Projects

Project Profile: BLUEGEM

Biosphere and Land Use Exchanges with Groundwater and soils in Earth system Models

Who?

Principal Investigators: Agnes Ducharne, National Center for Scientific Research, France
Partners: Pierre-Alain Jayet, National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment, France
Hyungjun Kim, University of Tokyo, Japan
Daniel Kramer, Michigan State University, United States
Min-Hui Lo, National Taiwan University, Chinese Taipei
Yadu Pokhrel, Michigan State University, United States
Sponsors: French National Research Agency, France
Japan Science and Technology Agency, Japan
Ministry of Science and Technology, Chinese Taipei
National Science Foundation, United States

What?

Full Project Title: Biosphere and Land Use Exchanges with Groundwater and soils in Earth system Models
Full Call Title: Soils2020
Website:

Why?

Project Objective: The overarching goal of the BLUEGEM project is to explore the evolutions of GW, irrigation, and climate in the Anthropocene (1900-2100), to better understand their coupling, foresee their potential changes, and identify possible social consequences, which are of paramount importance to assess in order to identify sustainable pathways with respect to water resources, food security, biodiversity, and human well-being and socio-economic activities.

To this end, the team will combine advanced numerical modeling of biophysical and social systems, as well as participatory methods with stakeholders, to address 3 innovative objectives:

Objective 1. Establish the fingerprint of GW-SM interactions and irrigation on global and regional climate, water resources, biosphere, and soil carbon pools.

Objective 2. Provide improved projections of global and regional climate, water resources, biosphere and soil carbon pools, fully taking into account the influence of GW irrigation and GW-SM interactions.

Objective 3. Integrate local and regional knowledge and expertise as well as socio-economic data to refine the land use and irrigation scenarios used in state-of-the-art climate projections (CMIP6) and to explore pathways for sustainable CZ management.
Call Objective: The goal of this CRA is to produce the necessary knowledge and propose solutions to maintain well-functioning soils and groundwater systems in the Critical Zone1, or rehabilitate them where degraded, through:

1. Better understanding of the long- and shorter-time dynamics and functions of soils and groundwater, impacts from societal (including economics) decisions, integrative management practices, public policies, and how these systems have been transformed; and,

2. Providing avenues, pathways, and narratives toward transformation of management practices of the whole soil and groundwater systems through a fundamental shift of socio-economic actors’ practices and related-decisions making processes.

Where?

Regions: Asia, Europe, North America
Countries: Cambodia, Chinese Taipei, France, Japan, Laos, Thailand, United States of America (USA), Vietnam

When?

Duration: 36 months
Call Date: 2020
Project Award Date: 2021