Consider submitting an abstract to H027 - Advancing understanding of mountainous critical zones through observations and experiments. Globally, mountainous critical zones (CZs) provide important water and ecosystem services to downstream valley fill aquifers. Here, we solicit presentations that address important research questions related to mountainous CZs such as: (i) what are the spatio-temporal variability of mountain flow paths? (ii) how to estimate the depth of active groundwater circulation zone?; and (iii) what are the potential consequences of climate warming, extreme weather events, and wildfires on groundwater recharge and discharge processes and water quality?
 

Join us for a series of short workshops presenting online resources for teaching concepts in the earth & environmental sciences, portrayed through the lens of the critical zone. The critical zone is the earth’s outer skin from treetop to bedrock - a constantly changing place where rock, soil, water, air, and living organisms interact. The featured free educational materials have been developed with teaching and learning in mind and are aligned with national education standards. Each session will include presentations, content demonstrations, and networking among participants. Completion certificates are available upon request. To learn more and register, click below:

July 14th @ 2:00-3:30 pm eastern
Carbon in the Critical Zone: Hands-on activities for students to monitor the movement of carbon in the environment and understand the impacts of carbon sequestration. Register here: https://bit.ly/CZcarbon
August 4th @ 2:00-3:30 pm eastern
Water in the Critical Zone: Hands-on activities for students to monitor water movement in the environment and examine the effects of human modifications to watersheds. Register here: https://bit.ly/CZwater
August 11th @ 2:00-3:30 pm eastern
Climate Change in the Critical Zone: Hands-on activities for students to measure the impacts of climate change in local communities and emphasize mitigation strategies.
Register here: https://bit.ly/CZclimate

Funding is available both for collaborators who would like to visit the Urban CZ Site, and for CZNet Members who would like to visit other sites within the network. To learn more about the Urban Cluster, click here. To apply for funding, follow this link.

CZ Synthesis Projects
 

Congratulations to two new CZ synthesis efforts that will begin their work in 2023 supported by the Critical Zone Network Hub. Hosted by the John Wesley Powell Center for Analysis and Synthesis, each brings collaborative interdisciplinary teams together to address topics critical to better understanding of the critical zone.
Matthias Sprenger (LBNL), Pamela Sullivan (OSU), John Nimmo (USGS), and Tianfan Xu (ASU) will lead the effort “Using a network of networks for high-frequency multi-depth soil moisture observations to infer spatial and temporal drivers of subsurface preferential flow.”
Summary: Subsurface preferential flow (PF = water bypassing the soil matrix) provides rapid flowpaths for water and any substances transported with it, thereby profoundly impacting the recharge of aquifers, the spreading of contaminants, the health of the soil, and the functioning of ecosystems. It involves a complexity of processes that are poorly understood to the degree that current science provides no reliable way to predict its occurrence and magnitude. This effort will address the fundamental question of where and when PF occurs, taking advantage of two recent scientific developments: availability of high frequency (at least every 30 minutes), multi-depth soil moisture data suitable to detect preferential flow events across diverse meteorological conditions and a range of landscapes; and advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML). Outcomes from this synthesis will include: (1) a global database of harmonized high-frequency soil moisture and associated properties ready for AI applications, (2) AI/ML models that embody the control exerted on PF by weather and land characteristics, (3) a means to predict how the occurrence of PF will change with increased rainfall intensity and drought, and (4) approaches by which complex PF process can be represented in Earth System Models. The database and findings from this synthesis will enable further global analyses of various hydrological processes (e.g., streamflow) and serve as a benchmark data set for model development in Earth Science propelling the progress of hydrological modeling on various scales.

Gabriel Senay (USGS), Joshua B. Fisher (Chapman University), Kosana Suvočarev
(UC-Davis), Lixin Wang (Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis) will convene a group leading “Towards an integrated understanding of terrestrial evapotranspiration.”
 
Summary: Terrestrial evapotranspiration (ET), the second-largest component of the terrestrial water cycle, links water, energy, and carbon cycles and influences the productivity and health of our ecosystems. Despite the importance of ET, the dynamics of ET across a spectrum of spatiotemporal scale and their controls are uncertain. During an international ET workshop held in November 2021 by AmeriFlux, the scientific community identified key challenges to improve our understanding of ET dynamics. Participants underscored the need for an integrated understanding of ET across the different research disciplines: in-situ measurements, remote sensing, and modeling. Here, we propose the synthesis of the three research areas to advance the current state of ET science. Through the proposed synthesis activities, we aim to link the different perspectives on ET research that have mostly been covered separately. Ultimately, we expect to build a stronger cross-disciplinary network of ET scientists and facilitate more
integrated ET knowledge in the future.

The Hub is excited to welcome representatives from all nine clusters to the Critical Zone Collaborative Network allhands! At the allhands we will have the unique opportunity to build community and work together to establish cross cluster data standards, workflows, and share data management strategies. In the spirit of this, we hope all available data managers will attend the Data Managers Huddle that will take place in the afternoon of the second day! 
The full agenda for the data managers huddle is available here. Remote attendance will be available for this portion, but we encourage all available data managers to take the opportunity to attend in person, so that we can get into the full spirit of collaboration and cross cluster discussion! 
Much has been said of establishing standards and consensus across clusters. If we want to make this standardization a reality, input from data managers is key to our success! Adhering to community derived best practices will strengthen collaboration as well as improve the quality of our data! We look forward to seeing you there. 

 

A key and recurring piece of feedback from the thematic clusters to the hub has been the desire for clear, well publicized best practices and data standards to facilitate cross cluster collaboration. 
The hub now invites data managers and PIs to collaborate with the hub on the creation of these best practices, as best practices should reflect the input and practices of the users. Please join us at the weekly Data Workshop (Zoom Link) on Wednesdays as the hub facilitates the creation of a set of community data standards that will strengthen our data and our community!
The hub has compiled data type specific best practices documentation on GitHub. These documents are a work in progress, and will be refined each week during the Wednesday meetings.
Data types covered by the existing documentation include:
Geospatial Data
Sample Data
Time Series Data
Multiple Data Types

The CZNet Data Submission Portal is nearing completion, and the hub is excited to put it in your hands and hear your feedback. 
Some of the overarching goals of the Data Submission Portal are to streamline the data submission process, standardize metadata, and make data discoverable both to the hub and the wider water community. With these goals in mind, the Data Submission Portal will contain these key features:

A guided repository recommendation system: This quiz style walkthrough will allow users to select the correct repository for their data. The system will support three repositories: EarthChem, HydroShare, and Zenodo. 
Robust metadata templates: The portal utilizes standardized data submission templates designed to promote consistency in data formatting and metadata descriptions for products submitted to data repositories. 
Publication Capability: Users will be able to obtain DOIs for their datasets through the Data Submission Portal.

We hope this first release will meet many of the needs of the CZNet community. We are looking forward to iterating and improving upon the Data Submission Portal in the future as we continue to tailor it to the needs of the thematic clusters! 

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CZNet
Bedrock Cluster
Dust Cluster
CINet Cluster
Big Data Cluster
Drylands Cluster