Revisiting the Freshwater Imperative: A workshop to synthesize and prioritize key challenges in freshwater science

Board Of Trustees Of Illinois State University, Normal IL

Investigators

Abstract

Freshwater is a critical resource that remains threatened by a wide range of human activities and environmental change. The workshop supported by this award is predicated on the 25th anniversary of the Freshwater Imperative, a research agenda developed by scientists concerned about sustainable management of freshwater environments. The original Freshwater Imperative was a collaborative effort to develop to a predictive understanding of freshwater ecosystems that would translate to improved management and mitigation practices in changing environments. During this workshop held on the 25th anniversary of the Freshwater Imperative, participants will reflect on what freshwater scientists have accomplished over the past decades, what research opportunities have been missed, and what lessons have been learned about responding to environmental crises. Through multiple activities, workshop participants will identify grand challenges in freshwater science and craft a forward-looking research agenda. The workshop will aim to identify the key challenges for freshwater ecosystem research and management, to synthesize existing understanding in an effort to fill critical knowledge gaps, and to consider how cutting-edge analytical approaches and emerging methods can inform both short- and long-term research agendas. Specifically, the workshop participants will be asked: Have predictions of the Freshwater Imperative been realized? What current threats and challenges were not predicted? What are the components of a new research agenda? These questions are motivated by the continued, and in many cases, accelerating degradation of freshwater resources, combined with an explosion of innovative research tools and approaches developed over the past 25 years, many of which were unanticipated. The project will encompass three main activities. First, it will conduct a Grand Challenges survey of the scientific community to allow for broad participation and input. Second, it will host a special session at a relevant research conference to allow for community engagement through a combination of retrospective talks and prospective talks about emerging tools and research directions. Finally, it will organize a workshop to synthesize the Grand Challenges and address the primary questions. Participants will include predominantly early career scientists in addition to some who were part of the original Freshwater Imperative. The workshop will involve scientists with a range of expertise related to freshwater environments, and will use team science approaches to develop products that will inform the scientific community about critical unanswered questions, as well as provide guidance to policy makers. The workshop is supported by the Ecosystem Science program in the Division of Environmental Biology and the Hydrologic Sciences program in the Division of Earth Sciences. 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.