Collaborative Research: Coupling and Cohesion as Factors Affecting Vulnerability to Abrupt Climate Change

阿肯色大学费耶特维尔分校的本杰明·维宁博士将与路易斯安那大学拉斐特分校、佛罗里达大学盖恩斯维尔分校和秘鲁的合作者一起，研究不同农业生产系统的组织与气候变化脆弱性的关系。气候变化日益成为公众和政策关注的问题。这项研究将侧重于了解过去厄尔尼诺灾害发生的频率和强度发生变化时，不同的农业战略是如何被使用的。了解农学家如何在生产战略之间进行转换，将改善对气候变化的长期适应，为在未来规划和发展中如何应对气候变化提供理论和应用模型，并促进当地的适应能力。将农业作为一组案例研究，这些模型可以推广到其他形式的经济网络，以了解各种战略如何提高韧性。该项目将建立新的多学科方法来解决气候变化适应等复杂问题，并培训伙伴机构和国家的研究生开展国际合作。维宁博士和他的团队将研究随着厄尔尼诺南方涛动(ENSO)的频率和严重程度的变化，理解恐慌的农业学家是如何发展并在各种生产策略之间切换的。研究区域位于秘鲁北部沿海，大约在公元前2000年至公元1450年之间拥有一系列文明，包括莫切人、兰巴耶克人和奇姆人。然而，该区域也特别容易受到厄尔尼诺现象引发的灾害的影响，例如最近在2016-2017年间发生的灾害。该地区的初步考古工作表明，领悟农业是基于一套战略。支持理解人社会的复杂经济在一定程度上是基于随着气候环境的变化而在农业战略之间进行切换。研究人员来自考古学、古湖泊和古气候以及生态建模等领域。一个主要目标将是将农业系统的高精度测年与从湖心重建的古气候条件结合起来。研究人员将利用这种多学科的方法论背景来改进对过去ENSO变化的历史重建，记录农业技术在其环境背景下的考古实例，并重建在ENSO影响气候时如何采用不同的策略。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Dr. Benjamin Vining, of the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville, along with collaborators from the University of Louisiana-Lafayette, the University of Florida-Gainesville, and in Peru, will examine how the organization of different agricultural production systems relates to climate change vulnerabilities. Climate change is increasingly a public and policy concern. This research will focus on understanding how different agricultural strategies were used as el Nino disasters occurred in the past with changing frequency and strength. Understanding how agriculturalists switched between productive strategies will improve long-term adaptations to climate change, provide theoretical and applied models for how to address climate change in future planning and development, and promote local adaptive capacities. Using agriculture as a set of case studies, these models can be generalized to other forms of economic networks to understand how various strategies can promote resilience. This project will establish new multidisciplinary approaches to tackle such complex problems as climate change adaptation, and train graduate students from the partner institutions and countries in international collaborations. Dr. Vining and his team will examine how prehispanic agriculturalists developed and switched between various productive strategies as the el Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) changed in frequency and severity. The study region, north coastal Peru, hosted a series of civilizations between approximately 2000 BC - 1450 AD, including the Moche, Lambayeque, and Chimu societies. However, the region is also particularly vulnerable to el Nino induced disasters, such as occurred recently in 2016-2017. Initial archaeological work in this region indicates that prehispanic agriculture was based on a suite of strategies. The complex economies that supported prehispanic societies were based on in part on switching amongst agricultural strategies as climatic contexts shifted. The researchers come from the fields of archaeology, paleolimnology and palaeoclimate, and ecological modeling. A principal objective will be to combine high-precision dating of agricultural systems with paleoclimate conditions reconstructed from lake cores. The researchers will use this multidisplinary methodological background to improve historic reconstructions of past ENSO variations, record archaeological examples of agricultural technologies in their environmental context, and reconstruct how different strategies were employed as ENSO effected climate.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.