Findings and Recommendations - New Research Opportunities in the Earth Sciences - page 98

globally. Advances in coastal sciences could be accelerated by dedicated NSF
initiatives and programs.
Finding 2: Critical zone research contributes understanding essential to addressing
larger-scale questions concerning co-evolution of landscapes and ecosystems and
landscape response to disturbances (natural or anthropogenic).
Finding 3: Integrated monitoring of hydrogeomorphic-ecosystem processes will
require development of new instrumentation, data archives, and models that can take
advantage of large-scale environmental restoration efforts and documented historical
change as controlled experiments.
Finding 4: The research required to address many of the priorities and opportunities
related to landscape change cuts across divisional and directorate boundaries within
NSF. In cases where other federal agencies such as the USGS are addressing related
questions, it would be advantageous to coordinate plans, facilities, and activities.
Recommendation: EAR should facilitate research on coupled hydrogeomorphic-
ecosystem response to climate change and disturbance. In particular, the
committee recommends that EAR target interdisciplinary research on coastal
environments. This initiative would lay the groundwork for understanding and
forecasting the response of coastal landscapes to sea-level rise, climate change,
and human and natural disturbance, which will fill an existing gap at NSF and
should involve coordination with OCE, USGS, and National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Instrument and Facility Needs for Coupled Hydrogeomorphic-Ecosystem
Response to Natural and Anthropogenic Change
Finding 1: Advancing our understanding of landscape response to natural and
anthropogenic environmental change requires infrastructure and support for
community modeling efforts, data archiving, and instrument facilities. These
functions of current NSF facilities, centers, and community organizations (e.g.,
NCALM, UNAVCO, NCED, CSDMS, and Consortium of Universities for the
Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. [CUAHSI]) are valuable and can be
evaluated regularly to ensure they are optimized and effective. Centralizing and
disseminating a variety of data related to landscape processes (hydrological,
geomorphological, geological, biogeochemical, biotic, climate) would be valuable.