Nevada researcher part of multi-state team studying Earth’s critical zone
The layer of Earth where life exists, from the top of the tallest trees to the bottom of the groundwater table, is called the “critical zone.” What happens to this zone in the face of natural and human disturbance, and climate change, can greatly impact our ecosystems and natural resources, including water. University of Nevada, Reno’s Adrian Harpold is part of two five-year, multi-state, interdisciplinary research projects recently funded by the National Science Foundation to shed more light on water in the critical zone and its fate in mountain forests.
“As scientists, sometimes we’ve been siloed in our own areas of study, or geographic areas,” said Harpold, a natural resources and environmental science assistant professor with the College of Agriculture, Biotechnology & Natural Resources. “The National Science Foundation believes we can make major breakthroughs in critical zone research by working across disciplines and across state lines, and I certainly agree.”
Harpold’s work in the two projects was funded at about $1.2 million combined. Being part of the projects will allow him to offer some of his graduate students hands-on, real-world research experience and world-class collaborations in some of the Earth’s most pressing issues: natural and human disturbances, and climate change.
The first project, funded at $3.2 million and led by the University of Vermont, aims to combine computer science with Earth science to better understand and predict critical zone resilience in the face of multiple natural and human disturbances. The ultimate goal is to use our understanding of the critical zone to make better decisions about how to manage natural resources in the face of increasing disturbance.
As a collaborative effort with researchers from multiple universities, the project will combine data from thousands of locations so that scientists can investigate and compare ecosystem recovery times. Researchers will then use the patterns observed in the data to perform more in-depth field studies on areas experiencing disturbances from wildfire, acidification and extreme storms.
Read the full story from Nevada Today here.