Zhang, Xuesong: USDA Agricultural Research Service (Project Lead)
Izaurralde, Roberto (Cesar): University of Maryland (Co-Investigator)
Liang, Xin-Zhong: University of Maryland (Co-Investigator)
Thomson, Allison: Joint Global Change Research Institute (Co-Investigator)
Xu, Min: University of Maryland (Co-Investigator)
Robertson, Philip: Michigan State University (Participant)
West, Tristram (Tris): DOE (Participant)
Project Funding:
2012 - 2015
NRA: 2011 NASA: Terrestrial Ecology
Funded by NASA
Abstract:
Climate change is expected to play an increasingly important role on agricultural productivity and associated socio-ecosystem services. Extensive research has been conducted to evaluate responses and vulnerability of agroecosystems to climate change without accounting for their feedbacks to the climate system. Changes in climate stresses may lead to the need for more intensive crop management (e.g. irrigation). As well, increasing demand for biofuels may lead to large-scale removal of crop residues and cultivation of bioenergy crops. These activities are bound to perturb land surface characteristics and alter energy, water, and momentum fluxes between agroecosystems and the atmosphere. As such, it is imperative to consider two-way interactions between climate and agroecosystems for an effective evaluation of the vulnerability and risks of agroecosystems and associated socio-ecological services (e.g. food and energy production, water cycling, carbon sequestration and regional climate regulation) in a changing climate. Therefore, the goal of the proposed research is to enhance our ability to anticipate vulnerability of agroecosystems in a changing climate through better representation of climate-agroecosystem interactions in regional climate models.
To achieve this goal, we will [1] expand the CWRF regional climate model capability to fully interact with the DSSAT crop growth and management; and [2] apply this coupled modeling system (CWRF-Agro) to predict climate change effects on and feedbacks from agricultural productivity and provision of food, fuel and other socio-ecosystem services in the US Midwest. Extensive NASA satellite data will be integrated with the CWRF- Agro model to improve predictions of complex climate-agroecosystem interactions and understanding consequences that may result from the interactive and changing climate and human stresses in the future (to 2050). Using the CWRF-Agro, we will conduct a suite of experiments to address several compelling scientific questions: [a] How will agroecosystems respond in terms of productivity and sustainability to the CO2 increase and climate change? [b] What is the vulnerability of carbon stocks and flows in agroecosystems to climate change? and [c] How will biofuel land expansion impact regional climate and water cycling?
The outcome of this research will represent a unique contribution to the NASA Terrestrial Ecology research goals by improving our understanding of structure and function of global terrestrial ecosystems, their interactions with the atmosphere and
hydrosphere, and their role in the cycling of the carbon and water. The CWRF-Agro modeling system that couples regional climate with crop growth and management will represent a significant advance to the existing assessments of climate change impacts on agroecosystems, which ignore their feedbacks. As such the proposed research will provide a more credible assessment of unintended consequences and related uncertainties of management strategies and decisions.
Publications:
Yang, Q., Zhang, X. 2016. Improving SWAT for simulating water and carbon fluxes of forest ecosystems. Science of The Total Environment. 569-570, 1478-1488. DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.06.238
Yang, Q., Zhang, X., Xu, X., Asrar, G. R., Smith, R. A., Shih, J., Duan, S. 2016. Spatial patterns and environmental controls of particulate organic carbon in surface waters in the conterminous United States. Science of The Total Environment. 554-555, 266-275. DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.02.164
Cai, X., Yang, Z., Fisher, J. B., Zhang, X., Barlage, M., Chen, F. 2016. Integration of nitrogen dynamics into the Noah-MP land surface model v1.1 for climate and environmental predictions. Geoscientific Model Development. 9(1), 1-15. DOI: 10.5194/gmd-9-1-2016
Zhang, X., Izaurralde, R. C., Manowitz, D. H., Sahajpal, R., West, T. O., Thomson, A. M., Xu, M., Zhao, K., LeDuc, S. D., Williams, J. R. 2015. Regional scale cropland carbon budgets: Evaluating a geospatial agricultural modeling system using inventory data. Environmental Modelling & Software. 63, 199-216. DOI: 10.1016/j.envsoft.2014.10.005
Sahajpal, R., Zhang, X., Izaurralde, R. C., Gelfand, I., Hurtt, G. C. 2014. Identifying representative crop rotation patterns and grassland loss in the US Western Corn Belt. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture. 108, 173-182. DOI: 10.1016/j.compag.2014.08.005
Zhang, X., Beeson, P., Link, R., Manowitz, D., Izaurralde, R. C., Sadeghi, A., Thomson, A. M., Sahajpal, R., Srinivasan, R., Arnold, J. G. 2013. Efficient multi-objective calibration of a computationally intensive hydrologic model with parallel computing software in Python. Environmental Modelling & Software. 46, 208-218. DOI: 10.1016/j.envsoft.2013.03.013
Zhang, X., Izaurralde, R. C., Arnold, J. G., Williams, J. R., Srinivasan, R. 2013. Modifying the Soil and Water Assessment Tool to simulate cropland carbon flux: Model development and initial evaluation. Science of The Total Environment. 463-464, 810-822. DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2013.06.056
Zhang, X., Izaurralde, R., Zong, Z., Zhao, K., Thomson, A. 2012. Evaluating the Efficiency of a Multi-core Aware Multi-objective Optimization Tool for Calibrating the SWAT Model. Transactions of the ASABE. 55(5), 1723-1731. DOI: 10.13031/2013.42363
Zhao, K., Valle, D., Popescu, S., Zhang, X., Mallick, B. 2013. Hyperspectral remote sensing of plant biochemistry using Bayesian model averaging with variable and band selection. Remote Sensing of Environment. 132, 102-119. DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2012.12.026
Thomson, A. M., Kyle, G. P., Zhang, X., Bandaru, V., West, T. O., Wise, M. A., Izaurralde, R. C., Calvin, K. V. 2014. The contribution of future agricultural trends in the US Midwest to global climate change mitigation. Global Environmental Change. 24, 143-154. DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2013.11.019
Zhang, X., Sahajpal, R., Manowitz, D. H., Zhao, K., LeDuc, S. D., Xu, M., Xiong, W., Zhang, A., Izaurralde, R. C., Thomson, A. M., West, T. O., Post, W. M. 2014. Multi-scale geospatial agroecosystem modeling: A case study on the influence of soil data resolution on carbon budget estimates. Science of The Total Environment. 479-480, 138-150. DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.01.099
2015 NASA Carbon Cycle & Ecosystems Joint Science Workshop Poster(s)
- Changes in biophysical climate regulation services from converting native grassland to bioenergy production in the US Midwest
-- (Xuesong Zhang, Kaiguang Zhao, Michael Abraha, Ilya Gelfand, Roberto C. Izaurralde, Allison M. Thomson, Steve K. Hamilton, Jiquan Chen, G. Philip Robertson, Min Xu, Xin-Zhong Liang)
[abstract]
2013 NASA Terrestrial Ecology Science Team Meeting Poster(s)
- Anticipating Agroecosystem Impacts of and Feedbacks to Climate Change in the Midwest US through Integration of a Coupled Climate-Agroecosystem Model with Satellite Data
-- (Xuesong Zhang, Min Xu, Kaiguang Zhao, Xin-Zhong Liang, Roberto C Izaurralde, Allison M. Thomson)
[abstract]
More details may be found in the following project profile(s):
