Enhancing scientific discovery and problem-solving through integrated research.

Resilience science provides a conceptual framework and methodology for quantitatively assessing the ability of a system to remain in a particular state.  Probable non-linear ecological responses to global change, including climate change, require a clear framework for understanding and managing resilience.  However, much of the resilience research to date has been qualitative in nature, and frameworks developed for the implementation of resilience science have been either vague or focused on the social component of social-ecological systems.  Attempts to quantify resilience and operationalize the concept include the cross-scale resilience model, discontinuity theory and the early detection of leading indicators of regime shifts.  More work is needed to support the effective use of resilience theory for managing ecological systems.  We propose to address gaps in the science of ecological resilience in order to develop a usable framework for the implementation of resilience science by natural resource managers.  We will do this by accomplishing a series of related but discrete tasks.  The first is to synthesize the current state of discontinuity research, the language barriers to communicating complex systems science and discontinuities, and the key criticisms of discontinuity theory in order to present a defined direction for how these criticisms could be addressed and/or tested.  The second task is to determine whether changes in species abundance can be a leading indicator of system-level regime shifts and an indication of the location of scale breaks within the scales of a system, and test the hypothesis that the location of species with the highest variance in abundance will be non-random.  The third task is to develop a new conceptual model of the relationship between biodiversity, scale and resilience that accounts for abundance and functional response diversity.  The fourth task is a synthesis of our discussions and basic research and would culminate in the development of a resilience framework for managers.  To accomplish these goals we will bring together an international team of scientists working in a broad range of social-ecological systems.  

An ecosystem can be in a number of different forms or states, such as a reef covered in many corals vs. a reef with large areas of thick algae and little coral.  The ability of an ecosystem to remain within its initial form (e.g. coral reef) when impacted by disturbances resulting from rapid global change, rather than shift to another state (e.g. algae reef), is called the resilience of the ecosystem.  Until recently, a lot of the work that has looked at the resilience of ecosystems has been theoretical.  However, as the world experiences increasingly rapid changes, it becomes more and more important to be able to put this theory into practice and measure how resilient an ecosystem is, i.e. how likely is it that the ecosystem will remain in its current form over time, as this directly affects natural resources on which we rely for food, water, etc.  Resilience concepts are abstract and hard to communicate, so the first task of this working group is to build a bridge between theory and practice to make resilience concepts more accessible to a wider audience; we will produce a review of what is currently known, gaps in our knowledge, and the common language barriers.  We will then use a large dataset from long term monitoring of an ecosystem to examine a number of potential indicators of resilience, which use information on how the abundance of each species changes in the system over time, and  on their specific roles e.g. herbivore or carnivore.  We will then compare these indicators with shifts in the state of the ecosystem over time, to see if they are suitable as indicators of resilience.   The results of this analysis will be used to develop a practical framework that resource managers can use on the ground to assess resilience in their ecosystems, to aid planning for sustainable use and support conservation efforts.

Water cycling and availability exert dominant control over ecological processes and the sustainability of ecosystem services in water-limited ecosystems. Consequently, dryland ecosystems have the potential to be dramatically impacted by hydrologic alterations emerging from global change, notably increasing temperature and altered precipitation patterns. In addition, the possibility of directly manipulating global solar radiation by augmenting stratospheric SO2 is receiving increasing attention as CO2 emissions continue to increase – these manipulations are anticipated to decrease precipitation, a change that may be as influential as temperature increases in dryland ecosystems. We propose to integrate a proven soil water model with daily weather data from temperate dryland ecosystems across the globe to characterize potential future hydrologic changes in these water-limited ecosystems. We will convene a group of ecologists and hydrologists with experience in dryland ecosystems from around the globe to help parameterize and validate the model, and interpret the results. Outcomes from this workgroup will include insights about important commonalities, uncertainties, and vulnerabilities of dryland ecosystems and estimates of current and potential future ecosystem water balance and water availability in global temperate dryland ecosystems.

