Creating Decision Support Knowledge for Droughts & Floods
Generating Sustaining Vibrant Agroecosystems Solutions
Generating Sustaining Vibrant Agroecosystems Solutions
Dr. John Schwartz
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Year Awarded 2023
FFAR award amount $434,038
Total award amount $966,119
Location Knoxville, TN
Matching Funders University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Grantee Institution University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Missing Strategies to Overcome Extreme Weather
Ninety percent of crop losses in the United States are related to extreme weather, with drought and excess moisture as the top causes. Flash floods and droughts are increasing in severity, causing soil erosion or contamination and threatening crop yields.
However, farmers have limited information on how to manage crop, soil and water in response to changing climate conditions.
The failure to develop strategies in the face of flash floods and droughts is due, in part, to three considerable research gaps:
- Most studies focus on long-term effects of extreme events, leaving information about short-term events out of decision support tools.
- A lack of high-resolution satellite data on irrigation makes it difficult to assess irrigation’s impacts on water resources and crop productivity.
- Previous studies often looked at the effects of extreme weather events on overall ecosystems, but detailed, comparative analyses of individual crops’ recovery from these events are missing.
To overcome these gaps, researchers at University of Tennessee, Knoxville and the UT Institute of Agriculture, led by Dr. John Schwartz, director of the Tennessee Water Resources Research Center and UT professor, are leveraging a variety of data sources and analytical techniques to develop and test a weather-based tool to bolster field operations across the Tennessee River Basin and surrounding Southeast U.S. regions in the face of both long- and short-term weather hazards.
The decision support tool for row crop producers being developed by our UT research team will provide them useful predictive information, particularly on short-term weather hazards, considering in recent years weather patterns in this region have more often shifted to a wetter spring followed by a flash drought early summer, creating producer challenges when to plant and whether irrigation is needed.
Dr. John Schwartz
Director, Tennessee Water Resources Research Center
Collecting Better Data
Using combinations of satellites and ground-based monitoring such as the Soil & Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) along with historical trends, this project will allow growers and decision-makers to prepare for and respond to unpredictable conditions brought about by flash floods and drought.
The research is advancing our understanding of how a variety of crop species in the Tennessee River Basin respond to weather hazards. Once complete, growers and agricultural decision-makers will have more accurate and timely information on water availability and irrigation management. This support can minimize crop losses and increase yield, maximize water use efficiency and enhance the resilience of agricultural systems to climate change.
Details About This Research
Optimizing Irrigation Strategies
The researchers are exploring how existing hydrologic and crop models can be combined with historical trends and current monitoring data to inform crop choice, irrigation scheduling and hazard mitigation planning.
Objectives
- Analyze the frequency, duration, intensity and trends of drought and flood in East Tennessee watersheds, including historical climate and water data.
- Investigate different crop species response to natural hazards in terms of irrigation and water use efficiency.
- Assess the potential increase in crop yield under different irrigation application rates.
- Develop watershed models that includes irrigation demands and decision-support tools to address the uncertainty arising from flash droughts and floods under changing climate conditions and balance tradeoffs among agriculture production, economic values, environmental impacts, resilience and justice, particularly with local small farms near underserved communities.
How This Research contributes to Sustaining Vibrant Agroecosystems
Developing decision support for irrigation strategies and agricultural water management under changing climate conditions has the potential to significantly improve water management in agriculture, leading to improved crop yields, increased economic resilience for farmers and reduced environmental impacts.
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