Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 15
2
CLEANER and the Observatory Approach
The National Science Foundation's (NSF) mission is to support the
advancement of fundamental science and activities that transform the science
and engineering disciplines to meet future needs. The NSF programs are
continually challenged to support efforts that will enhance understanding of the
sciences and engineering, resulting in improvements that are both incremental
and transformative. Furthermore, NSF programs expand fundamental
knowledge and support the application of that knowledge for the betterment of
society. A growing challenge is the advancement of programs that address
disciplinary issues of scale, both in time and in space, particularly when a
discipline could be transformed by multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary
efforts.
The environmental observatory program can be a key and unique
contributor to the future development and transformations of environmental
engineering and science. An observatory that is successful in this
transformation will likely have several fundamental characteristics. First, it
should provide the focus for the development of new measurement technologies,
allowing for the expansion, and integration of measurements over different
scales of space and time. Second, the observatory should establish a constancy
of measurement and support a robust data environment. These data and
analyses tools should facilitate the identification of basic processes, the
development of new theory and new modeling and forecasting capabilities, and
support adaptive management decision-making. Finally, the observatory should
serve as a center of excellence in measurement, data analyses, and simulation. It
should serve as a catalyst for the evolutionary development of measurement
capability, and for the transformation of environmental science and its
relationship with other sciences.
The scientific goal and strategic intent of the Collaborative Large-scale
Engineering Analysis Network for Environmental Research (CLEANER; or if
combined with the Hydrologic Observatories of the Consortium of Universities
for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Incorporated (CUAHSI),
WATERS [see note in Chapter 1]) is to improve our understanding of the
Earth's hydrologic and associated biogeochemical cycles across spatial and
temporal scales--enabling quantitative forecasts of critical environmental
processes, especially those in human-stressed areas (e.g., urban). It is also a
CLEANER goal to develop innovative scientific and engineering tools that will
enable the development of more effective adaptive approaches for resource
management and creative solutions to environmental problems. The committee
evaluated the information provided regarding the CLEANER observatory
approach and reached conclusions regarding its value and overall benefits, its
transformational potential, and its ability to fill key information gaps.
15
OCR for page 16
16 CLEANER and NSF's Environmental Observatories
VALUE OF THE OBSERVATORY APPROACH
The justification for a CLEANER environmental observatory network
derives from our current inability to fully understand large-scale environmental
processes and thereby develop new and more effective management strategies.
First, we lack the infrastructure to collect basic data at the needed temporal and
spatial scales and resolution. Second, even with such data, we lack the means to
analyze, integrate, and synthesize data across scales from different media and
sources (e.g., observations, experiments, model simulations). Third, because of
insufficient basic data we lack an adequate understanding of many underlying
processes. This makes it difficult to build sufficiently accurate models and
decision support systems for predicting the effects of different management
strategies on society and the environment.
Presently there exists a variety of environmental observations and
surveillance programs (see Chapter 4). Examples of such observation networks
include those of the U.S. Geological Survey (hydrology and water quality at
selected sites under the National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA)
program), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (weather), the
U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, the Environmental Protection
Agency (Regional Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Program), and
existing programs of the NSF (e.g., the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER)
Network). All of these national observatories or monitoring programs provide
valuable data, but few provide a fully integrated measurement and data analysis
effort designed to advance and transform a discipline in a setting that will allow
rapid interdisciplinary dissemination of fundamental and comprehensive data.
Significant advances in our knowledge of water quality processes have been
achieved in the past on relatively small scales. Groundwater quality
observatories were common in the 1980s, such as the Borden Landfill Site in
Ontario, Canada, and the Traverse City Coast Guard Site in Michigan. These
are examples of successful observatories where multidisciplinary teams
advanced our understanding of hazardous waste remediation and natural
attenuation. Such observatories were critical in the development of numerous
environmental sciences including contaminant hydrogeology, environmental
microbiology, biogeochemistry, and risk assessment. They illustrate the
potential important benefits derived from observatories that consider the quality
as well as the quantity of surface waters together with changing land uses,
pollutant loadings, and other human-induced activities in urban systems over
larger spatial and temporal scales. Such multidisciplinary observatories are
particularly timely considering the increasing complexity and multi-media
nature of water-related environmental issues and challenges.