Mercury (Hg) is a serious environmental problem that is impacting ecological and human health on a global scale. However, local and regional processes are largely responsible for producing methylmercury, which drives ecological risk. This is particularly true in western North America where the combination of diverse landscapes, habitat types, climates, and Hg sources may disproportionally impact the region relative to other areas in North America. Even with decades of regional Hg research and monitoring, there is still no holistic synthesis of the spatiotemporal patterns of Hg in abiotic and biotic resources across the region, nor has there been a formal, simultaneous analysis of the landscape, ecological and climatological factors that drive Hg cycling, bioaccumulation, and risk of Hg in western North America.

Through a compilation of decades of data records on Hg, we will conduct a tri-national synthesis of Hg cycling and bioaccumulation throughout western North America in order to quantify the influence of land use, habitat, and climatological factors on Hg risk. With public land comprising more than 60% of the total surface area in the region, this knowledge is critical for more effectively managing resource to reduce Hg impacts. We have developed an interdisciplinary team of scientists and policy experts, representing three countries, to accomplish these goals across such an expansive area.

Mercury contamination is a serious environmental problem that impacts ecological and human health at a global scale. Human actions have played an important role in modern increases in environmental mercury through activities such as mining and fossil fuel combustion. Importantly, in addition to sources the ecological risk of mercury is directly tied to 1) microbial conversion from the more abundant but less toxic and bioavailable inorganic form to the organic form, methylmercury, which is a potent neurological toxin that readily biomagnifies through food chains, and 2) the movement of methylmercury through ecological communities and food webs. These two major components of mercury risk are extremely complicated, and although they are not yet completely understood they are known to be driven by factors such as habitat type, climate, hydrology, land use, and biological community composition.

Mercury contamination is increasingly recognized as a major conservation issue in western North America, which is comprised of a remarkably diverse array of habitats and climates that likely influence environmental mercury cycling. The region also faces a unique combination of mercury releases from legacy mining, localized industrial and energy dischargers, and potential atmospheric deposition from trans-pacific transport that complicate a clear understanding of the drivers of mercury risk. The goals of this working group are to synthesize existing abiotic and biological mercury data across western North America within the context of habitat type, land use, and climate, to evaluate landscape scale controls on mercury cycling and bioaccumulation in the region. We are particularly interested in parsing out the relative importance of source type among different habitats, as well as developing a more predictive understanding of the role played by climatological drivers. Ultimately, with more than 50% of the land in western North America being publicly owned and managed, we hope to develop tools that will assist land managers to minimize mercury risk in habitats and regions where possible.

USGS Powell Center web portal on Mercury cycling, bioaccumulation, and risk across North America:

https://powellcenter.usgs.gov/mercnet/

The Western North America Mercury Synthesis is a collaborative effort by Biodiversity Research Institute and the U.S. Geological Survey to examine mercury in the western landscape of North America in order to predict (1) the cycling of mercury through the landscape under specific and changing climatic conditions, (2) the bioaccumulation of mercury within habitat-specific and regional food webs, and (3) spatiotemporal patterns in mercury risks to key indicator species. The data collection and compilation will allow for spatial and temporal analysis of mercury, which is a component of the much larger MercNet data synthesis effort.
Through our efforts with the USGS Powell Center, we will utilize this web space to collect metadata and mercury data from distinct data sets across Western North America.

While it is widely recognized that microorganisms are intimately linked with every biogeochemical cycle in all ecosystems, it is not clear how and when microbial dynamics constrain ecosystem processes. As a result, it is know clear how to apply the value of increasingly detailed characterization of microbial properties to our understanding of ecosystem ecology. Several recent papers have demonstrated how information about microbial dynamics can be incorporated into ecosystem models (Allison et al. 2010, McGuire and Treseder 2010, Todd-Brown et al. 2011a), but it is generally not clear what types of microbial data are most useful in explaining variation in biogeochemical processes and ecosystem functioning, especially in the face of global change. There is a clear need to quantitatively evaluate which microbial data are best suited to improve our ability to predict ecosystem processes, and to direct future sampling efforts toward emerging approaches that are most likely to advance our understanding of ecosystem functioning.

