（DU）合作来帮助建立孟加拉国的研究能力和基础设施。该项目应有助于将DSC和Dueo定位为三角洲沉积和构造过程的卓越中心，并将其确立为GMBD研究的焦点，并具有强大的教职员工，存档的沉积数据以及对关键地震和GPS网络的监督。美国的合作机构是哥伦比亚大学（纽约），范德比尔特大学（TN），明尼苏达大学和纽约市皇后学院的哥伦比亚大学。外国机构的合作是达卡大学（孟加拉国），不来梅大学（德国），物理研究实验室（印度），孟加拉工程和科学大学（印度）和伊斯蒂托图·纳粹（Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e velcanologia）。该项目由NSF的国际科学与工程办公室和地球科学部占领。