Findings and Recommendations - Basic Research Opportunities in Earth Science - page 87

In some cases, the scientific problems will be best addressed by establishing
long-term natural laboratories in specific climatic and land-use settings. The
opportunities for Earth science research in natural laboratories are discussed
further under “ Major Initiatives .” Contemporaneous investigations at diverse
locations will be needed to ascertain the large-scale, climate-driven hydrologic
connections that bear directly on the Critical Zone. The USGS, USDA, NOAA,
and NASA will be important partners for EAR. The proposed Second
International Hydrologic Decade may furnish significant opportunities for
exercising this partnership. The primary goals of the decade—to reverse the
decline in the development of hydrologic observing systems and to reduce
uncertainties in the measurements—bear directly on Critical Zone research on
flood and drought hazards and coupled ecologic-hydrologic systems.
Geology
The G&P program sponsors a wide range of research on physical, chemical,
and biological processes that take place in the Critical Zone ( Appendix A ). This
emphasis on the Critical Zone would be further strengthened by moving
paleontology from G&P to Geobiology. Such a reorganization would also free up
funds to address scientific problems that are related to the Critical Zone, but are
not easily funded within the current program structure. For example, studies
related to soils and coastal zone processes have received relatively little attention
to date, in part because the scope of the research spans the Geosciences
Directorate. For example, sedimentary and geochemical fluxes in the near-shore
environment are important indicators of Critical Zone processes, but NSF
programmatic areas typically stop at the shoreline—the marine aspects are funded
through OCE and are thus separated from the sedimentary aspects, which must
vie for support from EAR. 7 Similarly, soils constitute a major reservoir of
carbon, but studies on the release and sequestration of carbon and other
greenhouse gases are funded primarily through the Atmospheric Sciences
Division (ATM) and OCE, divisions that have little expertise in soils. EAR, on
the other hand, is only beginning to recognize the contributions that soil scientists
can make to the study of the Earth.
Recommendation: EAR should enhance multidisciplinary studies of the
Critical Zone, placing special attention on strengthening soil science and the
study of coastal zone processes.
7 Coastal Sedimentary Geology Research: A Critical National and Global Priority,
results of a workshop held in Honolulu, Hawaii, November 9-12, 1999.