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Awareness Of Climate Change’S Impacts And Motivation To Adapt Are Not Enough To Drive Action: A Look Of Puerto Rican Farmers After Hurricane Maria, Luis Alexis Rodríguez-Cruz, Meredith T. Niles Jan 2021

Awareness Of Climate Change’S Impacts And Motivation To Adapt Are Not Enough To Drive Action: A Look Of Puerto Rican Farmers After Hurricane Maria, Luis Alexis Rodríguez-Cruz, Meredith T. Niles

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Understanding how perceptions around motivation, capacity, and climate change’s impacts relate to the adoption of adaptation practices in light of experiences with extreme weather events is important in assessing farmers’ adaptive capacity. However, very little of this work has occurred in islands, which may have different vulnerabilities and capacities for adaptation. Data of surveyed farmers throughout Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria (n = 405, 87% response rate) were used in a structural equation model to explore the extent to which their adoption of agricultural practices and management strategies was driven by perceptions of motivation, vulnerability, and capacity as a function …


Climate Impacts Associated With Reduced Diet Diversity In Children Across Nineteen Countries, Meredith T. Niles, Benjamin F. Emery, Serge Wiltshire, Molly E. Brown, Brendan Fisher, Taylor H. Ricketts Jan 2021

Climate Impacts Associated With Reduced Diet Diversity In Children Across Nineteen Countries, Meredith T. Niles, Benjamin F. Emery, Serge Wiltshire, Molly E. Brown, Brendan Fisher, Taylor H. Ricketts

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

It is widely anticipated that climate change will negatively affect both food security and diet diversity. Diet diversity is especially critical for children as it correlates with macro and micronutrient intake important for child development. Despite these anticipated links, little empirical evidence has demonstrated a relationship between diet diversity and climate change, especially across large datasets spanning multiple global regions and with more recent climate data. Here we use survey data from 19 countries and more than 107 000 children, coupled with 30 years of precipitation and temperature data, to explore the relationship of climate to child diet diversity while …


Benefits And Tradeoffs Of Reduced Tillage And Manure Application Methods In A Zea Mays Silage System, Kyle M. Dittmer, Heather M. Darby, Tyler R. Goeschel, E. Carol Adair Sep 2020

Benefits And Tradeoffs Of Reduced Tillage And Manure Application Methods In A Zea Mays Silage System, Kyle M. Dittmer, Heather M. Darby, Tyler R. Goeschel, E. Carol Adair

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

A critical question is whether there are agricultural management practices that can attain the multiple management goals of increasing yields, preventing nutrient losses, and suppressing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. No-till and manure application methods, such as manure injection, can enhance nutrient retention, but both may also enhance emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O), a powerful GHG. We assessed differences in soil N2O and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, nitrate and ammonium retention, and crop yield and protein content under combinations of vertical-till, no-till, manure injection, and manure broadcast without incorporation in a corn (Zea mays L.) silage system. During the growing seasons …


Understanding The Uncertainty In Global Forest Carbon Turnover, Thomas A.M. Pugh, Tim Rademacher, Sarah L. Shafer, Jorg Steinkamp, Jonathan Barichivich, Brian Beckage, Vanessa Haverd, Anna Harper, Jens Heinke, Kazuya Nishina, Anja Rammig, Hisashi Sato, Almut Arneth, Stijn Hantson, Thomas Hickler, Markus Kautz, Benjamin Quesada, Benjamin Smith, Kirsten Thonicke Aug 2020

Understanding The Uncertainty In Global Forest Carbon Turnover, Thomas A.M. Pugh, Tim Rademacher, Sarah L. Shafer, Jorg Steinkamp, Jonathan Barichivich, Brian Beckage, Vanessa Haverd, Anna Harper, Jens Heinke, Kazuya Nishina, Anja Rammig, Hisashi Sato, Almut Arneth, Stijn Hantson, Thomas Hickler, Markus Kautz, Benjamin Quesada, Benjamin Smith, Kirsten Thonicke

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

The length of time that carbon remains in forest biomass is one of the largest uncertainties in the global carbon cycle, with both recent historical baselines and future responses to environmental change poorly constrained by available observations. In the absence of large-scale observations, models used for global assessments tend to fall back on simplified assumptions of the turnover rates of biomass and soil carbon pools. In this study, the biomass carbon turnover times calculated by an ensemble of contemporary terrestrial biosphere models (TBMs) are analysed to assess their current capability to accurately estimate biomass carbon turnover times in forests and …


Characterizing Heterogeneous Behavior Of Non-Point-Source Polluters In A Spatial Game Under Alternate Sensing And Incentive Designs, Asim Zia, Shanshan Ding, Kent D. Messer, Haoran Miao, Jordan F. Suter, Jacob R. Fooks, Todd Guilfoos, Simona Trandafir, Emi Uchida, Yushiou Tsai, Scott Merrill, Scott Turnbull, Christopher Koliba Aug 2020

