WSC-Category 1: Decision Processes, Climate Change, and Water Resources in the Agricultural Midwest

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Covering approximately 40% of the world's landscape, modern agriculture feeds a growing human population and has undeniable impact on Earth's water system. Agriculture affects the supply of clean water to support human activities and ecosystems. A changing climate is a further compounding factor that directly impacts agricultural practices and consequently water quality and quantity. This research will quantify how decision-making by agricultural land managers is influenced by local governance organizations, such as Watershed Management Authorities, and will model the impact of these organizations on water quality and quantity. The research team will construct numerical models to examine the consequences of future scenarios of climate, land management, and land use. Model results will be made accessible to focus groups on a web-based platform, and decision-making forums. To inform future planning, the research team will develop narratives about the social-economic drivers and model-based consequence, strategies for involving governance organizations, advocacy groups, and the general public in policy decisions. This project will integrate teaching and research through the Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities. The public will be engaged through decision-making forums and by crowdsourcing hydrologic data. Outcomes from this research will inform local decision making through partnerships with Watershed Management Authorities and directly sharing results with state legislators in multiple forums. A web-based interface will be created for stakeholders to interact with data and models, which is an experiment that can be extended to other regions.The overall scientific objective of this research is to project future scenarios for the agricultural Midwest given changes in climate, land management practices, and local governance. The central hypothesis poses that water resource governance structure and economic concerns supersede changes in climate, flooding, drought, or water quality in influencing land management practices and resultant environmental outcomes. The specific research plan includes quantifying how land management activities affect human and environmental outcomes under a changing climate, assessing the influence of watershed governance in the decision-making process by agricultural land managers, and identifying future scenarios for the region in response to changes in land management and climate.