The USGS has a storied legacy of collecting important metrics for quantifying and describing our nation’s resources. The potential for microbial processes to provide further insight into the controls of ecosystem function has spurred the development of a growing group of USGS scientists conducting research on environmental microorganisms. In line with these efforts, we propose to use existing datasets describing microbial properties and ecosystem function to address which microbial processes are most likely to enhance our understanding of ecosystem processes and their projections in a changing world. Our overall goal is to identify key microbial indicators of fundamental ecological processes, which will help to focus future monitoring and research efforts from the USGS and the broader scientific community.

Coming Soon

Estimating species response to environmental change is a key challenge for ecologists and a core mission of the USGS. Effective forecasting of species response requires models that are detailed enough to capture critical processes and at the same time general enough to allow broad application. This tradeoff is difficult to reconcile with most existing methods. We propose to extend and combine existing models that operate at different scales and with different levels of data complexity into a modeling framework that will allow robust estimation of population response to environmental change across a species’ range. This integrated modeling is now possible with the increasing development and application of population models in an extremely flexible and powerful statistical framework (hierarchical Bayesian modeling). These models will integrate data across multiple scales, providing critical insight into environmental control of population dynamics and a unique tool for forecasting effects of current and future environmental change. Although we will initially develop models for fish living in stream networks, our integrated modeling approach will be applicable to a wide range of species and could serve as a model for future modeling efforts.

Understanding how species respond to environmental change is more important than ever as habitats face increasing pressure from development, invasive species and climate change. To balance conflicting interests, natural resource policy makers and managers need predictions of how and why species will respond to future pressures and to alternate management strategies. This kind of information usually comes from models of species distributions in space or from models that describe how animals and plants respond to environmental variation. These models are generally either good at describing broad patterns across a large portion of a species’ range or good at describing details in a specific location or two. This tradeoff between generality and specificity is a pervasive issue in ecological studies. Our working group will attempt to reconcile this tradeoff by combining broad models of species distributions (occupancy models) with detailed demographic models (process-oriented integral projection models) in a flexible statistical framework (Bayesian modeling). We will initially develop the integrated models for stream-dwelling trout based on studies from the east coast and west coast of the US, but we anticipate that the modeling framework will be widely applicable to species with good data from both general and detailed studies.

The transport of dissolved organic matter (DOM) by rivers is an important component of the global carbon cycle, affects ecosystems and water quality, and reflects biogeochemical and hydrological processes in watersheds. Understanding the fundamental relationships between discharge and DOM concentration and composition reveals important information about watershed flow paths, soil flushing, connectivity to riparian zones, organic matter leaching, soil moisture, and climatic influences. Data to describe these processes - both magnitude and timing - is critical for modeling and predicting watershed DOM dynamics, particularly in light of land use and climate change.

Despite several decades of data collection, a synthesis of how hydrology drives DOM dynamics and what this tells us about watershed sources and processes remains elusive. We propose to bring together a multi-disciplinary team to re-evaluate the fundamental relationships between stream discharge and DOM concentration and composition. Our effort will focus on synthesizing mature datasets from small headwater basins to large coastal basins using statistical techniques and modeling, and will include both the quantity (concentration and loads) and quality of DOM. Participants will contribute datasets spanning a range of temporal sampling intensities from quarterly to weekly, to those including intensive sampling from automated samplers during high flow events, and finally to continuous datasets from optical sensors. We expect that the synthesis of these data will facilitate new and unprecedented insights into trends in DOM across space and time and result in improved understanding of organic matter dynamics in aquatic ecosystems.

Rivers and streams provide a pathway for the delivery of water from mountains to the sea, but also transport a variety of constituents that are important for ecosystems and human health. Dissolved organic matter (DOM) – a broad range of organic molecules from living and dead organisms – is one such constituent that plays an important role in carbon cycles, mercury transport and drinking water quality. Measuring the type and amount of DOM in rivers and streams also tells us about how water is moving through the landscape and the role of different land use types and watershed sizes on water quality.

