| NSF Org: |
EAR Division Of Earth Sciences |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | August 15, 2017 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | January 12, 2022 |
| Award Number: | 1719249 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Justin Lawrence
jlawrenc@nsf.gov (703)292-2425 EAR Division Of Earth Sciences GEO Directorate for Geosciences |
| Start Date: | September 1, 2017 |
| End Date: | February 28, 2023 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $79,015.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $94,771.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2020 = $15,756.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
85 S PROSPECT STREET BURLINGTON VT US 05405-1704 (802)656-3660 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
Burlington VT US 05405-0160 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): |
Geomorphology & Land-use Dynam, CZO-Critical Zone Obsrvatories |
| Primary Program Source: |
01002021DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT |
| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.050 |
ABSTRACT
To minimize the detrimental effects of deforestation and intensive, mechanized agriculture, conservation agricultural practices are often employed. Although these lower-impact practices have been implemented around the world, results have rarely been quantified at a landscape scale. Cuba is a perfect location to test these effects because 30 years of industrial, mechanized monoculture were followed by 25 years of necessity-driven, small-scale, organic agriculture after the collapse of the former Soviet Union. This project will document the effects of the conversion to organic agriculture and provide important data to inform soil conservation studies. Through this project, one Masters student, two upper-level undergraduate students, and four lower-level undergraduate students will be trained in geoscience research and learn about sustainable agricultural practices.
This project has two research goals. 1) It will quantify the effects of wide-spread changes in agricultural land use from conventional, mechanized monoculture to small-scale organic farming. This project will use chemical tracers in river sand to measure long-term erosion rates of the surrounding landscape and will compare those erosion rates to published data measuring short-term erosion rates. In addition, researchers will trace the changing depth of erosion during the transition from industrial to organic agriculture using other different chemical tracers. 2) The project will develop new techniques for measuring erosion rates in rock types currently not easily studied, thus expanding areas of the world where erosion rates can be measured.
This award is co-funded by the Geomorphology and Land-use Dynamics Program and the Office of International Science and Engineering.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
Our research in Cuba crossed cultural and scientific barriers. Over three trips to the island, we built tight collaborations with numerous Cuban scientists, trained more than half a dozen American students at both graduate and undergraduate levels, and broke new scientific ground in the study of tropical landscapes and river systems.
In two different bi-national week-long field seasons on the island, we sampled sediment and water from between 20 and 25 rivers. We did this work in close collaboration with Cuban scientists. We used those samples to measure the amount of rock, soil, and nutrients dissolved in the river water. River sediment samples allowed us to measure rare isotopes of beryllium and aluminum. From those data, we determined long-term rates of erosion of the landscape. In many places, these rates were low and in some places, exceptionally low indicating long residence times of sediment on the landscape. However, so much material was dissolved in the river water that we determined that in some watersheds more mass leaves the island and goes to the ocean in solution than as sediment.
The effect of organic agriculture in Cuba is pronounced - water quality, in terms nutrients such a nitrogen, is far better in Cuban rivers than in agricultural areas of United States and other Caribbean islands. This is likely the result of lower rates of fertilizer application in Cuba than in other nations.
Last Modified: 07/23/2023
Modified by: Paul R Bierman
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