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Benjamin Vining博士沿着来自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，将研究不同农业生产系统的组织与气候变化脆弱性之间的关系。 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不同的农业战略是如何使用的厄尔尼诺灾害发生在过去不断变化的频率和强度。 了解农业家如何在生产战略之间转换，将改善对气候变化的长期适应，为如何在未来规划和发展中应对气候变化提供理论和应用模型，并促进地方适应能力。 利用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促进复原力。该项目将建立新的多学科方法，以解决气候变化适应等复杂问题，并在国际合作中培训来自伙伴机构和国家的研究生。 Vining博士和他的团队将研究前西班牙农业家如何发展和各种生产策略之间的转换，因为厄尔尼诺南方涛动（ENSO）的频率和严重性发生了变化。 研究区域，北海岸秘鲁，主办了一系列的文明之间约公元前2000年至公元1450年，包括莫什，兰巴耶克，和Chimu社会。 然而，该地区也特别容易受到厄尔尼诺引起的灾害的影响，例如最近在2016-2017年发生的灾害。 在这一地区的初步考古工作表明，前西班牙农业是基于一套战略。 支持前西班牙社会的复杂经济部分是基于随着气候环境的变化而改变农业战略。 研究人员来自考古学、古湖沼学和古气候学以及生态建模等领域。一个主要目标是将农业系统的高精度测年与根据湖芯重建的古气候条件相结合。 研究人员将利用这一多学科的方法背景，以改善过去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，并重建如何不同的战略被采用为ENSO影响气候。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得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的支持。

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.