CNH: Climate Effects on Tea Quality and Socioeconomic Responses

这个项目的重点是茶叶质量为什么和如何容易受到气候条件变化的影响，以及茶叶质量的变化如何影响农业社区和土地利用战略。茶叶生产和消费系统作为一个案例研究，探索人类和自然系统之间复杂的相互作用。这个跨学科的研究项目将研究茶叶农业生态系统、市场和农民之间的联系如何受到气候变化加剧和由此产生的社会生态反馈的影响。研究人员将以社会生态学和化学生态学理论为基础进行研究。他们将采用一系列研究方法，包括在中国产茶地区进行实地抽样；温室对照试验；茶叶样品的生化和感官分析；消费者调查的购买决策和价格建模；农民生态知识、管理、社会网络和生计调查；以及气候和管理情景的多变量建模。该项目将提供有关气候对作物质量影响的新信息和见解，并促进社会行动，实现农业生态系统和农民生计的可持续性。该项目将加强对人与环境关系的理论理解，并为气候变化、农业生态系统、市场和农业实践的动态提供新的视角。项目结果将有助于为茶叶产区的土地使用组织制定循证管理计划和政策建议。尽管该项目侧重于中国的茶叶生产和相关环境条件，但它将为探索与质量相关的市场驱动力量与不断变化的自然条件之间的复杂关系，为全球范围内广泛的环境敏感型资源相关活动提供有价值的见解。在其他经济活动中，产品质量的实际和感知变化与环境条件的微小变化相关，这些变化可能会产生深远的影响，包括美国和其他地方的葡萄酒生产，华盛顿州和密歇根州的樱桃生产，以及落基山脉和新英格兰的滑雪条件。本项目由美国国家科学基金会自然与人类系统耦合动力学（CNH）项目资助。

This project focuses on why and how tea quality is vulnerable to changing climate conditions and how changes in quality may affect farming communities and land-use strategies. Tea production and consumption systems are used as a case study to explore complex interactions among human and natural systems. This interdisciplinary research project will examine how links among tea agroecosystems, markets, and farmers are impacted by increased climate variability and the resulting socioecological feedbacks. The investigators will ground their research in socioecological and chemical ecology theory. They will employ a range of research methods, including field sampling in tea-producing areas of China; controlled greenhouse experiments; biochemical and sensory analyses of tea samples; consumer surveys of purchasing decisions and price modeling; farmer surveys of ecological knowledge, management, social networks, and livelihoods; and multivariate modeling of climate and management scenarios.This project will provide new information and insights regarding climate effects on crop quality and to facilitate societal actions towards sustainability of agro-ecosystems and farmer livelihoods. The project will enhance theoretical understandings regarding human-environment relationships and shed new light on the dynamics of climate change, agroecosystems, markets, and agricultural practices. Project findings will assist in the development of evidence-based management plans and policy suggestions for land-use organizations in tea producing areas. Although this project focuses on tea production and related environmental conditions in China, it will yield insights that have value in exploring the complex relationships between quality-related market-driven forces and changing natural conditions for a broad range of environmentally sensitive resource-related activities across the globe. Examples of other economic activities for which real and perceived changes in product quality associated with even-minor changes in environmental conditions may have profound impacts include wine production in the U.S. and elsewhere, cherry production in Washington state and Michigan, and skiing conditions in the Rockies and New England. This project is supported by the NSF Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems (CNH) Program.