Challenges and Opportunities in the Hydrologic Sciences (2012) / Chapter Skim
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5 Hydrologic Sciences: A Path Forward
5 Hydrologic Sciences: A Path Forward
Pages 155-180
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From page 155... ...
Many intriguing puzzles in the Earth sciences will continue to engage the community of hydrologic scientists and engineers and will attract new talent to the hydrologic sciences in the years to come. Furthermore, a changing climate, an increasingly populated planet, and competition for scarce freshwater resources demand that the hydrologic sciences deliver integrated, basic scientific knowledge in service to society.
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From page 156... ...
What do these realizations mean for the future of hydrologic science? SCIENTIFIC CHALLENGES The committee identified three major areas that define the key scientific challenges for the hydrologic sciences in the coming decade: The Water Cycle: An Agent of Change; Water and Life; and Clean Water for People and Ecosystems and provided major findings in these areas in Chapters 2, 3, and 4.
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From page 157... ...
Recently ecologists, geomorphologists, climate scientists, and hydrologic scientists have found a common frontier lies at the nexus of life and water because water plays a critical role in driving the environmental patterns that exist and evolve on Earth. The past, with radically different biota, topography, and atmospheric and ocean chemistry, presents an opportunity for hydrologists to explore how key processes in the hydrologic cycle differed, and how these processes contributed to Earth's evolution.
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From page 158... ...
Clean Water for People and Ecosystems Ensuring clean water for the future requires an ability to understand, predict, and manage changes in water quality. Research opportunities related to water quality stem largely from a need to know the processes that control the evolution of water quality in both relatively pristine and heavily impacted environments.
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From page 159... ...
EDUCATION ISSUES Education of both graduate and undergraduate students in hydrologic science has gained ground in the past 20 years with the formation of new hydrologic science related programs, degrees, and other educational efforts. 2 2 Recently, the National Research Council (NRC)
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From page 160... ...
However, successful models exist that demonstrate how to Ph.D.'s produced by doctoral programs in the United States has increased by 11 percent including an increasing number of international students pursuing doctoral programs in the United States. The number of students enrolled in physical and mathematical science programs, which includes hydrologic science programs, has increased by 9 percent (NRC, 2010a)
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From page 161... ...
Opportunities also exist at the undergraduate level. Hydrologic sciences can respond to a young generation interested in solving sustainability problems by introducing innovative education experiences early in educational programs, for example, incorporating service into a degree program.
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From page 162... ...
investing in hydrologic science by collaborating across programs, divisions, and directorates and by establishing a balanced portfolio of single-principal investigator (PI) , multi-PI, and community-driven interdisciplinary research and education to advance the scientific frontier and to develop "the T graduate" capable of both disciplinary depth and intellectual breadth; (2)
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From page 163... ...
, scientists, engineers, and water managers need both a disciplinary depth and intellectual breadth to bridge disciplines and to effectively communicate science to policy makers. As technology to probe Earth's mysteries advances, computer models become more sophisticated, research relies on ever more extensive data for modeling and analysis, and no single discipline provides the entire knowledge base, building mechanisms to share knowledge, equipment, models, data, and science requires a fostering platform and relevant resources.
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From page 164... ...
The benefit of this type of activity has been demonstrated by other communities, such as in the FIFE FIGURE 5-1 Number of proposals submitted to the National Science Foundation R02116 for selected topics illustrating an increase in the number of proposals on hydrologic sciences. SOURCE: Modified, with permission, from American Geological Institute Figure 5-1 (2009)
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From page 165... ...
R02116 Figure 5-2 experiment of the 1980sbitmapped, and 1990s7 touneditable elucidate land-atmosphere exchange of carbon and water at multiple portrait scales. above, Other types landscape of collaborative efforts below could include development of community models as has been successfully done by the atmospheric science community,8 and sponsorship of synthesis activities as has been done by the ecology community (National Center for 7 The FIFE projects or experiments of the late 1980s and early 1990s were central to NASA's International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Program.
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From page 166... ...
Collaborative, community building efforts will continue to be relevant for the multiple agencies and organizations that support hydrologic science, including NSF in general and the HS program in particular, in responding effectively to many of the opportunities and challenges presented in this report. Facilitation of Community Engagement Following extensive discussion and recognition by the water science community of the need to engage in thinking about future challenges for research and education in the field, NSF's HS program is supporting facilitation of community growth via the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc.
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From page 167... ...
Hydrologic science will be continuously challenged to search for and test new and emerging technologies. Fortunately, the availability of novel and emerging instrumentation continues to increase, through the expansion of NSF's community instrumentation centers, the development of instrument sharing through the CUAHSI Hydrologic Measurement Facility, as well as collaborative efforts with other Earth science disciplines already heavily invested in community instrumentation such as UNAVCO13 and PASSCAL.14 The development of Critical Zone Observatories (CZOs)
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From page 168... ...
Broader NSF Research Initiatives NSF has a number of program elements that promote interdisciplinary research in hydrologic sciences and fall outside of the standard grants process. Two examples are provided here to highlight the importance of such elements to meeting some of the research challenges presented in the previous chapters.
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From page 169... ...
Although its emphasis is on engineering, the Urban Water ERC will address topics related to Earth and hydrologic science sciences. Because of the growing need for interdisciplinary research, the committee anticipates that efforts such as the Urban Water ERC will continue to be important to hydrologic sciences.
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From page 170... ...
These choices include hydrologic science and fields closely related to hydrologic science such as geochemistry, geology, and paleoclimate. SOURCE: NSF Fastlane database.
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From page 171... ...
The hydrologic sciences can contribute substantially to this effort by not only increasing the representation of underrepresented groups in the field, but also providing leadership to build scientific capacity within underrepresented communities. An example of this type of activity is the development of the first Hydrology and Water Resources degree program in a tribal college, the Salish Kootenai College in Montana, which will foster the development of local capacity for managing tribal lands.
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From page 172... ...
. Key remote sensing products provided by NASA will drive Figure 5-3 many of the advances in land surface-atmosphere hydrologic science that from R0378, Figure 4-5 are described in Chapter 2, which necessitates coordination and collabora 23 tion with NASA supported editable vectors researchers.
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From page 173... ...
collaboration on "common data policies and standards relevant to global research infrastructures in the environment field" and the "e-infrastructures" program that are beginning to develop a common framework for sharing data, science, and models in environmental sciences. The hydrologic science community can achieve substantial benefits by promoting common standards for data sets and their compatibility with hydrologic modeling platforms.
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From page 174... ...
Hydrologic science, broadly defined, is critical to meeting these challenges. However, solutions require translational hydrologic research -- "translational hydrologic science" -- that considers social, institutional, economic, legal, and political constraints.
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From page 175... ...
The NSF does not have a long record of supporting research that truly meets the goals of translational hydrologic science. The broad initiative on Water Sustainability and Climate (WSC)
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From page 176... ...
The committee encourages agencies and organizations to support an interpretation of solicitations on interdisciplinary hydrologic science that allows fair consideration of the new research directions in translational hydrologic science that are needed to solve societal problems. Underpinning success in translational hydrologic science is successful communication between involved groups, which includes interactions between scientists and engineers from different disciplines; scientists, engi
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From page 177... ...
The educational experiences for young hydrologic scientists should include experiences that enhance communication skills. CONCLUDING REMARKS This report challenges scholars in the hydrologic sciences to engage in research that is both relevant and exciting, continues to promote education to ensure a new generation of hydrologic scientists and engineers equipped
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From page 178... ...
Some broad approaches will facilitate the hydrologic community's ability to answer this challenge: · Interdisciplinarity: There is a need for interdisciplinary hydrologic research that takes advantage of cutting-edge technologies to grapple with the complex water-related challenges of today and tomorrow. As technology to probe Earth's mysteries advances, computer models become more and more sophisticated, research relies on ever more extensive data for modeling and analysis, and no single discipline provides the entire knowledge base; building mechanisms to share knowledge, equipment, models, data, and science requires a fostering platform and relevant resources.
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From page 179... ...
Sometimes it is unclear whether and how the implications of findings in the hydrologic sciences will have relevance for public policy. The water management challenges of the future will be even more difficult to address if the significant findings in hydrologic sciences are left to find their way into policy-making processes by serendipity.
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From page 180... ...
1991. Opportunities in the Hydrologic Sciences.
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