The Need:    Investigations of Earth's atmosphere, oceans, and continents and the biota that inhabit these environments are at a crossroads. The traditional approach of measuring and documenting the nature of environmental change is rapidly being augmented by a new approach wherein dynamic processes are resolved, modeled, and understood in terms of how and why they occur, and, ultimately, how they impact society. This shift in research approach has resulted largely from the recognition that 1) the Earth's climate and natural environments are dynamic systems with high spatial and temporal variability, 2) they are changing as a result of human induced climate modification, 3) environmental systems are dynamically linked via physical, geochemical, and biological processes, with perturbations in one system often impacting others, and 4) climatic and ecologic change pose economic, health, and political risks to society as a whole.  This shift in focus, stimulated by technological advances in data collection and computing, has created a new intellectual challenge: defining and quantifying the more complex processes and interactions that occur within and between natural systems.
      One of the most dynamic and important system interfaces is where continent meets ocean, or the land-sea interface. This is a region where atmospheric and fluvial processes effectively couple marine and terrestrial systems.  California's land-sea interface is one of the world's most dynamic. It is characterized by intense coastal upwelling, monsoonal rainfall, and shifting landscapes. It is also one of the world's most heavily populated and economically fertile coastal regions. At present, a strong need exists to develop a more quantitative understanding of the physical, geochemical, and biological processes that influence this and similar interfaces.  Faculty, researchers, and students within several departments at UCSC are at the forefront of many of the new developments in understanding these processes. However, progress toward a more holistic perspective has been restricted by a lack of interaction between scientists in different fields studying the same systems, as well as by a lack of expertise and critical mass within several key areas of the Natural and Social Sciences. As a solution, in late 1998 a group of faculty respresenting 5 departments initiated the process of establishing a UCSC based interdisciplinary researchcenter that would bring together researchers who share a common interest in the dynamics and coupling of Land-Sea systems. This "grass roots" effort, with the financial support of both the campus administration and the office of the President, has resulted in the creation of UCSC's newest research center, C.DELSI.

The Mission:     DELSI's primary focus is on the marine and terrestrial systems that constitute the land-sea interface and the processes that modify and couple these systems.  These include climate processes, such as atmospheric circulation, that drives ocean circulation, geologic processes that help shape the margins of the continents and transport water and sediment from the mountains to the coastal ocean, and biogeochemical and biological processes that influence the cycling of carbon, nutrients, and other elements in these systems.  Emphasis is on understanding the dynamics (actions, interactions, controls, limits, future potential for change) of these systems over time scales (~10 Kyr) exceeding those of modern instrumental monitoring (i.e., > 50 years). Work in the Center will be facilitated through (1) addition of research expertise in areas to fill current pivotal gaps and achieve critical mass, and (2) organization of graduate and post-doctoral fellowships, visiting and sabbatical researcher positions, and speaker programs that will knit together the research efforts of the Center.  The goal is for the Center to take a more direct role in facilitating research by providing the resources needed to conduct field exercises, develop laboratory techniques, and construct and run complex numerical models.
        Center scientists are interested in the fundamental operation and coupling of global and regional scale systems along the continental margin. Current projects are oriented toward characterizing processes and defining the nature (physical, chemical, biological) of couplings as well as the time dependent dynamics of complex systems.  For example, through detailed field observations researchers are evaluating how the chemistry and ecology of near shore marine systems are affected by changes in upwelling and runoff during extreme El Niño or La Niña years. Others, through studies of climate records held in sediments and the organisms found within them, are attempting to evaluate how the frequency and intensity of El Niño and other climatic phenomena have varied over the past and may have impacted local ecosystems. Similarly, through assessment of historical river fluxes and modern instrumentation of representative basins, researchers hope to characterize the factors that determine water discharge patterns, associated delivery of sediment and dissolved ions to coastal oceans, and their effects on freshwater and marine ecosystems. Holistic approaches that integrate climatic and hydrologic processes with human-use patterns are being employed to eventually help scientists develop more reliable forecasts of how these systems will react to future changes in climate and land use.
 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
    The Center for the study of the Dynamics and Evolution of the Land-Sea Interface (C.DELSI) at UCSC will:
 
Enhance interdisciplinary research on the complex ocean, atmosphere, and continental systems that impact regional climate, marine and freshwater resources, agriculture, fisheries, and natural hazards.
Place UCSC at the scientific forefront of research on the dynamics of marine and terrestrial processes, particularly as they relate to the land-sea interface.
Educate graduate students and postdoctoral scholars in a broadly interdisciplinary context that will be essential to the next generation of researchers addressing the challenges of climatic and environmental change.
Enhance the educational experience for undergraduate students pursuing degrees in Environmental Sciences or related fields.     The initial 5-year effort of the Center will focus on the long and short-term dynamics of the global and regional scale climate change and their impact on ocean circulation, landscapes, geochemical cycles, and marine and terrestrial ecology at the land-sea interface.  This effort will involve faculty from at least five departments with expertise in the following areas; paleoclimatology, paleoceanography, geomorphology, hydrology, biogeochemistry, aquatic toxicology, marine ecology and biology, and ecological economics and policy. In addition, an ambitious hiring program has been implemented by the division to augment existing expertise within the center.