Based on experiences with other observatories, including land-focused,
large-scale LTER projects and other smaller scale water quality efforts, there is
every reason to believe that the larger scale CLEANER environmental
observatories should:
OCR for page 17
CLEANER and the Observatory Approach 17
· provide environmental data needed for developing the engineering and
science required to address complex environmental problems;
· promote the integration of relevant multiple disciplines;
· provide a structure for sustained collaboration among the
environmental engineering and sciences and social sciences to achieve
disciplinary as well as multidisciplinary advancement, both in theory and in
practice;
· ground the disciplines in information that is more complete, uniform,
and transferable; and
· support the scientific and engineering teams needed to meet these grand
environmental challenges.
CAN CLEANER BE TRANSFORMATIVE?
One respect in which the results of the CLEANER observatories can
transform our thinking and knowledge is by better defining and establishing how
ecosystem processes contribute to the human economy. CLEANER should
contribute in critically important ways to the understanding of the influence of
alternative regimes of water quality and quantity on ecosystem structure and
function (e.g., productivity, biogeochemistry, biodiversity) and in turn, on
engineering requirements and environmental decision-making. For example,
stream ecosystems and associated floodplains are important in storing and
releasing water during high and low flows, for nutrient retention (and thus for
enhancing water quality), for wildlife habitat, for maintenance of biodiversity,
and other ways. Furthermore, since many of the manifestations of global
climate change and other global trends on human society will be felt through
impacts on aquatic systems, CLEANER also should be helpful in detecting and
determining the impacts of climate change on environmental and engineered
systems as well as offering new engineering approaches in an altered
environment.
Until the beginning of the industrial revolution, low-technology natural
processes provided energy in support of the human economy. This energy was
used directly as food, fiber, and fuel, and indirectly through such things as
provision of clean water, topsoil formation, waste assimilation, and climate
moderation. The rapid expansion of the use of fossil fuels over the past two
centuries added a significant source of energy for the human economy and
permitted exponential human population growth and energy use. Fossil energy
use has both obscured the importance of more natural system energies and
diminished them through human impact. There is growing evidence that
availability and use of one of the most important fossil energy sources, oil, will
soon peak globally and then decline. Even if this does not happen, it would
OCR for page 18
18 CLEANER and NSF's Environmental Observatories
seem that its price will continue to increase over time, likely at accelerating
rates. If this is so, then energy from more natural ecosystems, (e.g., biofuels)
will likely assume a relatively more important role in supporting the human
economy. Therefore, programs such as CLEANER, that significantly contribute
to our understanding of natural ecosystem processes and how to manage them in
more sustainable ways, will be critically important. If successful, they should
transform the way that society views natural systems.
A corollary transformative agenda is how an observatory program
contributes to the many dimensions related to humans. Human activities affect
the environment and are affected by the environment. Although impact analyses
have been commonplace since the 1970s, seldom has a prediction been followed
up by studies to determine if the prediction was correct. Further, human
influences are now pervasive with effects monitored even in wilderness areas.
Clearly, to address human dimensions it is necessary to study large-scale and
long-duration phenomena. This is the main rationale of observatories.
The consideration of human dimensions also requires protection of human
systems from adverse environmental change. Biophysical and social
phenomena are closely interrelated. Understanding of processes and linkages
among environmental characteristics and human systems is essential. Thus, the
scientific issues addressed by CLEANER must include both the biophysical and
social components. Without this understanding it is difficult to develop
effective engineering approaches to managing these complex dynamic non-
linear systems.
Social science data collection requires infrastructure. Some of this
infrastructure is already in place. The U.S. Census, for example, has data of
relevance to the science described here. However, the Census is by no means
complete in terms of its description of the built or managed environment.
Analyses of existing social data (including land cover, land use, and
infrastructure data) are needed to identify the data gaps. Moreover, the data that
do exist require integration with spatial biophysical information. The
integration of social and biophysical data is a data infrastructure issue. For
example, both social and physical data are collected increasingly by remote
sensors linked to computer networks (e.g., satellite imaging, real-time traffic,
usage monitoring). Biophysical data will come increasingly from sensors linked
to cyberinfrastructure networks. This topic is further discussed in Chapter 4.
