BE/CNH: Understanding and Modeling the Scope for Adaptive Management in Agroecosystems in the Pampas: Response to Interannual and Decadal Climate Variability and Other Risk Factors

农业生态系统联合收割机将自然生态系统中生物物理相互作用的复杂性、多样性和反馈与人类决策的额外复杂性相结合。 气候多变性是农业生产面临的主要风险来源之一。 特别是，季节到年际和年代际尺度的气候波动与决策、资源管理和基础设施规划有关。 在季节到年际尺度上，预测与厄尔尼诺-南方涛动（ENSO）现象相关的区域气候变化的能力正在出现，这为了解农业等复杂系统如何应对提供了一个天然的实验室。 阿根廷中东部的潘帕斯草原是研究这种响应的一个很好的地点，它是一个主要的农业区，显示出明显的年际和年代际气候信号。 在年代际尺度上，自1970年代以来春夏降水量的增加促成了土地利用模式的重大变化和阿根廷农业产量的大幅增加。 然而，人们越来越关注环境后果以及生产和生命支持系统的可持续性。 这个跨学科的研究项目将解决这些问题，这些问题是农业生态系统中自然和人类组成部分动态相互作用的一部分。 将特别强调评估适应性管理的范围，以应对新获得的关于气候变异性的知识和最近对人类决策的认识。 该项目将（1）绘制潘帕斯草原农业系统决策景观的关键组成部分;（2）建立年际和年代际气候变异性的合理情景;（3）评估气候变异性的影响和结果;（4）设法了解如何接收概率气候信息和结果的不确定性并对其采取行动;（5）探讨气候信息设计和交流的最佳做法以及不确定性的特征;（6）评估人类活动对自然系统的影响;（7）对促进或阻碍综合科学研究和利益相关者参与的外展的因素进行自我反思分析。 该项目涉及用于生成气候情景和决策结果的关联建模方法、决策和行为的受控实验以及将利用背景知识和农业利益相关者的经验和偏好的参与式研究。气候变率和决策之间的联系是影响许多地区和部门资源管理的基本问题。 该项目将对一个重要和普遍的复杂系统（农业生产）进行综合分析，该系统涉及几个自然系统和人类系统之间的相互作用。 从科学创新的角度来看，该项目将制定概念和程序方法，以将气候情景的空间和时间尺度与区域影响评估和资源管理相关的尺度联系起来。 尺度不匹配一直是气候影响评估问题的核心。 该项目将包括基于现代统计和计算技术的不确定性的完全概率表征。 提供不确定性估计数将提高项目结论对利害关系方的重要性。 最后，对跨学科、多地合作和利益相关者参与综合科学的挑战进行反思性分析，将刺激其他地方与生物复杂性问题相关的理论发展。 潘帕斯草原与其他主要生产地区（如美国中西部、巴西和加拿大）在生产规模、种植的作物和技术上的相似性，以及可比较的气候信号，表明该项目的结果具有更广泛的相关性。 该项目得到了2004财政年度环境中生物复杂性特别竞赛的资助，该竞赛侧重于自然和人类系统耦合的动力学。

Agricultural ecosystems combine the complexity, multiplicity of scales, and feedbacks of biophysical interactions in natural ecosystems with the additional intricacies of human decision making. Climate variability is one of the top sources of risk to agricultural production. In particular, climate fluctuations on seasonal-to-interannual and interdecadal scales are relevant to decision-making, resource management, and infrastructure planning. On seasonal-to-interannual scales, the emerging ability to forecast regional climate variability associated with the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon offers a natural laboratory to learn how a complex system such as agriculture may respond. An excellent site to study such responses is the Pampas of central-eastern Argentina, a major agricultural region that shows marked interannual and interdecadal climate signals. On interdecadal scales, an increase in spring-summer precipitation since the 1970s has contributed to significant changes in land-use patterns and a large increase in Argentine agricultural output. There are growing concerns about the environmental consequences and the sustainability of production and life support systems, however. This interdisciplinary research project will address these issues, which are part of the dynamic interactions of natural and human components in agroecosystems. Special emphasis will be placed on assessing the scope for adaptive management in response to newly available knowledge on climate variability and recent insights on human decision making. The project will (1) map key components of the decision landscape in agricultural systems of the Pampas; (2) build plausible scenarios of interannual and interdecadal climate variability; (3) assess impacts and outcomes of climate variability; (4) seek to understand how probabilistic climate information and uncertainty about outcomes are received and acted upon; (5) explore best practices for the design and communication of climate information and the characterization of uncertainty; (6) assess consequences on natural systems of human actions; and (7) conduct a self-reflective analysis of factors that promote or impede integrative science research and outreach with stakeholder participation. The project involves linked modeling approaches for generation of climate scenarios and decision outcomes, controlled experiments on decision making and behavior, and participatory research that will draw on contextual knowledge and agricultural stakeholders' experiences and preferences.The link between climate variability and decision making is a fundamental issue that influences resource management in many regions and sectors. This project will provide an integrated analysis of an important and prevalent complex system (agricultural production) that involves interactions between several natural and human systems. From a perspective of scientific innovation, the project will develop conceptual and procedural approaches to bridge the spatial and temporal scales of climate scenarios and the scales associated with regional impact assessment and resource management. Scale mismatch has been at the heart of problems of climate impact assessment. The project will include a fully probabilistic characterization of uncertainty based on modern statistical and computational techniques. The availability of uncertainty estimates will enhance the salience of project findings for stakeholders. Finally, a reflective analysis of the challenges of interdisciplinary, multiple-place collaboration, and stakeholder involvement in integrative science will stimulate theory development relevant to biocomplexity problems elsewhere. The similarity in production scale, crops grown, and technology of the Pampas to those in other major production areas (such as the U.S. Midwest, Brazil, and Canada) with comparable climate signals suggest a broader relevance of results from the project. This project is supported by an award resulting from the FY 2004 special competition in Biocomplexity in the Environment focusing on the Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems.