RAPID: Death Valley after Hurricane Hilary: A study of desert landscape re-equilibration after extreme events

RAPID：希拉里飓风后的死亡谷：极端事件后沙漠景观重新平衡的研究

• 批准号: 2344982
• 负责人: Mackenzie Day
• 金额: $ 2.26万
• 依托单位: University of California-Los Angeles
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-09-01 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2344982&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RAPID; Death; Valley; after; Hurricane

On August 20, 2023, the first tropical storm to hit California since the 1930’s traversed Death Valley National Park. Total of 2.2 inches of rain fell over the park in a single day, setting a new record equivalent to the park’s average annual rainfall. This led to unprecedented flooding and landscape change, the extent of which is still being determined. During normal conditions, Death Valley is among the most arid places in the world with landscape change driven by wind and infrequent alluvial and fluvial activity. In the aftermath of Hurricane Hilary, widespread flash flooding and debris flows carved deep channels will fundamentally alter the landscape providing an unprecedented opportunity to learn about the rates and drivers of landscape change following extreme events.This work will identify meter- to hundred-meter-scale changes caused by the storm and quantitatively document the post-storm landscape state. The immediate results of debris flows, flooding, and associated erosion define the boundary condition for future landscape development and recovery. This baseline landscape state is actively decaying and must be rapidly documented to address scientific questions related to landscape change in the wake of extreme events including What are the timescales of landscape re-equilibration at meter- to hundred-meter scales? How do extreme events redistribute or create new sources and sinks of sediment? How does vegetation recover in the wake of an extreme event? Exploring these questions requires the proposed baseline dataset that will be collected in this effort.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.

2023 年 8 月 20 日，自 1930 年代以来首次袭击加州的热带风暴席卷了死亡谷国家公园，单日降雨量达到 2.2 英寸，创下了相当于该公园年平均降雨量的新纪录。导致了前所未有的洪水和地貌变化，其程度仍在确定中。在正常情况下，死亡谷是世界上最干旱的地方之一，地貌变化由风和罕见的冲积物驱动。希拉里飓风过后，大面积的山洪和泥石流会从根本上改变地貌，为了解极端事件后地貌变化的速度和驱动因素提供了前所未有的机会。这项工作将确定从米到米的变化。风暴引起的百米尺度的变化，并定量记录风暴后的景观状态，泥石流、洪水和相关侵蚀的直接结果定义了未来景观发展和恢复的边界条件。并且必须快速记录以解决与景观变化相关的科学问题极端事件发生后，包括米到百米尺度的景观重新平衡的时间尺度是多少？极端事件如何重新分配或创造新的沉积物源和汇？ ? 探索这些问题需要在这项工作中收集拟议的基线数据集。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。