Given that water is the primary mechanism by which DOM moves, it seems that understanding the timing and magnitude of DOM transport from land to sea should be easy. Not so. Despite decades of data collection, we still don’t have a clear understanding of how water runoff and DOM type and amount are linked in rivers and streams. Our workgroup – composed of hydrologists, ecologists and biogeochemists – will explore data from small streams to large rivers to look for overarching patterns that explain how DOM (particularly the carbon bound in organic matter, DOC) and discharge are related across space and time. By overcoming several of the problems that have slowed progress to date –focusing on individual watersheds, too few data points over time and lack of data on the ‘flavor’ of DOM – we hope to improve our ability to model and predict DOC dynamics in watersheds from the mountains to the sea.

Despite the best monitoring networks, the highest rate of earthquakes and the longest continuous recorded history in the world, this year’s M=9.0 Tohoku, Japan, earthquake was completely unforeseen. The Japanese had expected no larger than a M=8 quake in the Japan trench, 1/30th the size of the Tohoku temblor. This year also saw the devastating M=6.3 Christchurch, New Zealand earthquake and the M=5.8 Virginia quake, and it marks the bicentennial of the enigmatic but destructive 1811-1812 M~7½ New Madrid, Missouri, earthquakes, each event an example of how poorly we can forecast earthquake rates or their ultimate size in the planet’s vast intraplate regions far from plate boundaries. The goal of the Global Earthquake Recurrence group is to reassess earthquake rates, their frequency-magnitude distributions, and maximum magnitudes synoptically for all of the major plate boundary and intraplate environments, so that we can build improved models of seismic threat for humanity, and so we can base the U.S. hazard estimates on a more robust global dataset and analysis. The budget of this project would be supported equally by the Powell Center and by the Global Earthquake Model.

Fibrous erionite, a zeolite mineral, has been designated as a human carcinogen by the World Health Organization and is believed to be the cause of extraordinarily high rates of malignant mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases in several villages in Central Turkey. A recent study by the University of Hawaii in collaboration with the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency in Dunn County, North Dakota has demonstrated similar human exposures to fibrous erionite as those in found in Turkey. The source of these exposures is an erionite-bearing volcanic tuff that has been mined, crushed, and used to gravel hundreds of miles of roads. While elevated rates of mesothelioma are not yet apparent in North Dakota, a recent radiographic study of erionite exposed workers does indicate that exposure associated lung disease is occurring (U.S.E.P.A. and others, 2010). Fibrous erionite is also known to occur in many other western states where exposures could potentially be occurring during mining, road building and construction activities. For example, road crews in Montana and forest service workers in Custer National Forest have reportedly been exposed to natural erionite-bearing soils during various activities (P. Pierson, personal communication, 2010). Such erionite exposures have also been associated with cases of disease in North America (Rom and others, 1983; Ilgren and others, 2008). Based, in part, on the information above, The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has just released a Science Blog (posted 11/22/2011) calling erionite "An emerging North American hazard" (NIOSH, 2011).

Understanding the relationship of geological occurrences and the mineralogical nature of fibrous erionite in the context of human activity and disease incidence in the western United States is critical to land use planning, management of exposures, and reducing the risks of disease. Such information is essential in guiding future investigations and informing decisions regarding land use, development, and public health. This project will use spatial and statistical techniques to evaluate correlations, between data regarding morbidity and mortality for asbestos/erionite-related disease, fibrous zeolite mineral occurrences, permissive geologic terrains, human activity, and climatological factors. Additionally, findings will be used to generate additional hypotheses and focal areas for future earth sciences and public health research.

Medical geology is an emerging field of study that looks at the linkages between natural earth materials, earth processes, and the health of humans and other terrestrial organisms. One area of medical geology research is the study of how the earth’s surficial properties and processes influence human exposures to natural toxicants and the resulting occurrences of disease. On the flip-side, environmental health scientists look at the how various environmental factors and exposures influence disease in individuals and communities. For example, researchers from these disciplines have come together to perform important studies over the last few decades in several villages in Central Turkey where they have identified an extremely high incidence of malignant mesothelioma (MM) due to inhalation of fibers from a mineral called erionite. Mesothelioma is typically associated with exposure to a group of select mineral fibers known as “asbestos.” However, fibrous erionite is not listed as an “asbestos” mineral, though it can possess many of the same properties that make asbestos fibers hazardous. Erionite is a member of the zeolite mineral family and forms primarily as diagenetic alteration product of volcanic ash deposited in lakes, or as an alteration product of volcanic rocks. Fibrous erionite of respirable size occurs in many areas of the world including the western United States. Recent studies, one by the University of Hawaii and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and another by the U.S. Geological Survey, found similarities (i.e., size, shape, and chemistry) between respirable airborne exposures to erionite near the Kildeer Mountains in North Dakota to erionite exposures in Turkish villages with elevated rates of MM. Although no evidence of increased prevalence of MM has been found in North Dakota, recent radiographic studies indicated evidence of fibrogenic lung disease among erionite-exposed workers without other risk factors for such findings. These findings raise the question of whether or not other areas of the U.S. have the potential for exposure to erionite, or other potentially hazardous mineral fibers.

This Powell Center Working Group will use existing GIS data sets relating to erionite occurrence, local and regional geology, climate, dust generation potential, population density, and the prevalence of relevant diseases to further our understanding of erionite, and it's potential relationship to human health in the United States. This information will help land use planners, health experts, and workers interested in identifying areas of concern for surveillance and appropriate management strategies to reduce the risks of future exposure and disease, as indicated. In addition, the results of this study will help provide information that can be used by toxicologists and other researchers interested in understanding the mechanisms whereby certain types of silicate mineral fibers cause disease, while others do not.

USGS PRISM (Pliocene Research, Interpretation and Synoptic Mapping) Project global data sets of Pliocene conditions, which form the most comprehensive global reconstruction for any warm period prior to the recent past, are used to drive numerical climate model simulations designed to explore the impact of climate forcings and feedbacks during the Pliocene. The Pliocene world provides an unequaled paleo-laboratory to test the sensitivity of the physical models that estimate the impacts of future warming and challenges our understanding of the sensitivity of key components of the climate system and how they are simulated (e.g., polar vs. tropical sensitivity, the role of ocean circulation in a warming climate, the hydrological impact of altered storm tracks, the regional climate impacts of modified atmospheric and oceanic energy transport systems). A number of leading international climate modeling groups are using these USGS data exclusively to run comparative experiments as part of the Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project (PlioMIP) with the aim of including these results in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 5th Assessment Report (IPCC AR5). Several modeling groups have completed or are in the process of completing PlioMIP Experiments 1 and 2, and a series of meetings is designed to 1) present and discuss the modeling groups’ initial results, 2) discuss the challenge of data-model comparison, 3) identify the model scenarios and data-model output that require analysis and documentation, and 4) synthesize results for inclusion in IPCC AR5.

Policymakers at all levels of government base decisions on model projections of future climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC AR4) predicts a mean annual global temperature rise of between 1.1°C and 6.4°C by the end of this century based on a collection of general circulation model (GCM) experiments. Paleoclimate research provides a critical check on the uncertainty surrounding these experiments. Through paleoclimate research, we can look back in time to a period when the earth was warmer, as warm as future climate is projected to be, and reconstruct past global conditions from a collection of proxy data. The reconstruction acts to ‘ground-truth’ GCM simulations. The most recent interval of sustained global warmth equivalent to model projections for the end of this century occurred in the Pliocene Epoch, during a warm period that lasted from about 3.3 to 3.0 million years ago. The USGS PRISM (Pliocene Research, Interpretation and Synoptic Mapping) Project has reconstructed the Pliocene environment, and we use this reconstruction to test the predictive abilities of GCMs. The idea is that if a climate model can accurately hindcast a past known climate, then forecasts of future climate should be more realistic. Also, the reconstruction can be used to quantify the uncertainty of climate projections by comparing a suite of simulations to the data, thereby bracketing the model error. The Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project (PlioMIP) will do just that with the aim of including the results in the IPCC 5th Assessment Report (IPCC AR5). A series of meetings is designed to discuss and synthesize PlioMIP results for inclusion in IPCC AR5.