Additional examples of ways in which CLEANER can be transformative
are presented in Chapter 3 where we review some research challenges that
CLEANER could address.
HOW CAN CLEANER FILL IN THE GAPS?
Gaps remain in our understanding of the environment. Some of these gaps
can be addressed by an observatory approach. One cannot observe ecosystem
behavior on scales relevant to managers of large-scale environmental systems,
OCR for page 19
CLEANER and the Observatory Approach 19
such as river basins as large as the Mississippi, or ecosystems such as the
Everglades, without taking measurements of processes and attributes at those
spatial scales. Bringing part of those ecosystems into the laboratories helps
researchers gain knowledge of individual components of particular processes,
but not of the ecosystem as a whole. For example, how can human reaction to
air and water quality be measured or quantified in a laboratory in isolation to the
other influences on their behavior? How can one predict the fate and transport
of pollutants in surface water and groundwater systems in the Everglades
without measuring pollutant concentrations along with the water flows and
volumes in those water bodies? Integration of laboratory and field-based
investigations of the physical and socioeconomic sciences in the CLEANER
program should fill major gaps in the environmental sciences.
We need to address fundamental gaps in our understanding of the
environment and how humans interact with it. We need more and better quality
data to evaluate the impact of human activities on environmental processes at
multiple spatial and temporal scales, including the effects of urbanization and
engineering systems and changes in types and amounts of pollutants associated
with changes in land and water use. Data are also needed to establish a clearer
etiology between water quality and the magnitudes of extreme events. We need
to study global climate change within a hydrogeochemical context, including the
propensity to propagate water-borne infectious diseases or hinder ecosystem
functioning and biogeochemical cycling. These studies require data over large
spatial and temporal scales. The availability of such data is a critical need if we
are to validate conceptual and mathematical models and develop improved
forecasting capabilities that are increasingly needed to enhance decision-making
and environmental risk management.
Examples of forecasting capabilities that are of national interest and have
impacts on water and other environmental resources include:
· the occurrence of red tides along our coastal zones;
· the dynamics of anoxia and hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico and the
Chesapeake Bay and their impacts on fisheries resources;
· the degradation of river systems such as the loss of wetlands and water
quality deterioration in the Mississippi and other basins;
· Cryptosporidium and viral outbreaks in potable water distribution
systems;
· the spread of water-borne pathogens requiring beach closings;
· drought conditions that increase the propensity for rangeland and forest
fires;
· new environmental and public health impacts of emerging pollutants;
OCR for page 20
20 CLEANER and NSF's Environmental Observatories
· developmental toxicity of aquatic species chronically exposed to low
levels of xenobiotics;
· early warning systems for diminished value of ecosystem services;
· impacts of changes in our energy sources, supplies, and uses;
· impacts of growth and changes in our agricultural practices;
· very low frequency events such as floods and accidents that can cause
major disruption to environmental and human systems;
· short-term events (e.g., storm water generation) where multiple factors
interact to produce concentration/duration/frequency changes that are key to
predicting consequences such as the extent and impact of non-point pollution;
and
· long-term consequences of human-accelerated environmental change
where effects are produced over time scales of generations and responses are
typified by subtle changes in complex systems' characteristics.
SUMMARY
It is our conclusion that CLEANER's proposed environmental observatory
network has the potential to accomplish a number of objectives. If
implemented, it should provide over time extensive and essential information for
the improved management of stressed environmental resources. From the
integrated physical, chemical, biological, and socioeconomic data obtained from
CLEANER's observatories, we should gain an improved understanding of how
complex environmental systems function and interact with and are impacted by
human activities. The data and understanding stemming from this observatory
approach should allow for improved forecasting capabilities and understanding
and lead to solutions to the impacts of urbanization and land and water use
changes.
In addition, CLEANER should contribute to science and engineering
education by engaging the academic community collaboratively in complex,
large-scale, multi-disciplinary, real-world problems. As a note of caution,
certain conditions need to prevail and pitfalls avoided for the full potential of
CLEANER to be realized. These are discussed in Chapter 4.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
environmental observatories
