DISES: Socio-environmental dynamics determining the climate mitigation and adaptation potential of midwestern US agroecosystems

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Natural climate solutions are managed alterations to ecosystems designed to enhance their ability to store carbon dioxide or to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. In the intensely managed agricultural lands of the Midwestern United States, cover crops, which are non-harvestable crops that grow when conventionally managed fields are fallow, have substantial public and private-sector support as a natural climate solution. However, estimates of the climate benefits achievable with cover crops are uncertain, and it is not known how social and economic factors interact with environmental feedbacks to determine whether individual producers will adopt cover crops at the necessary scales. This project will examine the social and environmental factors that govern the climate mitigation and adaptation potential of cover crops in Midwestern U.S. croplands in order to determine when and where cover crops are most likely to succeed as a natural climate solution. This research will provide actionable policy and management guidance through committed partnership with a broad community of public and private stakeholders, ranging from individual farmers to state and national-level officials.This project is organized around four research questions, aimed at determining 1) field-scale biophysical mechanisms by which cover crops affect carbon, nutrient, water and energy cycles, 2) how these biophysical mechanisms interact with management decisions to govern mitigation and adaptation potential across the Midwest, 3) how landowners' perceptions of cover crop effectiveness and profitability determine current and future rates of implementation, and 4) how all of these factors interact to determine where the opportunity for climate mitigation with cover cropping is greatest. Methods include intensive field campaigns, state-of-the-art remote sensing methods, producer interviews and surveys, and economic modeling. Through these integrated activities, the goals are to: 1) fully close the field-scale carbon, water, and energy budgets to elucidate the mechanisms by which cover crops confer climate benefits, 2) map cover crop climate mitigation and adaptation potential across the Midwest, and document how it is shaped by regional-scale factors, 3) investigate how producers’ experience with cover crops is shaped by environmental factors, macro-scale economic feedbacks, and social norms, and 4) develop new approaches for identifying where natural climate solutions are most likely to succeed and most needed.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.