Harry Dowsett, USGS Eastern Geology and Paleoclimate Science Center, Reston, VA
Marci Robertson, USGS Eastern Geology and Paleoclimate Science Center, Reston, VA
Mark Chandler, Columbia University – NASA/GISS, New York, NY (Climate modeler)
Bette Otto-Bliesner, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (Climate modeler)
Alan Haywood, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK (Climate modeler)
Aisling Dolan,  University of Leeds, Leeds, UK (Doctoral Student)
Daniel Lunt, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK (Climate modeler)
Nan Rosenbloom, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (Climate modeler)
Danielle Stoll, USGS, Reston, VA (Geologist)

Migratory species may provide more ecosystem goods and services to humans in certain parts of their range than others. These areas may or may not coincide with the locations on which the species is most dependent for its continued population viability. This situation can present significant policy challenges, as locations that most support a given species may be subsidizing the provision of services in other locations, often in different political jurisdictions. The ability to quantify these spatial subsidies could be used to develop economic incentives. Targeted payments for ecosystem services (PES) could provide economic incentives for conservation in areas where none presently exist, serving as a foundation for the cooperative, cross-jurisdictional management of migratory species. The proposed research will overcome the two primary obstacles to calculating spatial subsidies: estimating the proportional dependence of migratory populations on different habitats within their migratory range; and estimating the value humans derive from these populations within these different habitats. The PI team has developed a framework for estimating spatial subsidies and has conceptualized a multi-model approach to address this issue in the migratory Mexican free-tailed bat. We will expand this research by investigating the monarch butterfly and northern pintail duck, for which economic and population data are available. Through a series of workshops bringing together economists, species experts, and modelers, spatially distributed population models and economic valuation methods will be established or refined for each species and generalized to the extent possible, with the goal of developing a transferrable framework that can be applied to a wide variety of species. In addition, we will work with management and policy experts to develop a proposal for implementing our results in conjunction with the established Western Hemisphere Migratory Species Initiative.

Migratory species—animals such as birds, bats, and insects that on a fairly predictable schedule travel back and forth to spend parts of the year in two or more distant areas—provide many benefits to humans. These benefits, such as controlling crop pests, pollinating food plants, or supporting recreational hunting, are called ecosystem services.

In general, throughout the yearly cycle of migration, as these species move about, in addition to providing ecosystem services, they use the resources available in different habitats for food, shelter, and nesting materials. Sometimes a species provides more benefits in certain parts of its range than in others; and some habitats may be more important than others in terms of supporting the overall health of a species.

For instance, ducks are highly valued by hunters but only hunted recreationally in a small part of their range, such as in stopover sites during migration from summer breeding habitat to wintering grounds. Yet, duck populations may depend, in terms of survival, more on their summer and winter habitats than on those of migratory stopover sites. As a result, habitats where the species receives the most support—for ducks, their summer and winter sites—may not be the same habitats, or locations, where the species provides the most benefits to humans—in this case, the ducks’ stopover sites.

This mismatch between where a species receives support and where it provides benefits can lead to similar differences in the costs and benefits to humans in these areas, creating difficulties for wildlife management and habitat protection. For example, if persons in an area that supports a species receive little or no direct benefit, they may have few incentives to conserve that species’ life-sustaining habitat. Further, persons in areas where the species provides more benefits, in a sense, may be receiving a subsidy from persons in the areas of supporting habitat. Ideally, though, persons who receive benefits from a migratory species should bear a share of the cost to protect the species’ critical habitats, albeit likely in a distant location.

How much is that cost? Who should pay it? How would payments be made, and to whom? These are the questions that drive our research.

The goals of this Powell Center Working Group, then, are twofold: (1) to measure the amount of subsidy—the value of the ecosystem services a species provides in one area versus the cost to support the species and its habitat elsewhere—for three well-known migratory species: the Monarch butterfly, Northern Pintail duck, and Mexican Free-tailed bat; and (2) to create a process, a payment system, whereby persons receiving the benefits of ecosystem services might provide incentives to persons in habitat areas needing protection but supplying few benefits.

Darius Semmens - Research Physical Scientist, USGS, Denver
Chip Taylor - Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Kansas, Lawrence
Karen Oberhauser - Associate Professor, Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Biology, University of Minnesota, St. Paul
Leslie Ries - Assistant Research Scientist, Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park
Jim Dubovsky - Central Flyway Representative, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Denver
Wayne Thogmartin - Research Statistician, USGS, La Crosse, WI
Brady Mattsson - Research Ecologist, USGS, Sacramento
Rodrigo Medellín - Professor, Institute of Ecology, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mèxico
Gary McCracken - Professor and Department Head, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Laura López-Hoffman - Assistant Research Professor, Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy; Assistant Professor, School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Arizona, Tucson
Jay Diffendorfer - Research Ecologist, USGS, Denver
Ken Bagstad - Research Economist, USGS, Denver
John Loomis - Professor, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Colorado State University, Fort Collins
Brice Semmens - Assistant Professor, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego
Josh Goldstein - Assistant Professor, Warner College of Natural Resources, Colorado Statue University, Fort Collins

Global climate change is putting unprecedented pressure on global croplands and their water use, vital for ensuring future food security for the world’s rapidly expanding human population. The end of the green revolution (increase in productivity per unit of land) era has meant declining global per capita agricultural production requiring immediate policy responses to safeguard food security amidst global climate change and economic turbulence. Global croplands are water guzzlers, consuming between 60-90% of all human water use. With urbanization, industrialization, and other demands (e.g., bio-fuels) on water there is increasing pressure to reduce agricultural water use by producing more food from existing or reduced areas of croplands (more crop per unit area) or increasing water use efficiency (more crop per unit of water). Our team will evaluate potential water savings that may emerge from: i) replacing current crops with those that consume less water ; ii) increasing water use efficiency ; iii) altering human diets toward less water-consuming food ; and iv) emphasizing rainfed crop productivity to reduce stress on water-intensive irrigated croplands. We will create a “knowledge warehouse” to facilitate global food security in the twenty-first century by identifying and making available an advanced geospatial information system on croplands and their water use. Such a system will be global, consistent across nations and regions and provide information including: (a) crop types, (b) precise location of crops, (c) cropping intensities, (d) cropping calendar, (e) crop health\vigor, (f) watering methods (e.g., irrigated, supplemental irrigated, rainfed), (g) flood and drought information, (h) water use assessments, and (g) yield or productivity (expressed per unit of land and\or unit of water). Such a complex system requires coordination between multiple agencies leading to development of a seamless, scalable, and repeatable methodology. The new ideas and knowledge will be published in the leading peer-reviewed journals.

The team effort leads to number of creative and novel activities leading to advanced “knowledge warehouse” on global croplands and their water use. First, we will make a significant contribution towards agricultural cropland mapping and water use modeling that will include advance remote sensing driven methods, models, and algorithms for crop detection, crop type identification, development of cropland spectral data bank, separation of irrigated croplands from rainfed croplands, and water use assessments of irrigated crops and rainfed crops. Second, it will highlight approaches and methods of handling large data volumes, fusing multiple-sensor data, identify and propose necessary algorithms to process data, identify key products that are scalable, and enumerate on uncertainties, errors, and accuracies. Third, the activity will bring clarity and provide a clear road-map to help accurately determine (e.g., through peer reviewed publications): (a) green water use (by rainfed croplands) and (b) blue water use (by irrigated croplands), (c) food production, (d) dynamics of virtual water trade, and (e) scenario modeling. The blue water use by irrigated crops and green water use by rainfed crops can be accurately assessed, based on information such as: (a) crop type, (b) precise spatial location of crops (e.g., latitude), (c) cropping intensity, (d) crop calendar, (e) watering methods (e.g., irrigation, rainfed), (f) watering source (ground water, surface water), (g) irrigation type (e.g., sprinkler, gravity). How best to achieve these goals will be published in the peer reviewed articles. Fourth, our results facilitate in answering critical food security science questions such as:

