A new, $4.6 million grant awarded to the University of California, Merced, from the National Science Foundation will fund interdisciplinary studies of this system, sometimes known among scientists as the “critical zone.”

Professors Roger Bales and Martha Conklin of UC Merced’s Sierra Nevada Research Institute and School of Engineering received the grant money a few weeks ago. They lead a team of researchers from UC campuses in Berkeley, Irvine, Davis and Santa Barbara, the University of Nevada, Reno and the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Research Station – all with different interests and areas of expertise in the critical zone.

“Professors Bales and Conklin are working on a critical part of our understanding of the natural resources in the Sierra Nevada,” said Sam Traina, UC Merced’s vice chancellor for research. “We hope that their interdisciplinary work will help inform the management of timber and water resources as our mountain systems must face pressures from a growing population that needs those resources – and a changing climate that may affect their availability.”

NSF’s Geosciences Directorate has funded only three environmental observatory programs of this nature. The others are in Colorado and Pennsylvania. In the future, more may be added.

“Our Critical Zone Observatory will be a prototype for what NSF hopes will become a nationwide program,” Bales said. “A lot of people will be looking at us to see how to do it right.”

Scientists working on the new project will seek answers for questions like these:

• How are the flow and the chemistry of the water system different in areas whose precipitation is dominated by rainfall as opposed to areas dominated by snowfall?
• How do extreme hydrologic events affect erosion, sedimentation and other processes?
• How does vegetation make a difference for the underground movements of water and other substances?
• How does the geologic structure affect water pathways in different seasons?
• How does seasonal snowpack affect the system, and how will the system change as the climate warms and snowpacks recede?

Interdisciplinary work is vital for all these questions.

“The water, vegetation and geochemistry are all interrelated, with feedbacks from each influencing the others,” Bales said. “For example, we could study the water cycle in isolation, but then we wouldn’t understand the vegetation feedbacks.”

The team is using an existing U.S. Forest Service research site set up to inform adaptive management, the Kings River Experimental Watershed in the southern Sierra, southeast of Shaver Lake. That should help make the connection between science and resource management policy, Bales said.

Carolyn Hunsaker, a research ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service in Fresno, said she is excited to be hosting this new effort at KREW. Because the Forest Service and the California Bay-Delta Program have already made significant investments at this site - $600,000 per year since 2000 - most of the new grant will fund research activities and salaries rather than equipment. Ten graduate students will be recruited for the projects, and there will be room for undergraduates to get involved in field work and data processing. Three full-time staff members will also be hired.

The inter-institutional research team has been meeting so far by teleconference, but they have a field site visit coming up in October where all the investigators will be present.

“It’s a challenge getting busy people together to talk and meet about our plans,” Bales said. “But we have a team that is committed to collaboration rather than going off on their own to do the research. Everyone is looking forward to an important and exciting research collaboration.”

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UC Merced opened September 5, 2005, as the 10th campus in the University of California system and the first American research university of the 21st century. The campus significantly expands access to the UC system for students throughout the state, with a special mission to increase college-going rates among students in the San Joaquin Valley. It also serves as a major base of advanced research and as a stimulus to economic growth and diversification throughout the region. Situated near Yosemite National Park, the university is expected to grow rapidly, topping out at approximately 25,000 students within 30 years.