| NSF Org: |
DEB Division Of Environmental Biology |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | July 12, 2021 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | July 12, 2021 |
| Award Number: | 2137769 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Matthew Kane
mkane@nsf.gov (703)292-7186 DEB Division Of Environmental Biology BIO Directorate for Biological Sciences |
| Start Date: | July 15, 2021 |
| End Date: | June 30, 2022 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $199,924.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $199,924.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
601 S HOWES ST FORT COLLINS CO US 80521-2807 (970)491-6355 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
200 W. Lake Street Fort Collins CO US 80521-4593 |
| 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): | MacroSysBIO & NEON-Enabled Sci |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| 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): | 47.074 |
ABSTRACT
Wildfire frequency and intensity are highly likely to increase in forests of the U.S. Intermountain West, a region that is experiencing the worst drought in over a century. This RAPID project will utilize the Mobile Deployment Platform (MDP) of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) coupled with high-performance computing resources to enable responsive and real-time, data-driven soil sample collection during and immediately following wildfire activity. This rapid response is vital to enable researchers to characterize changes in soil microbial community structure and carbon metabolizing ability during and following fire disturbance. The information obtained will be used for modelling the impact of wildfire and climate change, and to help guide forest land management.
The project will mount thermal imaging cameras equipped with the edge-enabled, intelligent sensor network known as "SAGE" on the NEON MDP along with in-situ edge computing resources to guide location of manual observational sampling in and adjacent to fire-exposed forest. Soil microbiota across a range of soil temperatures will be studied to examine their heterogeneity guided by thermal sensing. Metagenomoic DNA sequence analysis will be used to study soil microbiome functional traits in the immediate aftermath of wildfire, and determine the impacts of shifts on carbon cycling and sequestration. The results will test whether real time data acquisition can effectively guide sensor placement and human observational sampling during and immediately following disturbance and test the coupled ability of the NEON platform and SAGE cyber-infrastructure to support real-time alerts when edge-based and artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled algorithms detect anomalous conditions (e.g. additional smoke plumes). This will be the first such use of the NEON MDP with SAGE cyber tools, and represents an urgent advance to enable scientists and managers to better understand the impacts of climate change, drought and wildfire disturbances.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
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.
Rising spring and summer temperatures during recent decades and earlier spring snowmelt have increased the frequency, duration, and intensity of large wildfire events in the western United States. Although wildfires represent an important and visible disturbance to forested ecosystems with well-described impacts on plant and animal communities and soil biogeochemistry, they often result in delays in ecosystem recovery that last for decades. The increasing frequency and intensity of these disturbances (e.g., wildfires that are large and severe or that are beyond the bounds of historical range of variability) can abruptly reorganize ecosystems, posing serious threats to their integrity and resilience. These in turn pose great challenges for land and resource management.
Wildfire has a significant effect on Water resources in western U.S., which rely extensively on high elevation snowmelt that originates in headwater forest watersheds. Water flows originating from headwater catchments are vulnerable to the impacts of both natural and anthropogenic disturbances including fire. Wildfires which are increasing in both frequency and severity across Colorado and western North America generate large quantities of sediment, nutrients, and heavy metals and threaten sustained delivery of clean water to downstream users. While forests in these watersheds provide storage and filtration services with an annual estimated value of US $4.1 trillion, wildfires represent a key forest health threat, with consequences for the provision of safe drinking water.
We integrated basic atmospheric, soil, and aquatic instrumentation into on-going research by using NEON's Mobile Deployment Platforms (MDPs). Each MDP is a mobile sensor array designed for rapid transport and field installation. The field campaign was conducted on April 15, 2022, in Konza Prairie Biological Station, located in the Flint Hills of northeastern Kansas. Sage Project collaborated with the Konza Prairie Station and NEON to deploy a NEON mobile deployment platform (MDP) days before the burn. NEON MDP along with three Sage nodes provided advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities at the edge and instrumentation to capture the controlled burn observations. Data collected include images from a thermographic camera, optical cameras, particle sensors, and more over 45 sensors. These data are being used improve fire detection and to better understand the earth's atmospheric and environmental processes.
Deployment of this monitoring infrastructure and technology has the potential to change the way that forests and associated landscape and aquatic resources are managed. These data will also help in creating new warning systems and early alerts, saving lives and protecting communities.
Last Modified: 01/27/2023
Modified by: Eugene F Kelly
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