• “How does the world ensure food security for its ballooning population without having to increase cropland areas and\or water allocations?” or “how does the world ensure food security for its ballooning population by reducing the existing cropland areas and\or water allocations?”
• Where are land cover and land use changing, what is the extent, and over what time scale?
• What are the causes and what are the consequences of land cover\land use change (LCLUC)? We will analyze the changes associated with the expansion in irrigation and rainfed and its intensification and what the consequences of these changes are on agricultural water use, especially as a consequence of the interactions with climate.
• What are the projected changes in land use and land cover and their potential impacts? We map potentials for future expansion in irrigated and rainfed areas depending on water availability and their impact on future agricultural water use.
• What are the impacts of climate variability and changes on LCLUC and what is the potential feedback? We analyze the spatio-temporal changes in irrigated and rainfed areas and their interaction with regional climate.

Finally, the proposal results will contribute to the Goal 4 of the USCCSP by advancing our understanding of the potential impacts of recent and predicted climate changes on land use and exploring pathways for mitigation of adverse effects or adaptation to sustain livelihoods. It will , further, significantly contribute to major strategic International programs supported by the land cover\land use change (LCLUC) program by responding to the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP) Global Land Project, Global Earth Observing (GEO) Societal Beneficial Areas on Agriculture and Water, and Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS)- specifically its Global Agricultural Monitoring System (AG-07-03).

Dr. Prasad S. Thenkabail - U.S. Geological Survey
Dr. Cristina Milesi - National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Dr. Chandra Giri - U.S. Geological Survey
Dr. Mutulu Ozdogan - University of Wisconsin
Dr. Jerry Knox - Cranfield University
Prof. Songcai You - Integrated Earth Data Applications
Prof. Russell G. Congalton - University of New Hampshire
Prof. Alex Finkral - Northern Arizona University
Dr. Pamela Nagler - U.S. Geological Survey
Dr. Isabella Mariotto - U.S. Geological Survey
Dr. Michell Marshall - University of California at Santa Barbara
Dr. Zhouting Wu - Northern Arizona University

USGS Powell Center web portal on global croplands and water use for food security in the 21st century :

https://powellcenter.usgs.gov/globalcroplandwater/

Current land use practices have affected ecosystem structure and processes in ways that have degraded delivery of key ecosystem services controlling exchanges of carbon and nitrogen with the atmosphere and surface and groundwater systems. These impacts are observed in the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) and N pollution in our nation’s water systems and coastal areas. Improvements in databases of climate, soils, and land use practices in the north central Great Plains (Colorado, Kansas, Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana, South Dakota, and North Dakota) provide a unique opportunity for integration and synthesis of this information on the exchanges of C and N affecting our environmental resources. In addition, improved ecosystem modeling tools are available to evaluate ecosystem dynamics and to conduct life-cycle analysis of various land use management options. This synthesis of information and modeling approaches is timely as greater competition for land resources is anticipated in the coming decades and our work is expected to provide new insights to guide decision makers to choose between alternative land use strategies. The synthesis activity will bring together researchers familiar with various aspects of land use dynamics, including the biophysical, biogeochemical, social, and agricultural sciences to develop an updated assessment of land use effects on environmental conditions and to provide a more integrated framework to assess future policy decision related to agricultural impacts on the environment.

The Great Plains has a rich agricultural history that supports a diverse set of communities in the region. Ranching, agriculture, and conservation are predominant land uses. These communities have experienced droughts, floods, fires, invasive species, and pest outbreaks, yet still have maintained levels of agricultural and economic productivity over the decades. Now Great Plains land stewards are faced with additional challenges related to climate and land use change, particularly conversion of lands for biofuel production. Our synthesis activity will bring together researchers familiar with various aspects of land use dynamics to estimate changes in economic and crop productivity, environmental effects of emissions of heat trapping gases, levels of carbon stored in soils, and loss of nitrates into waterways from traditional agriculture, biofuels production, grazing, and conservation lands.