Smithsonian's Global Change Research Facilities for Large-Scale Ecological Forecasting

Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). This project involves the renovation of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center's (SERC's) field monitoring network and environmental data acquisition system, an integrated, distributed facility designed for long-term environmental research on the Rhode River. SERC uses the Rhode River's watershed and sub-estuary as a model system to measure the environmental responses of linked ecosystems in a coastal landscape to climate variation and human impacts. The individual components of the facility are used for monitoring the flow of air, water, and materials through the linked ecosystems that comprise SERC's model landscape. The Rhode River is a 'perched watershed' that sits on top of an impervious clay layer. The clay layer prevents water and chemicals of the Rhode River's watershed from exchanging with the deeper aquifers that are fed by other parts of the larger Chesapeake watershed. As a result, changes in the volume of water and its chemical characteristics reflect the effects of local climate, atmospheric deposition and land use activities within the watershed. Such measurements across the linked ecosystems in the watershed reveal the landscape-scale response to climate or land use management. The types of research activities and topics pursued using the Rhode River field facility include: -- Studies that measure and model the watershed discharges of water, sediment, and nutrients as a function of precipitation, land use, and geological features. These provide information on sources, sinks, and transformations of nutrients and other chemicals such as mercury, and their variation with changes in the quantity and timing of precipitation. -- The long-term responses of C3 and C4 plant communities to rising CO2 based on field manipulation of atmospheric CO2 concentration. -- The combined effects of elevated CO2 and elevated estuarine nitrogen on soil surface elevation. -- The pathways by which mercury enters seafood, combining studies of the atmospheric deposition of mercury, mercury transport and methylation in small watershed, the fluxes of mercury and methymercury through marsh and streams, and the accumulation of methylmercury in terrestrial and aquatic biota. -- Studies of what regulates source and sink processes as dissolved organic matter is transported from wetlands and tidal marshes to the coastal ocean. In addition to providing infrastructure for research by SERC personnel, the facility to be renovated is also a resource for an array of collaborative research and research training programs undertaken by academic partners. Undergraduate students, graduate students and post-doctoral researchers participate in research using the facility. The research conducted can help determine the effectiveness of new environmental policies. The renovated infrastructure will support research that can lead to improvements in the management of watersheds and estuaries. Two of the watershed discharge measurement stations to be renovated will be used for K-12 education and public education on watershed research. The proposed upgrade to SERC's data transmission network will enable real time transmission of field data, which will facilitate sharing data via internet with collaborating scientists, students, and the public.