HSD: Impacts of El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Events on Chinese Rice Production and the World Rice Market

导致洪水和干旱的气候冲击给世界各地的水区管理者、农业生产者和决策者的决策带来了高度的不确定性和困难。本项目重点研究厄尔尼诺-南方涛动（ENSO）事件对中国主要水稻产区之一江西省降水和温度变化的影响，进而对水资源管理和作物生产的影响。江西也是中国最贫穷的省份之一，农作物产量和价格的波动可能危及农村收入和粮食安全。该项目包括四个组成部分：1)基于ENSO相关大尺度气候动力学的经验降尺度模式（EDMs）的开发，以量化江西省局部气候模式；2)建立江西省水文模型，估算当地降水、水库水位和蓄水量与水管理决策实践之间的关系；3)利用回归模型分析enso气候变率对江西水稻季、年产量的影响；4)建立模型框架，分析ENSO事件对中国和亚洲大米经济内部大米贸易和价格的影响。ENSO贸易模型的开发是建立在早期由美国国家科学基金会资助的关于印尼和菲律宾ENSO-大米关系的研究基础上的，它提供了一个重要的智力贡献，将允许进一步分析ENSO对整个东南亚和东亚农业和粮食安全的影响。它对在不稳定的气候条件下寻求稳定商品价格的政府也具有实际的政策意义。该项目的一个重要贡献是建立了一个由中美研究人员组成的新的合作团队，他们的工作将增加他们在本国机构的跨学科教育机会，国家之间的学术交流，以及中国国内的政策相关科学。研究团队包括大气科学家、水文学家、经济学家、遥感专家和政策分析师。来自美国和中国的本科生和研究生将被纳入研究，资金来自本基金和国内机构现有的学术资金来源。​在中国之外，研究的方法和结果将通过一系列在东南亚组织的公开会议，在主要气候、水文和政策期刊上发表论文，以及在专业学会会议和与未来气候影响有关的小型会议上进行公开演讲，与国际科学和政策界分享。研究结果还将通过与援助机构（如亚洲开发银行、美国国际开发署和世界银行）、国际农业研究协商小组（CGIAR）、亚洲备灾中心（极端气候事件项目）以及投资于农业技术和加强粮食安全项目的私人基金会（如麦克奈特基金会、洛克菲勒基金会和盖茨基金会）的磋商来传播。

Climate shocks leading to floods and droughts present high levels of uncertainty and difficulties in decision making for water district managers, agricultural producers, and policymakers throughout the world. This project focuses on the impacts of El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events on precipitation and temperature variability, and in turn on water management and crop production, in one of China's major rice bowls, Jiangxi Province. Jiangxi is also one of China's poorest provinces, where swings in crop production and prices can jeopardize rural incomes and food security. The project involves four integrated components: 1) the development of empirical downscaling models (EDMs) to quantify local climate patterns within Jiangxi province based on large-scale climate dynamics associated with ENSO; 2) the construction of a hydrological model for Jiangxi to estimate the relationship between local precipitation, reservoir levels and storage, and water management decision practices; 3) the use of regression models to analyze the effects of ENSO-induced climate variability on seasonal and annual rice production in Jiangxi; and 4) the development of a modeling framework to analyze the impacts of ENSO events on rice trade and prices within China and within the Asian rice economy. The development of an ENSO-trade model, which builds on earlier research funded by NSF on ENSO-rice relationships in Indonesia and the Philippines, provides an important intellectual contribution that will permit further analysis of ENSO impacts on agriculture and food security throughout Southeast and East Asia. It also has practical policy implications for governments seeking to stabilize commodity prices under unstable climatic conditions. A key contribution of the project is the creation of a new collaborative team of Chinese and American researchers whose work will enhance interdisciplinary educational opportunities in their home institutions, scholarly exchange between countries, and policy relevant science within China. The research team includes atmospheric scientists, hydrologists, economists, remote sensing experts, and policy analysts. Undergraduate and graduate students from the U.S. and China will be brought into the study with funding from this grant and from existing academic funding sources within the home institutions. The project represents one of the inaugural activities for the Center for Global Forecasting within the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and it will lead to a set of policy briefs to the current Premiere of China (Wen Jiabao) and his rural policy team (headed by Chen Xiwen). Beyond China, the methods and results of the research will be shared with the international science and policy communities through a set of organized public meetings within Southeast Asia, the publication of papers in leading climate, hydrology, and policy journals, and public talks at professional society meetings and smaller meetings related to future climate impacts. The results will also be disseminated through consultations with aid agencies (e.g., Asia Development Bank, USAID, the World Bank), the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (Extreme Climate Events Program), and private foundations that invest in agricultural technologies and programs to enhance food security (e.g., the McKnight Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Gates Foundation).