TY - JOUR
T1 - The Power of Environmental Observatories for Advancing Multidisciplinary Research, Outreach, and Decision Support
T2 - The Case of the Minnesota River Basin
AU - Gran, K. B.
AU - Dolph, C.
AU - Baker, A.
AU - Bevis, M.
AU - Cho, S. J.
AU - Czuba, J. A.
AU - Dalzell, B.
AU - Danesh-Yazdi, M.
AU - Hansen, A. T.
AU - Kelly, S.
AU - Lang, Z.
AU - Schwenk, J.
AU - Belmont, P.
AU - Finlay, J. C.
AU - Kumar, P.
AU - Rabotyagov, S.
AU - Roehrig, G.
AU - Wilcock, P.
AU - Foufoula-Georgiou, E.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
©2019. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.
PY - 2019/4
Y1 - 2019/4
N2 - Observatory-scale data collection efforts allow unprecedented opportunities for integrative, multidisciplinary investigations in large, complex watersheds, which can affect management decisions and policy. Through the National Science Foundation-funded REACH (REsilience under Accelerated CHange) project, in collaboration with the Intensively Managed Landscapes-Critical Zone Observatory, we have collected a series of multidisciplinary data sets throughout the Minnesota River Basin in south-central Minnesota, USA, a 43,400-km2 tributary to the Upper Mississippi River. Postglacial incision within the Minnesota River valley created an erosional landscape highly responsive to hydrologic change, allowing for transdisciplinary research into the complex cascade of environmental changes that occur due to hydrology and land use alterations from intensive agricultural management and climate change. Data sets collected include water chemistry and biogeochemical data, geochemical fingerprinting of major sediment sources, high-resolution monitoring of river bluff erosion, and repeat channel cross-sectional and bathymetry data following major floods. The data collection efforts led to development of a series of integrative reduced complexity models that provide deeper insight into how water, sediment, and nutrients route and transform through a large channel network and respond to change. These models represent the culmination of efforts to integrate interdisciplinary data sets and science to gain new insights into watershed-scale processes in order to advance management and decision making. The purpose of this paper is to present a synthesis of the data sets and models, disseminate them to the community for further research, and identify mechanisms used to expand the temporal and spatial extent of short-term observatory-scale data collection efforts.
AB - Observatory-scale data collection efforts allow unprecedented opportunities for integrative, multidisciplinary investigations in large, complex watersheds, which can affect management decisions and policy. Through the National Science Foundation-funded REACH (REsilience under Accelerated CHange) project, in collaboration with the Intensively Managed Landscapes-Critical Zone Observatory, we have collected a series of multidisciplinary data sets throughout the Minnesota River Basin in south-central Minnesota, USA, a 43,400-km2 tributary to the Upper Mississippi River. Postglacial incision within the Minnesota River valley created an erosional landscape highly responsive to hydrologic change, allowing for transdisciplinary research into the complex cascade of environmental changes that occur due to hydrology and land use alterations from intensive agricultural management and climate change. Data sets collected include water chemistry and biogeochemical data, geochemical fingerprinting of major sediment sources, high-resolution monitoring of river bluff erosion, and repeat channel cross-sectional and bathymetry data following major floods. The data collection efforts led to development of a series of integrative reduced complexity models that provide deeper insight into how water, sediment, and nutrients route and transform through a large channel network and respond to change. These models represent the culmination of efforts to integrate interdisciplinary data sets and science to gain new insights into watershed-scale processes in order to advance management and decision making. The purpose of this paper is to present a synthesis of the data sets and models, disseminate them to the community for further research, and identify mechanisms used to expand the temporal and spatial extent of short-term observatory-scale data collection efforts.
KW - Minnesota River Basin
KW - agricultural watersheds
KW - intensively managed landscapes
KW - observatory data collection
KW - reduced complexity modeling
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U2 - 10.1029/2018WR024211
DO - 10.1029/2018WR024211
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85064610636
SN - 0043-1397
VL - 55
SP - 3576
EP - 3592
JO - Water Resources Research
JF - Water Resources Research
IS - 4
ER -