The proposed research will develop a multidisciplinary collaborative to integrate biological, physical and social sciences to advance water and ecosystem sustainability in the face of climate change and rapid urbanization. This endeavor will utilize the Integrated Science for Society and Environment framework, and build on a history of prior interdisciplinary research.
Intellectual Merit: The upper Trinity River basin study area, including the Dallas ? Fort Worth Metroplex, has great potential as a model system for other rapidly urbanizing watersheds becoming increasingly reliant on surface water. Existing data on biological, geophysical, built environment and social components will be identified, compiled and served in a way that expands the spatial and temporal scope of research potential and enables novel cross-cutting research directions. Data are already available to initiate multidisciplinary research within and across three primary themes: 1) land-use/built environment, hydrologic modeling and water resources; 2) aquatic invertebrate biodiversity, distribution and environmental relationships; and 3) demographic variation in environmental literacy and perceptions regarding water resources. Targeted field research and public surveys will fill gaps in available data and as needed for linked human and natural systems modeling. Using the new database and preliminary analyses, they will identify and establish field sites for hypothesis-driven place-based research. Outcomes from this WSC Category 1 project will tie in with ongoing research by the PIs and collaborators, and will provide the basis for competitive proposals for WSC Category 2 or 3 funding, as well as for ULTRA, IGERT and REU programs.
Broader Impacts: This project will enhance ongoing efforts in the following areas: 1) graduate and undergraduate education and research, 2) general public and K-12 environmental literacy, and 3) teacher education and environmental training. Two graduate students and one undergraduate research assistant will be directly supported by this project, and additional volunteers (at least two from underrepresented groups) earning research experience through the Texas Academy of Math and Science program will be involved in field and lab research. These students will benefit from interactions with faculty across biological, physical, engineering and social sciences, and from the experience working as part of a larger multidisciplinary endeavor. The Stakeholder Advisory Board provides one mechanism for dissemination of information to the general public and decision makers, and we will also develop a public-access database served by UNT Digital Library. This project will support and enhance K-12 education by supplying data to state-mandated environmental education programs held in the Environmental Education, Science and Technology Building at UNT. These environmental education programs are regularly visited by over 500,000 users per year. Through connections with other ongoing research and education programs, the multidisciplinary approach and findings from this project will be shared with local area teachers, and through them their students.
The upper Trinity River basin study area, including the Dallas – Fort Worth Metroplex, has great potential as a model system for other rapidly urbanizing watersheds becoming increasingly reliant on surface water. The primary objective of this 1 year planning grant was to integrate existing data from disparate sources, and collect limited new data when needed to fill fundamental gaps, to provide a foundation for an interdisciplinary collaborative focused on water and ecosystem sustainability in the upper Trinity River basin. In addition to short term outcomes, this planning grant is intended to lay the foundation to further develop this interdisciplinary research agenda. We focused our efforts for this planning grant based on prior knowledge of this system and feedback from a Stakeholder Advisory Board that we developed as part of this project. We compiled a georeferenced database of existing biological, stream network and watershed data for the study region. Data include aquatic biota (fishes, mussels, other invertebrates and algae), stream network attributes and organization, and watershed characteristics including land use and geology. Gaps in spatial coverage of biological data were addressed with targeted field surveys. To this end, we sampled 36 new sites and identified and enumerated more than 5,000 individuals. These surveys also served as site exploration for potential place-based research in future projects. The database produced currently includes land cover classifications from 1992, 2001 and 2006. Stream network structure and USGS hydrologic classification units were expanded upon by development of finer resolution "segment sheds" calculated to capture the watershed area directly draining to each stream segment. Land cover and other watershed attributes were quantified for these segment sheds, allowing finer resolution exploration of watershed attributes/change and relationships with hydrology and aquatic biota. The biological data compiled and georeferenced include 6,006 records for fish (>100 species, collected from 1953 to present), 508 records for mussels (>40 species; 1970 – 2004), 3,149 records of other invertebrates (>180 genera; 1993 – 2009), and 5,955 records for algae (>160 genera; 1993 – 2009). Each record is a species collected at a location at a point in time, and many locations have repeated sampling at various points in time. The biological, stream network and watershed database is the first of its kind for this region and brings together large amounts of previously disparate data to provide a significant resource enabling innovative analyses such as species distribution modeling and change in species occurrences over time. We also supported preliminary experimental research on zebra mussel environmental tolerances, growth and reproduction, as well as reservoir sedimentation rates, and hydrologic connectivity in streams during drought. Because the Upper Trinity River Basin is dominated by municipal water use, public knowledge, opinion and actions have a central role in water and ecosystem sustainability. To better understand this social component, and how perceptions may have changed over time, we contracted the University of North Texas Survey Research Center to conduct a public knowledge/opinion survey of 1,000 respondents representing 19 counties in the study area. Thirty-eight of the forty-six questions were shared between the current survey and one conducted in 2006. The questions broadly addressed perceptions about regional water issues, watersheds and the hydrologic cycle, responsibilities for water sustainability, and trustworthiness of information sources for communicating about water-related issues. Responses typically differed among education levels, ethnicity, and income. In general, residents were concerned about water issues but lacked understanding of the hydrologic cycle and major drivers affecting water issues in this region. The public knowledge/perceptions survey not only advances our understanding of key social dimensions of water sustainability in this region and how they have changed over the past five years, but also may be integrated with natural systems models. This project provided graduate, undergraduate and advanced high-school student training and development. Four graduate students (three PhD and one MS; two from underrepresented groups) were supported as research assistants. These students worked directly with the PIs and mentored undergraduate volunteers as well as an advanced high-school student as part of the Texas Academy of Math and Sciences. Each student was responsible for a subcomponent and interacted with the others to produce the final integrated products. Several other students participated on this project but were not directly supported by this grant. The opportunities provided by this project contributes to their development as scientists and engineers that are capable of interacting with diverse multidisciplinary groups. Through connections with other ongoing research and education programs, the multidisciplinary approach and initial findings from this project were shared with local area teachers, and through them their students. Through the incorporation of our Stakeholder Advisory Board, outcomes from our interdisciplinary collaborative are poised to address significant problems related to water and ecosystem sustainability.
