AccelNet Design: Accelerating Critical Zone Science with an International Network of Networks

The Earth’s Critical Zone (CZ) is the near-surface environment spanning from the top of the vegetation canopy to the bedrock beneath -- where geology, hydrology, ecology, and humans interact, and where Earth’s life-supporting systems converge. From a human perspective, it is where nutrients are released through the weathering of minerals, where agriculture produces food, where natural processes filter and purify water, and the crucible where life evolved. Understanding the CZ is crucial for addressing environmental challenges and ensuring the sustainable management of Earth’s resources. With a growing human population there is an urgent need to understand the processes characterizing the CZ today, how the CZ is likely to change in the future, and how humans and the CZ intersect. The United States and several other countries have established networks of field sites dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of the CZ. This project will bring these separate national networks together to catalyze global CZ research.In the United States, considerable investment from the NSF has supported research on observatory design, development of a nationwide system of CZ observatories, and, more recently, a network of collaborating projects focused on CZ themes. Similar CZ observatories and networks have been established in other countries around the world. While each network serves as a valuable research entity, they often operate independently and lack a unifying framework; thus the full potential of what these networks could achieve by working together in a coordinated manner remains unrealized. This project will establish CZInt, an international network-of-networks to guide the future of global CZ research. CZInt will bring the US CZ community together with the established OZCAR network in France, the SITES network in Sweden, and the TERENO network in Germany; similar networks in other countries will be added during the project. Programming components include collaborative workshops and theme sessions at international scientific conferences, synthesis activities to guide future CZ research, and outreach activities toward broadening participation and sharing outcomes and implications of CZ science. CZInt aims to develop a roadmap to guide future international CZ research collaboration, innovation, and discovery.This project is jointly funded by AccelNet and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).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.