| NSF Org: |
EAR Division Of Earth Sciences |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | July 26, 2022 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | August 21, 2024 |
| Award Number: | 2218621 |
| Award Instrument: | Continuing Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Richard Yuretich
ryuretic@nsf.gov (703)292-4744 EAR Division Of Earth Sciences GEO Directorate for Geosciences |
| Start Date: | October 1, 2022 |
| End Date: | September 30, 2027 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $779,010.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $493,554.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2024 = $204,838.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
201 ANDY HOLT TOWER KNOXVILLE TN US 37996-0001 (865)974-3466 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
1 Circle Park Knoxville TN US 37996-0003 |
| 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): |
FRES-Frontier Rsrch Earth Sci, XC-Crosscutting Activities Pro |
| Primary Program Source: |
01002425DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01002526DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01002627DB 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
Methane (CH4) is a gas that, although it has a much lower concentration in the atmosphere compared to carbon dioxide (CO2), possesses a much more potent greenhouse effect, possibly accounting for 20-25% of global warming since the Industrial Revolution. Methane has a short residence in the air, so that regulating the emission of this gas can have rapid and profound results for mitigating climate change. The amount of methane in the atmosphere has increased despite reductions in anthropogenic sources; accordingly, the processes of methane production in natural environments must be accurately assessed. Coastal wetlands account for ~40% of global methane emissions and these regions are in constant flux owing to sea-level rise, sediment accumulation, ecological shifts, and landscape dynamics. This project will investigate the present-day controls on methane emissions in coastal wetlands, assess their variability due to sea-level rise, and use field observations and experiments to develop models that integrate the numerous factors that control methane emissions from these environments. The study site will be in coastal Louisiana, which has ~40% of all coastal, tidally influenced fresh and saltwater wetlands in the U.S., and these wetlands experience some of the highest relative sea-level rise rates in the world. Nearly 1 billion people around the globe live in proximity to similar coastal wetlands, so that the results of this research will have broad applicability to solving large-scale problems. The project?s educational and outreach activities will leverage ongoing programs at the participating universities and further include the development of new resources that will be available to students and the public.
The proposed spatiotemporal framework will combine field, experimental, and model-based approaches to determine methane emissions from a range of settings (e.g., elevation, salinity, distance from waterways, hydroperiod, temperature, vegetation, soil organic carbon) and time scales (decadal?centennial? millennial) in the Terrebonne-Timbalier Estuary of coastal Louisiana. Some of these vegetated wetland soils emit more methane annually than the soil carbon that they sequester. The research objectives will: i) assess spatiotemporal variability of methane inventories and emissions, ii) quantify soil and organic carbon age and sedimentation history, iii) determine the microbial and functional diversity from soils at different spatiotemporal scales and across geochemical gradients, iv) experimentally assess methane flux due to flooding (e.g., duration, frequency, depth) regime changes, v) integrate landscape change into hydrodynamic and biogeochemical models that account for changes in wetland configuration and sea-level, and iv) evaluate the best numerical parameters to simulate methane dynamics across microbe-to-landscape scales.
This project is jointly funded by the Frontier Research In Earth Sciences (FRES) program, the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), and the Ecosystem Sciences program in the Division of Environmental Biology (DEB).
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.
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