RII Track-4: Integrative Multimodal Strategies for Advancing Ecosystem Monitoring and Science Communication

University Of Nebraska At Kearney, Kearney NE

Investigators

Abstract

Nontechnical Description Rivers provide water that is essential for supporting human life and biodiversity. People are searching for ways to manage rivers to meet societal and ecosystem needs as human populations and demands for freshwater increase globally. Communication among diverse stakeholders is necessary for achieving solutions for how to simultaneously utilize and protect freshwater resources. This project aims to further communication of river science and to identify and share perspectives about river ecosystems with a variety of public audiences, ultimately improving understanding of these complex systems and access to knowledge as people decide the future of rivers. Fellowship activities will be conducted in collaboration with the University of New Mexico, where the PI and a trainee-level researcher will investigate historic and present influences on water-use decisions and develop approaches for combining digital technologies, like time-lapse camera systems and sound recorders, with creative ways of sharing information about connections within and across river systems. By becoming better communicators, project participants will be prepared to model these techniques for public audiences and students, as well as to broadly improve public understanding of river-floodplain systems and the various forms of life they support. Technical Description Rivers are interconnected, complex systems that sustain aquatic and terrestrial life, including humans. They are also at the forefront of ecological, economic, and social controversies as human populations increase and freshwater resources remain finite. Interdisciplinary approaches that bridge research, technology, and public literacy of river science offer potential to provide information to stakeholders so that they will be better equipped to address challenges about meeting societal and ecosystem needs for water resources during a time of rapid ecological change. The goal for this fellowship is to develop content, methodologies, and strategies to communicate science to public audiences, drawing upon multimodal digital technologies to obtain, analyze, and convey complex ecological data in a variety of forms. The work will be conducted in partnership with the University of New Mexico and will include learning techniques for reaching public audiences; characterizing drivers of change across river basins; and creating content to support science communication, featuring dynamics of ecosystem change on regulated and freely flowing rivers, as well as historic and present dimensions of water-use decisions. Fellowship activities will guide development of novel integrative digital media strategies for communication that can be shared and evaluated across diverse audiences to understand how people respond to and learn from various forms of multimodal content. Outcomes will help to establish a framework for understanding and conveying complex river science; increase public scientific literacy about ecosystem connections in river-floodplain systems; and provide people with a deeper connection to rivers and the coupled human-environmental systems they sustain. 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.