MERCED - There’s a lot going on at the snowline in the Sierra
Nevada, and it’s all connected: snow, groundwater, soils, rocks and
plants all interact to form a complex system that is vulnerable to
the Earth’s changing climate.
A new, $4.6 million grant awarded to the University of
California, Merced, from the National Science Foundation will fund
interdisciplinary studies of this system, sometimes known among
scientists as the “critical zone.”
Professors Roger Bales and Martha Conklin of UC Merced’s Sierra
Nevada Research Institute and School of Engineering received the
grant money a few weeks ago. They lead a team of researchers from
UC campuses in Berkeley, Irvine, Davis and Santa Barbara, the
University of Nevada, Reno and the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific
Southwest Research Station - all with different interests and areas
of expertise in the critical zone.
“Professors Bales and Conklin are working on a critical part of
our understanding of the natural resources in the Sierra Nevada,”
said Sam Traina, UC Merced’s vice chancellor for research. “We hope
that their interdisciplinary work will help inform the management
of timber and water resources as our mountain systems must face
pressures from a growing population that needs those resources -
and a changing climate that may affect their availability.”
NSF’s Geosciences Directorate has funded only three
environmental observatory programs of this nature. The others are
in Colorado and Pennsylvania. In the future, more may be added.
“Our Critical Zone Observatory will be a prototype for what NSF
hopes will become a nationwide program,” Bales said. “A lot of
people will be looking at us to see how to do it right.”
Scientists working on the new project will seek answers for
questions like these:
* How are the flow and the chemistry of the water system
different in areas whose precipitation is dominated by rainfall as
opposed to areas dominated by snowfall?
* How do extreme hydrologic events affect erosion,
sedimentation and other processes?
* How does vegetation make a difference for the underground
movements of water and other substances?
* How does the geologic structure affect water pathways in
different seasons?
* How does seasonal snowpack affect the system, and how will
the system change as the climate warms and snowpacks recede?
Interdisciplinary work is vital for all these questions.
“The water, vegetation and geochemistry are all interrelated,
with feedbacks from each influencing the others,” Bales said. “For
example, we could study the water cycle in isolation, but then we
wouldn’t understand the vegetation feedbacks.”
The team is using an existing U.S. Forest Service research site
set up to inform adaptive management, the Kings River Experimental
Watershed (KREW) in the southern Sierra, southeast of Shaver Lake.
That should help make the connection between science and resource
management policy, Bales said.
Dr. Carolyn Hunsaker, a research ecologist with the U.S. Forest
Service in Fresno, said she is excited to be hosting this new
effort at KREW. Because the Forest Service and the California
Bay-Delta Program have already made significant investments at this
site - $600,000 per year since 2000 - most of the new grant will
fund research activities and salaries rather than equipment. Ten
graduate students will be recruited for the projects, and there
will be room for undergraduates to get involved in field work and
data processing. Three full-time staff members will also be hired.
The inter-institutional research team has been meeting so far by
teleconference, but they have a field site visit coming up in
October where all the investigators will be present.
“It’s a challenge getting busy people together to talk and meet
about our plans,” Bales said. “But we have a team that is committed
to collaboration rather than going off on their own to do the
research. Everyone is looking forward to an important and exciting
research collaboration.”
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