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

该项目由NSF科学、工程和教育促进可持续发展研究员(SEE FLOLS)计划支持，目标是帮助实现必要的发现，为导致环境、能源和社会可持续发展的行动提供信息，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领域，它解决了在不损害环境、不牺牲子孙后代满足其需求的能力的情况下满足人类需求的挑战。一支强大的科学队伍需要接受跨学科研究和思维方面的教育和培训，特别是在可持续发展科学领域。在SEES奖学金的支持下，该项目将使一位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。这个项目所建立的伙伴关系将为这位研究员提供重要的跨学科培训(增加随机对照试验和作物建模的组成部分)，超出她目前的专业范围。这一点尤其重要，因为她的目标是成为一名可持续发展科学家，将自然科学和社会科学的方法和工具结合起来，以了解人类如何受到环境变化的影响并适应环境变化。具体地说，该研究员将参加一个跨学科研究所(斯坦福大学的食品安全和环境中心，以及加州大学伯克利分校的有效全球行动中心)。此外，在斯坦福大学，这位研究员还将获得教学和指导经验。据预测，气候变化将对全球农业社区和粮食安全产生负面影响，模型估计，到本世纪末，一些作物的产量将减少40%。这对小麦来说尤其成问题，小麦是一种主要的主食作物(每天提供20%的卡路里)，由于气温变暖，已经面临产量下降的问题。以前的研究表明，自主适应战略(如增加灌溉、改变播种日期)不足以减轻气候变暖的负面影响，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，以应对气候变化。有必要进行跨学科研究，以(1)确定将这些新技术引入脆弱社区的最有效方法，以及(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做法的田地中实现。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，遥感技术来量化耐热小麦新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在未来变暖情景下是否提供预期的产量效益。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进的高产品种不同，耐热作物可能不会立即带来好处，只有在反常的温暖年份才会产生更高的产量。因此，这项技术的采用和推广可能纯粹取决于农民是否信任并获得关于未来可能带来的好处的准确信息。这项研究是第一批研究引进新作物的最有效方法之一，这些新作物可以缓解气候变异性和未来的气候风险，这是在面对气候变化时可持续地加强粮食安全所必需的。

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.