Climate anomalies and changes have complex and critical impacts on agriculture. Given global warming, the scientific community has dramatically increased research on these impacts. During 1996–2022, over 3,000 peer-reviewed papers in the Web of Science Core Collection database have investigated the fields. This study conducted a bibliometric analysis of these papers for systematic mapping and inductive understanding to comprehensively review the research’s status, focus, network, and funding. After almost 30 years, the research is now centered in quantifying climate impacts on crop yields and agriculture productivity while seeking effective adaptation solutions. The hot keywords recently emerged include poverty, food security, water resource, climate service, climate-smart agriculture, sustainability, and policy. They suggest increasing concerns on global food and water shortage and pressing needs for action to adapt to climate change and sustain agricultural productivity. Given the uncertainty of climate change and the complexity of agriculture systems, most current studies are interdisciplinary research combining various agricultural fields with climate, environmental, and socioeconomic sciences. The United States, as the world’s leading food commodity producer, has the most diverse funding agencies and provides the largest number of awards to support the research. Future priority research should take the coupled earth system approach with the food-energy-water nexus principles to provide effective, actionable decision supports at local-regional scales to sustain national agricultural productivity and quantify climate-smart agricultural practices to mitigate global warming.
NRT-INFEWS: The DataFEWSion Traineeship Program for Innovations at the Nexus of Food Production, Renewable Energy, and Water Quality
Sustainable provision of food, energy and clean water requires understanding of the interdependencies among systems as well as the motivations and incentives of farmers and rural policy makers. Agriculture lies at the heart of interactions among food, energy and water systems. It is an increasingly energy intensive enterprise, but is also a growing source of energy. Agriculture places large demands on water supplies while poor practices can degrade water quality. Each of these interactions creates opportunities for modeling driven by sensor-based and qualitative data collection to improve the effectiveness of system operation and control in the short term as well as investments and planning for the long term. The large volume and complexity of the data collected creates challenges for decision support and stakeholder communication. The DataFEWSion National Research Traineeship program aims to build a community of researchers that explores, develops and implements effective data-driven decision-making to efficiently produce food, transform primary energy sources into energy carriers, and enhance water quality. The initial cohort includes PhD students in agricultural and biosystems, chemical, and industrial engineering as well as statistics and crop production and physiology.
The project aims to prepare trainees for multiple career paths such as research scientist, bioeconomy entrepreneur, agribusiness leader, policy maker, agriculture analytics specialist, and professor. The traineeship has four key components. First, trainees will complete a new graduate certificate to build competencies in fundamental understanding of interactions among food production, water quality and bioenergy; data acquisition, visualization, and analytics; complex systems modeling for decision support; and the economics, policy and sociology of the FEW nexus. Second, they will conduct interdisciplinary research on (a) technologies and practices to increase agriculture’s contributions to energy supply while reducing its negative impacts on water quality and human health; (b) data science to increase crop productivity within the constraints of sustainable intensification; or (c) decision sciences to manage tradeoffs and promote best practices among diverse stakeholders. Third, they will participate in a new graduate learning community to consist of a two-year series of workshops that focus in alternate years on the context of the Midwest agricultural FEW nexus and professional development; and fourth, they will have small-group experiences to promote collaboration and peer review. Each trainee will create and curate a portfolio that combines artifacts from coursework and research with reflections on the broader impacts of their work. Trainee recruitment emphasizes women and underrepresented groups.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1828942
- PAR ID:
- 10180848
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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An ongoing National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) aims to enhance graduate education by integrating research and professional skill development within a diverse, inclusive, and supportive academy. This contribution will describe several interventions within this NRT, namely, a graduate certificate on Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy, and Water Systems (INFEWS) – which is the research topic of the NRT – field trips to sites related to INFEWS, internships and international experiences. Moreover, the assessment and outcomes of each of these interventions will be discussed. A graduate certificate on INFEWS established through this NRT aims to 1) impart both conceptual and technical knowledge related to INFEWS to students; 2) provide them with training on key transferable skills; and 3) equip them to consider the societal, cultural, behavioral, and economic aspects of research on the food, energy, and water nexus. The starting point of the certificate is a multi-departmental and interdisciplinary course on INFEWS. In a subsequent semester students receive training on key transferrable skills in a course designed to integrate these skills with content covered in the foregoing INFEWS course. Completing these core courses gives students 6 of the 12 credit hours needed to attain the certificate. Students earn the other 6 credits by choosing from a list of elective courses. Notably, courses fulfill both certificate and degree requirements, so anticipated time-to-degree is not extended. The certificate is evaluated by assessing student learning outcomes with multiple measures, which include teacher course evaluations of individual courses, the rubric used to review a research proposal that students prepare in the transferable skills course, a professional skills dossier, competency assessments, and student post-surveys. While field trips to facilities related to INFEWS and internships at sites best aligned with their career interests – inside or outside academia – helped foster a sense of community among trainees and exposed them to various work sites and career paths, international experiences helped them gain a global perspective and appreciation for the international nature of STEM research. Evaluation data related to field trips, internships, and international experiences are collected via student focus group discussions, student post-surveys, student follow-up surveys, and alumni surveys. Additionally, the number and type of internships are tracked, and student placement with the internship host after graduation is also monitored. By sharing a description of these interventions and details about their evaluation as well as their outcomes, this contribution will inform practitioners interested in similar educational programs and experiences of both challenges and opportunities associated with these initiatives. In turn, this will help the higher education community in its pursuit to identify and implement the best and most effective practices.more » « less
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Perennial grasslands, including prairie and pasture, have declined with tremendous environmental and social costs. This decline reflects unequal policy support for grasslands and managed grazing compared to row crops. To create a resource for community partners and decision-makers, we reviewed and analyzed the policy tools and implementation capacity that supports and constrains grasslands and managed grazing in the U.S. Upper Midwest. Risk reduction subsidies for corn and soybeans far outpace the support for pasture. Some states lost their statewide grazing specialist when the federal Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative lapsed. The United States Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service support for lands with prescribed grazing practices declined after 2005 but remained relatively steady 2010–2020. These results reveal the policy disadvantage for grasslands and managed grazing in comparison with row crop agriculture for milk and meat production. Grassland and grazing policies have an important nexus with water quality, biodiversity, carbon and outdoor recreation policy. Socially just transitions to well-managed, grazed grasslands require equity-oriented interventions that support community needs. We synthesized recommendations for national and state policy that farmers and other grazing professionals assert would support perennial grasslands and grazing, including changes in insurance, conservation programs, supply chains, land access, and fair labor. These policies would provide critical support for grass-based agriculture and prairies that we hope will help build soil, retain nutrients, reduce flooding and enhance biodiversity while providing healthy food, jobs, and communities.more » « less
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