Funding will foster research on how Earth's water system is linked with climate change, land use, ecosystems
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Almost 1.1 billion people worldwide live without access to fresh water; some 2.6 billion lack adequate sanitation facilities.
One of the most urgent challenges facing the world today, scientists agree, is ensuring the adequate supply and quality of water in light of burgeoning human needs and climate variability and change.
Despite water's importance to life on Earth, there are major gaps in understanding water availability and quality, as well as the effects of a changing and variable climate, and of human activities, on the water system.
To help find new answers to one of the most pressing problems of the millennium, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA) have made 26 awards totaling $25 million in their joint Water Sustainability and Climate (WSC) program. This year's awards are the third set in the program.
At NSF, WSC is supported by the Directorates for Geosciences; Engineering; and Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences.
"Water is the lifeblood of Earth's environment," says Tom Torgersen, lead NSF WSC program officer. "Knowledge of the flow and function of water is paramount to understanding how humankind's activities interact with and alter our environment. The mounting pressures of population increases, land use changes, and climate change underscore the need to understand the role of water."
The WSC program's goal is to understand and predict interactions among Earth's water system and climate change, land use (including agriculture, managed forests, and rangeland systems), our "built environment," and ecosystems around the world.
"Agriculture in the United States is dependent on the availability and quality of water; however, a number of factors, including climate and the environment, could have a significant effect on our nation's water resources, which in turn has consequences for farmers, livestock producers, forest and rangeland managers, and rural economies," says Sonny Ramaswamy, director of NIFA.
"These grants are critically important to our understanding of how the water system is affected by external factors, which ultimately helps farmers and rural communities prepare for future challenges."
WSC category 1 awards are made for small team synthesis, modeling, integration and assessment projects that use existing data or new measurements to study entire watersheds and groundwater sites. Both NSF and USDA/NIFA funds support this category.
WSC category 2 awards are for place-based modeling studies with new observations. NSF supports this category.
WSC category 3 awards support synthesis, modeling and integration grants that use only existing data to integrate and synthesize information across watershed and groundwater sites. Both NSF and USDA/NIFA fund this category.
Topics addressed by this year's awards include the effects of climate change on agriculture-water systems; water quality and supply in two tropical nations, Ecuador and China; effects of agricultural decision-making and adaptive management on food security; water sustainability in a snow-fed arid river system; land-use and hydrology in the Panama Canal watershed; and decision processes, climate change and water resources in the agricultural Midwest.
NSF-USDA/NIFA 2014 WSC Awards
William Ball, Johns Hopkins University:
Damian Brady, University of Maine:
Ariel Ortiz-Bobea, Cornell University:
Lisa Wainger, University of Maryland:
Gregory Characklis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill:
Patrick Reed, Cornell University:
Charles Vorosmarty, CUNY - Advanced Science Research Center:
Justin Remais, Emory University:
William Horwath, University of California-Davis:
Upmanu Lall, Columbia University:
Kelly Caylor, Princeton University:
Tom Evans, Indiana University:
Maureen McCarthy, University of Nevada, Reno: Water Sustainability in Snow-Fed Arid Land River System
Gregory Pohl, University of Nevada Desert Research Institute:
Fred Ogden, University of Wyoming:
Holly Barnard, University of Colorado at Boulder:
Eli Fenichel, Yale University:
Jefferson Hall, Smithsonian Institution:
Shannon L. Bartelt-Hunt, University of Nebraska:
Mikhail Chester, Arizona State University:
Adam Ward, University of Iowa: WSC-Category 1: Decision Processes, Climate Change, and Water Resources in the Agricultural Midwest
Zachary Easton, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University:
Raymond Najjar, Pennsylvania State University:
Ming Li, University of Maryland:
David Borrok, University of Louisiana at Lafayette:
Ning Zhang, McNeese State University:
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Media Contacts Cheryl Dybas, NSF, (703) 292-7734, cdybas@nsf.gov
Related WebsitesWSC 2012 Awards: How Is Earth's Water System Linked With Land Use, Climate Change and Ecosystems?:
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=125434
WSC: Cry Me a River: Following a Watershed's Winding Path to Sustainability:
WSC: Cry Me a River: Following a Watershed's Winding Path to Sustainability:
http://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=123431&org=NSF
WSC 2010 Awards: NSF Awards Grants for Study of Water Sustainability and Climate:
WSC 2010 Awards: NSF Awards Grants for Study of Water Sustainability and Climate:
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=117819
WSC: Bark beetles change Rocky Mountain stream flows, affect water quality:
WSC: Bark beetles change Rocky Mountain stream flows, affect water quality:
http://nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=130951
WSC: Is white--or green--the new black in cities?:
WSC: Is white--or green--the new black in cities?:
http://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=130712
WSC: Ghosts of Forests Past: Bark Beetles Kill Lodgepole Pines, Affecting Entire Watersheds:
WSC: Ghosts of Forests Past: Bark Beetles Kill Lodgepole Pines, Affecting Entire Watersheds:
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering. In fiscal year (FY) 2014, its budget is $7.2 billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000 colleges, universities and other institutions. Each year, NSF receives about 50,000 competitive requests for funding, and makes about 11,500 new funding awards. NSF also awards about $593 million in professional and service contracts yearly.
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Awards Searches:
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Water is the lifeblood of Earth's environment, say scientists, but it's a dwindling resource.
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The NSF-NIFA WSC awards address, among other topics, agriculture's dependence on water.
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WSC grantees will design water management strategies for regions with once-abundant water.
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Through a WSC award, scientists will conduct research on water quality in China and Ecuador.
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WSC-funded researchers will study land-use and hydrology in the Panama Canal watershed.
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The National Science Foundation (NSF)
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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