Introduction
Idaho’s Grand Challenge Initiative funded by NSF EPSCoR will set the stage for long-term competitive growth in areas that address key research needs discussed in the National Research Council’s Grand Challenges in the Environmental Sciences. Idaho EPSCoR’s coordinated research focus will initially consist of five research teams whose efforts will be driven by two scientific goals.

1. To understand and quantify the fluxes of carbon, water and nutrients in complex landscapes

2. To understand how variations in fluxes of carbon, water, and nutrients ramify across trophic levels.

This program will build a unifying statewide infrastructure platform to support integrated, interdisciplinary research that will enhance Idaho’s research competitiveness, create research and training opportunities attractive to top scholars, enable Idaho to forge new links with national and international programs, and inform Idaho's citizens of the value of research. Related research efforts will be strengthened by coordinating existing research sites, improving cyberinfrastructure, developing new sensors technology, improving field monitoring and laboratory capabilities, and engaging senior mentors from outside the state. Collaboration between the research teams will be an integral component of the Initiative. These research themes are:

1. Hydrologic Processes.

2. Coupled Carbon/Water Flux in Complex Landscapes.

3. Carbon Export, Nutrient Limitation, and Primary Productivity.

4. Fish Physiology and Genomics.

5. Nanosensors for Aqueous Environments.