Collaborative Research: Network Cluster: The Coastal Critical Zone: Processes that transform landscapes and fluxes between land and sea

合作研究：网络集群：沿海关键区：改变陆地和海洋之间景观和通量的过程

• 批准号: 2012319
• 负责人: Keryn Gedan
• 金额: $ 52.44万
• 依托单位: George Washington University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-09-01 至 2025-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2012319&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Network; Cluster; Coastal

Coastal marshes are essential environments that preserve a fragile and highly valuable ecosystem. They are an integral part of the Critical Zone that regulates the conditions at the Earth’s surface and helps sustain life. Coastal marshes provide crucial services such as carbon storage and removal of nutrients and contaminants that would otherwise make their way to the ocean. Rising sea level is expanding these environments, but salt-water is also moving in, destroying woodlands, and damaging farm fields. Ghost forests and salt-damaged farm fields are stark indicators of these ecological changes along world coastlines that can adversely affect land use and economies. Less apparent, and perhaps even more important, are the concurrent changes in water and chemical cycling that are altering the functioning of the coastal Critical Zone. This research project will quantify the processes that occur in the changing coastal Critical Zone and associated alterations in cycling, fluxes, and storage of elements at the land-sea margin. The project will address important questions about how sea-level rise may alter the natural “plumbing” that occurs at the land-sea boundary and its implications with respect to coastal ecosystems. The results will assist decision-makers and stakeholders in planning for future environmental changes. This project will quantify the coupled processes and feedbacks that govern the hydrological, ecological, geomorphological, and biogeochemical transformations in the coastal Critical Zone and how rising sea level will translate to changes in cycling, fluxes, and storage of elements at the land-sea margin. Sea-level rise pushes salt and inundation fronts inland via storms and tides (fast processes) while gradually elevating the water table (slow processes). The complexity of the system, with its strong hydrologic transience (e.g. tides, storms), tightly coupled ecosystem and biogeochemical mosaics, and human influences, make functioning and response at the marsh-upland transition difficult to characterize and predict. The governing hypotheses of this project address (1) the major fast and slow hydrological drivers of coastal Critical-Zone transition, (2) the landscape feedbacks in which ecological change drives geomorphological evolution that feeds back into hydrological and biogeochemical processes, and (3) biogeochemical feedbacks in which salinization and redox shifts alter cycling, mobility, and sequestration of nutrients and carbon. These processes differ between areas where the marsh abuts forested uplands versus agricultural land. The hypotheses will be addressed through interdisciplinary field observations, experiments, and modeling that are fully integrated across three locations along the mid-Atlantic coast with paired marsh-forest and marsh-agriculture sites. The forested and agricultural sites at each location represent major differences in hydrology, geochemistry, and ecology, and are expected to respond differently to rising sea level. This project addresses pressing needs to determine how landscapes in the coastal Critical Zone may respond to sea-level rise and how Critical-Zone research can be applied to developing policies and actions to mitigate the effects.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.

沿海沼泽是维护脆弱且高度宝贵的生态系统的必要环境。它们是关键区域的组成部分，可调节地球表面的条件并帮助维持生命。沿海沼泽提供了至关重要的服务，例如碳储存和去除营养物质和污染物，否则将进入海洋。海平面上升正在扩大这些环境，但盐水也在进来，破坏林地，并破坏了农场。幽灵森林和受盐损伤的农田是世界海岸线这些生态变化的明星指标，这些变化可能会对土地使用和经济产生不利影响。不太明显，甚至更重要的是，水和化学循环的同时变化正在改变沿海关键区域的功能。该研究项目将量化沿海关键区域不断变化的过程，以及在陆地海距处骑自行车，通量和存储元素的相关变化。该项目将解决有关海平面上升如何改变在陆上边界上发生的自然“管道”及其对沿海生态系统的影响的重要问题。结果将帮助决策者和利益相关者计划未来的环境变化。该项目将量化控制沿海临界区域中水文，生态，地貌和生物地球化学转化的耦合过程和反馈，以及海平面上升的上升将转化为循环，通量和陆地上元素元素存储的变化。海平面上升通过暴风雨和潮汐（快速过程）向内陆推动盐和基础设施前线，同时逐渐提高地下水位（缓慢的过程）。该系统的复杂性具有强大的水文瞬态（例如潮汐，风暴），紧密耦合的生态系统和生物地球化学镶嵌物以及人类的影响，使难以表征和预测的沼泽式过渡时期的功能和反应。 The governing hypotheses of this project address (1) the major fast and slow hydraulic drivers of coastal Critical-Zone transition, (2) the landscape feedbacks in which ecological change drives geomorphological evolution that feeds back into hydrologic and biogeochemical processes, and (3) biogeochemical feedbacks in which salinization and redox shifts alter cycling, mobility, and sequence of nutrients and 碳。这些过程在沼泽毗邻山地与农业用地的地区之间有所不同。这些假设将通过跨学科的现场观测，实验和建模来解决，这些观测和建模将在大西洋中部沿海的三个位置与配对的沼泽 - 森林和沼泽农业地点完全融合在一起。每个地点的森林和农业地点都代表水文学，地球化学和生态学的主要差异，并有望对海平面上升的反应不同。该项目地址紧迫需要确定沿海关键区域中的景观如何应对海平面上升以及如何将关键区域的研究应用于制定策略和行动以减轻效果。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是通过使用基金会的知识分子和更广泛影响的评估来审查CRITERIA来评估的支持，以评估珍贵。