Network Cluster: Patterns and controls of ecohydrology, CO2 fluxes, and nutrient availability in pedogenic carbonate-dominated dryland critical zones

网络集群：成土碳酸盐主导的旱地关键区域的生态水文学、二氧化碳通量和养分可用性的模式和控制

• 批准号: 2012475
• 负责人: Lixin Jin
• 金额: $ 526.93万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at El Paso
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Cooperative Agreement
• 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=2012475&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Network; Cluster; Patterns; controls; ecohydrology

The Critical Zone is the layer of Earth’s surface from the top of the trees to the bottom of the groundwater. Rocks, soil, water, air, and living organisms interact in the Critical Zone to provide life-sustaining resources such as food and water. Drylands, with arid to semi-arid climates, cover 45% of the Earth and provide homes to more than 2 billion people. The drylands of the American West are facing significant challenges caused by global change, such as drought and changing plant communities. Increases in human population and food demand have also converted many natural drylands in this region to irrigated farms. These changes in land use and climate have greatly affected the movement of water, carbon, nutrients and salt through different parts of the drylands. All of these changes impact the sustainability of natural and agricultural ecosystems. This project will investigate these important Critical Zone processes and improve our ability to predict future change. Specifically, this thematic cluster will investigate how carbonate minerals in dryland soils control and impact water, nutrients, salts, and carbon moving in and out of the Critical Zone. This project will help to educate and train middle to high school students, and college undergraduate and graduate students. These students will be provided with the motivation, skills and tools to become future professionals in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM). Our research and education efforts will also help to grow public awareness of the importance of the Critical Zone function and service in drylands.The Critical Zone in dryland ecosystems is an understudied but crucial part of the Earth system. It contrasts with mesic areas by having sparse vegetation, limited but dynamic soil moisture, deep water table, low soil organic matter, alkaline pH, and buildup of salt precipitates, especially as pedogenic carbonates that can develop into a thick caliche layer and dominate the soil structure. However, these systems are underrepresented in Critical Zone research and current conceptual models do not fully address phenomena unique to drylands such as development of pedogenic carbonate, dust storms, episodic precipitation, and high spatiotemporal variability in hydrological and biogeochemical processes. To fill these knowledge gaps, the overarching goal of the project is to increase our capacity to quantify and predict dryland carbon budgets across land-use and climatic gradients by examining the role of water and nutrient availability in regulating the movement of organic and inorganic carbon in the dryland Critical Zone. Specifically, this project centers around the multifaceted roles of pedogenic carbonates in dictating vadose zone water dynamics, the potential recharge to deep water table, and nutrient cycling in typical dryland landscapes, piedmont, playa and irrigated agricultural fields. These in turn drive trends in evolution of Critical Zone architectures and land-atmosphere C exchange. We will tackle these problems by using a comprehensive set of tools including eddy covariance towers, deep Critical Zone drilling, hydrogeophysical surveys, soil and hydrologic sensors, isotopic analysis, synchrotron, geochemical proxies, and genetic sequencing. This project builds on the rich historical data, knowledge, and models at the Jornada LTER, the Reynolds Creek CZO, USDA-ARS Kimberly site in Idaho and irrigated agricultural sites along the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. This thematic cluster will develop an interdisciplinary framework to understand material and energy flow through dryland Critical Zones and lay the foundation for managing Critical Zone function, evolution, and services, as well as forecasting carbon budget changes with future shifts in climate and land use in drylands.This project is jointly funded by the Critical Zone Collaborative Network and the Hydrologic Sciences programs in the Division of Earth Sciences and the Hispanic Serving Institutions program in the Education and Human Resources Directorate's Division of Human Resource Development.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.

关键区域是从树顶到地下水底部的地球表面层。岩石，土壤，水，空气和活生物体在关键区域相互作用，以提供维持生命的资源，例如食物和水。干旱地区到半干旱的气候，覆盖了地球的45％，并为超过20亿人提供了房屋。美国西部的旱地面临着由全球变化造成的重大挑战，例如干旱和不断变化的植物社区。人口和粮食需求的增加也已将该地区的许多天然旱地转变为灌溉农场。土地利用和气候的这些变化极大地影响了水，碳，养分和盐的运动。所有这些变化都会影响自然和农业生态系统的可持续性。该项目将研究这些重要的关键区域过程，并提高我们预测未来变化的能力。特别是，该主题群集将研究旱地土壤中的碳酸盐矿物如何控制并影响水，养分，盐和碳进出关键区域。该项目将有助于对中学生以及大学本科生和研究生进行教育和培训。将为这些学生提供动力，技能和工具，以成为科学，技术，工程，艺术和数学（Steam）的未来专业人士。我们的研究和教育工作还将有助于提高公众对旱地关键区域功能和服务重要性的认识。旱地生态系统的关键区域是地球系统的理解但至关重要的部分。它与介质区域形成鲜明对比，这是稀疏的蔬菜，有限但动态的土壤水分，深水桌，低土壤有机物，醇ph和盐沉淀的堆积，尤其是因为可以发展成厚的瓦斯层并占据土壤结构的成源碳酸盐。但是，这些系统在关键区域研究中的代表性不足，当前的概念模型并未完全解决旱地所特有的现象，例如成源性碳酸盐的发展，尘埃风暴，情节降水以及水文和生物地球化学过程中的高空间时间变化。为了填补这些知识差距，该项目的总体目标是通过研究水和养分可用性在确定旱地关键区域中有机和无机碳运动中的作用和养分的作用，来提高我们量化和预测土地利用和慢性梯度的旱地碳预算的能力。具体而言，该项目围绕在典型的旱地景观，皮埃蒙特（Piedmont），普拉亚（Playa）和灌溉农业领域的养分循环中，围绕增生碳酸盐群在决定vadose区水动力学，潜在的补给以及养分循环中的多方面作用。这些反过来推动了关键区域架构和陆地大气C交换的发展趋势。我们将通过使用一套全面的工具来解决这些问题，包括涡流协方差塔，深临界区域钻孔，水地调查，土壤和水文传感器，同位素分析，同步性分析，同步性，地球化学代理和遗传测序。该项目建立在乔纳达（Jornada）的丰富历史数据，知识和模型的基础上，雷诺（Reynolds Creek）Czo，爱达荷州的USDA-ARS金伯利（USDA-ARS Kimberly）以及德克萨斯州里奥格兰德山谷（Rio Grande Valley）沿岸的农业遗址。该项目由关键区合作网络和地球科学部的水文科学计划和西班牙裔服务机构计划在教育和人力资源局的人力资源开发部门的人力资源开发部门共同资助。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是通过基金会的知识优点和广泛影响的评估来通过评估来进行评估来获得的支持。