Designing a Network of International Critical Zone Observatories (CZO)

Ongoing discussions and scientific collaborations between NSF sponsored Critical Zone Observatory (CZO) Principal Investigators and European Commission-(EC) funded counterparts in the Soil Transformations in European Catchments (SoilTrEC) project have identified the need for more formalized and well organized international collaborations to achieve many of the goals of Critical Zone (CZ) research. The proposal requests funds to support the US participation in an international meeting to be held at the campus of the University of Delaware in Newark on November 8-9, 2011. The meeting will be followed by an optional field trip to the Christina River Basin Critical Zone Observatory on November 10. The meeting is intended to broaden and intensify communication between U.S. and European (and other international) CZ scientists toward a goal of establishing a truly international network of CZ scientists, data and research sites. U.S. participation will include 20 scientists from funded CZOs as well 30 CZ scientists from outside the funded CZO program. European participation (50 scientists) is covered by an EC grant to SoilTrEC. Results from the workshop will be published in a report.