SEES Fellows: Interdisciplinary Research on Introducing Heat-Tolerant Wheat to Bolster Food Security

SEES 研究员：引入耐热小麦以加强粮食安全的跨学科研究

• 批准号: 1415436
• 负责人: Meha Jain
• 金额: $ 48.7万
• 依托单位: Stanford University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-08-01 至 2016-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1415436&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SEES; Fellows; Interdisciplinary; Research; Introducing

The project is supported under the NSF Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability Fellows (SEES Fellows) program, with the goal of helping to enable discoveries needed to inform actions that lead to environmental, energy and societal sustainability while creating the necessary workforce to address these challenges. Sustainability science is an emerging field that addresses the challenges of meeting human needs without harm to the environment, and without sacrificing the ability of future generations to meet their needs. A strong scientific workforce requires individuals educated and trained in interdisciplinary research and thinking, especially in the area of sustainability science. With the SEES Fellowship support, this project will enable a promising early career researcher to establish herself in an independent research career related to sustainability. This project focuses on food sustainability and security on a global scale. The partnerships built into this project will give the Fellow significant inter-disciplinary training (adding the components of randomized controlled trials and crop modeling) beyond the scope of her current expertise. This is particularly important since her goal is to become a sustainability scientist who combines methods and tools from the natural and social sciences to understand how humans are impacted by and adapt to environmental change. Specifically, the Fellow will participate in an interdisciplinary institutes (Center on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford, and Center for Effective Global Action at UC Berkeley). Also, at Stanford University, the Fellow will gain teaching and mentoring experience.Climate change is predicted to negatively impact agricultural communities and food security across the globe, with models estimating up to a 40% reduction in the yield of some crops by the end of the century. This is particularly problematic for wheat, which is a major staple crop (providing 20% of daily calories) that is already facing declining yields due to warming temperatures. Previous studies have shown that autonomous adaptation strategies (e.g. increasing irrigation, shifting planting date) are not enough to mitigate the negative impacts of warming, and planned adaptation strategies that introduce heat-tolerant wheat varieties are needed to sustainably bolster yields and food security in the face of climate change. Interdisciplinary research is necessary to (1) identify the most effective ways to introduce these new technologies to vulnerable communities, and (2) assess whether the predicted yield benefits of these crops are realized in the field where farmers may deviate from ideal management practices. This study uses randomized controlled trials from development economics to evaluate introduction strategies, remote sensing to quantify if new heat-tolerant wheat varieties provide yield benefits in the field, and process-based crop models to assess whether these new varieties provide predicted yield benefits in future warming scenarios. Understanding the effectiveness of information transfer is particularly important for heat-tolerant crops because, unlike high-yielding varieties introduced during the Green Revolution, heat-tolerant crops may not provide immediate benefits and only produce higher yields in unseasonably warm years. Thus, the adoption and diffusion of this technology may depend purely on whether farmers trust and receive accurate information about possible future benefits. This study is one of the first to examine the most effective ways to introduce new crops that mitigate against climate variability and future climate risk, which is necessary to sustainably enhance food security in the face of climate change.

该项目得到了NSF科学，工程和教育可持续发展研究员（SEES研究员）计划的支持，其目标是帮助实现所需的发现，为导致环境，能源和社会可持续性的行动提供信息，同时创造必要的劳动力来应对这些挑战。可持续发展科学是一个新兴的领域，它解决了在不损害环境的情况下满足人类需求的挑战，并且不牺牲后代满足其需求的能力。一个强大的科学队伍需要在跨学科研究和思维方面受过教育和培训的个人，特别是在可持续发展科学领域。在SEES奖学金的支持下，该项目将使一个有前途的早期职业研究人员能够在与可持续发展相关的独立研究生涯中确立自己的地位。该项目的重点是全球范围内的粮食可持续性和安全。该项目建立的伙伴关系将为研究员提供超出其现有专业知识范围的重要跨学科培训（增加随机对照试验和作物建模的组成部分）。这一点尤为重要，因为她的目标是成为一名可持续发展科学家，结合自然科学和社会科学的方法和工具，了解人类如何受到环境变化的影响并适应环境变化。具体而言，研究员将参加跨学科研究所（斯坦福大学的粮食安全和环境中心和加州大学伯克利分校的有效全球行动中心）。此外，研究员还将在斯坦福大学获得教学和指导经验。气候变化预计将对地球仪的农业社区和粮食安全产生负面影响，模型估计到世纪末某些作物的产量将减少多达40%。这对小麦来说尤其成问题，小麦是主要的主食作物（提供每日20%的热量），由于气温变暖，小麦已经面临产量下降的问题。先前的研究表明，自主适应战略（例如增加灌溉，改变种植日期）不足以减轻变暖的负面影响，需要有计划的适应战略，引入耐热小麦品种，以可持续地提高产量和粮食安全。跨学科研究是必要的，以（1）确定最有效的方式将这些新技术引入脆弱的社区，（2）评估这些作物的预期产量效益是否在农民可能偏离理想管理实践的领域实现。这项研究使用发展经济学的随机对照试验来评估引进策略，遥感来量化新的耐热小麦品种是否在田间提供产量效益，以及基于过程的作物模型来评估这些新品种是否在未来变暖的情况下提供预测的产量效益。了解信息传递的有效性对耐热作物尤为重要，因为与绿色革命期间引入的高产品种不同，耐热作物可能不会立即带来好处，只能在反常的温暖年份产生更高的产量。因此，这一技术的采用和推广可能完全取决于农民是否信任和收到关于未来可能收益的准确信息。这项研究是第一批研究引进新作物的最有效方法之一，这些新作物可以减轻气候变异性和未来气候风险，这对于在气候变化面前可持续地加强粮食安全是必要的。