Characterizing Heterogeneous Behavior Of Non-Point-Source Polluters In A Spatial Game Under Alternate Sensing And Incentive Designs, Asim Zia, Shanshan Ding, Kent D. Messer, Haoran Miao, Jordan F. Suter, Jacob R. Fooks, Todd Guilfoos, Simona Trandafir, Emi Uchida, Yushiou Tsai, Scott Merrill, Scott Turnbull, Christopher Koliba

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Behavioral research on natural resource management has revealed a number of variables that can impact collective action. This research builds upon an interactive decision game using experimental economics methods with a focus on production decisions and the corresponding impact they have on ambient water quality. Using hierarchical clustering algorithms, four primary types of behavior are identified: competitive, hypercompetitive, cooperative, and hypercooperative. The results from the experiment are used to test the following three hypotheses: (1) financial incentives increase cooperative behavior, (2) increasing the number and frequency of water quality sensors increases cooperative behavior, and (3) the spatial location of the …


Implementing A Loosely-Coupled Integrated Assessment Model In The Pegasus Workflow Management System, Patrick Clemins, Scott Turnbull, Morgan Rodgers, Asim Zia Jul 2020

Implementing A Loosely-Coupled Integrated Assessment Model In The Pegasus Workflow Management System, Patrick Clemins, Scott Turnbull, Morgan Rodgers, Asim Zia

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Integrated assessment models (IAMs) are commonly used to explore the interactions between different modeled components of socio-environmental systems (SES). Most IAMs are built in a tightly-coupled framework so that the complex interactions between the models can be efficiently implemented within the framework in a straightforward manner. However, tightly-coupled frameworks make it more difficult to change individual models within the IAM because of the high level of integration between the models. Prioritizing flexibility over computational efficiency, the IAM presented here is built using a loosely-coupled framework and implemented in the Pegasus Workflow Management System. The modular nature of loosely-coupled systems allows …


Communicating Climate Change Risk: A Content Analysis Of Ipcc's Summary For Policymakers, P. Marijn Poortvliet, Meredith T. Niles, Jeroen A. Veraart, Saskia E. Werners, Fiona C. Korporaal, Bob C. Mulder Jun 2020

Communicating Climate Change Risk: A Content Analysis Of Ipcc's Summary For Policymakers, P. Marijn Poortvliet, Meredith T. Niles, Jeroen A. Veraart, Saskia E. Werners, Fiona C. Korporaal, Bob C. Mulder

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

This study investigated the effectiveness of climate change risk communication in terms of its theoretical potential to stimulate recipients' awareness and behavioral change. We selected the summary for policy makers (SPM) of the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report in order to conduct a content analysis; the extended parallel process model and construal level theory served as conceptual lenses to perform the analysis. Specifically, we evaluated to what extent the SPM included informational elements of threat, efficacy and psychological distance related to climate change. The results showed that threat information was prominently present, but efficacy information was …


Long-Term Monitoring Reveals Forest Tree Community Change Driven By Atmospheric Sulphate Pollution And Contemporary Climate Change, Brittany M. Verrico, Jeremy Weiland, Timothy D. Perkins, Brian Beckage, Stephen R. Keller Mar 2020

Long-Term Monitoring Reveals Forest Tree Community Change Driven By Atmospheric Sulphate Pollution And Contemporary Climate Change, Brittany M. Verrico, Jeremy Weiland, Timothy D. Perkins, Brian Beckage, Stephen R. Keller

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Diversity and Distributions published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd Aim: Montane environments are sentinels of global change, providing unique opportunities to assess impacts on species diversity. Multiple anthropogenic stressors such as climate change and atmospheric pollution may act concurrently or synergistically in restructuring communities. Thus, a major challenge for conservation is untangling the relative importance of different stressors. Here, we combine long-term monitoring with multivariate community modelling to estimate the anthropogenic drivers shaping forest tree diversity along an elevational gradient. Location: Camels Hump Mountain, Vermont, USA. Methods: We used Generalized Dissimilarity Modelling (GDM) to model spatial and temporal turnover …


Water Use Governance In A Temperate Region: Implications For Agricultural Climate Change Adaptation In The Northeastern United States, Rachel E. Schattman, Meredith T. Niles, Hannah M. Aitken Jan 2020

Water Use Governance In A Temperate Region: Implications For Agricultural Climate Change Adaptation In The Northeastern United States, Rachel E. Schattman, Meredith T. Niles, Hannah M. Aitken

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Climate change and access to water are interrelated concerns for agriculture and other sectors, even in temperate regions. Governance approaches and regulatory frameworks determine who has access to water, for what purpose, and when. In the northeastern United States, water governance has historically been conducted by states through a combination of statutory guidance and common law. However, it is unclear what effect if current governance approaches will be sufficient for achieving resource conservation and equitable allocation in a changing climate. To provide insight into these issues, we conducted the first review of freshwater governance in the 12 states that comprise …


Visualizing Climate Change Adaptation: An Effective Tool For Agricultural Outreach?, Rachel E. Schattman, Stephanie E. Hurley, Holly L. Greenleaf, Meredith T. Niles, Martha Caswell Jan 2020

Visualizing Climate Change Adaptation: An Effective Tool For Agricultural Outreach?, Rachel E. Schattman, Stephanie E. Hurley, Holly L. Greenleaf, Meredith T. Niles, Martha Caswell

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Landscape photovisualizations (PVZs) are digitally altered photographs that show existing landscapes altered to include a simulated future scenario. They are commonly used to support dialogue and decision-making in multistakeholder contexts. In agricultural sectors, stakeholders increasingly must contend with pressures to adapt to climatic changes and shifts in weather patterns. This study examines the potential of PVZs to engage agricultural stakeholders about climate change adaptation, specifically around best management practices (BMPs). In 2015, survey data were collected (n 5 133) at six agricultural confer-ences Vermont. Participants were asked about their climate change knowledge, perceptions of adaptation, and their intentions to adopt …


Policy Options To Streamline The Carbon Market For Agricultural Nitrous Oxide Emissions, Meredith T. Niles, Hannah Waterhouse, Robert Parkhurst, Eileen L. Mclellan, Sara Kroopf Aug 2019

Policy Options To Streamline The Carbon Market For Agricultural Nitrous Oxide Emissions, Meredith T. Niles, Hannah Waterhouse, Robert Parkhurst, Eileen L. Mclellan, Sara Kroopf

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

The majority of emissions of nitrous oxide – a potent greenhouse gas (GHG) – are from agricultural sources, particularly nitrogen fertilizer applications. A growing focus on these emission sources has led to the development in the United States of GHG offset protocols that could enable payment to farmers for reducing fertilizer use or implementing other nitrogen management strategies. Despite the development of several protocols, the current regional scope is narrow, adoption by farmers is low, and policy implementation of protocols has a significant time lag. Here we utilize existing research and policy structures to propose an ‘umbrella’ approach for nitrogen …


An Analog Approach For Weather Estimation Using Climate Projections And Reanalysis Data, Patrick J. Clemins, Gabriela Bucini, Jonathan M. Winter, Brian Beckage, Erin Towler, Alan Betts, Rory Cummings, Henrique Chang Queiroz Aug 2019

An Analog Approach For Weather Estimation Using Climate Projections And Reanalysis Data, Patrick J. Clemins, Gabriela Bucini, Jonathan M. Winter, Brian Beckage, Erin Towler, Alan Betts, Rory Cummings, Henrique Chang Queiroz

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

General circulation models (GCMs) are essential for projecting future climate; however, despite the rapid advances in their ability to simulate the climate system at increasing spatial resolution, GCMs cannot capture the local and regional weather dynamics necessary for climate impacts assessments. Temperature and precipitation, for which dense observational records are available, can be bias corrected and downscaled, but many climate impacts models require a larger set of variables such as relative humidity, cloud cover, wind speed and direction, and solar radiation. To address this need, we develop and demonstrate an analog-based approach, which we call a ‘‘weather estimator.’’ The weather …


A Comparative Analysis Of Governance And Leadership In Agricultural Development Policy Networks, Jessica Rudnick, Meredith Niles, Mark Lubell, Laura Cramer May 2019

A Comparative Analysis Of Governance And Leadership In Agricultural Development Policy Networks, Jessica Rudnick, Meredith Niles, Mark Lubell, Laura Cramer

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Agricultural development initiatives feature many public and private organizations working together across sectors and scales to pursue the goals of food security and climate resilience. Policy networks are considered a crucial ingredient for the learning and cooperation needed to effectively implement agricultural development projects and increase community resiliency, yet very little comparative empirical data has been collected to assess where and how these networks operate. We contribute to filling this gap by characterizing the governance and leadership patterns within agricultural development policy networks that connect organizations working on climate resilience and food security activities in 14 smallholder farming communities across …


Tracking Microhabitat Temperature Variation With Ibutton Data Loggers, Susan Fawcett, Seeta Sistla, Manny Dacosta-Calheiros, Abdullah Kahraman, Anton A. Reznicek, Rachel Rosenberg, Eric J.B. Von Wettberg Apr 2019

Tracking Microhabitat Temperature Variation With Ibutton Data Loggers, Susan Fawcett, Seeta Sistla, Manny Dacosta-Calheiros, Abdullah Kahraman, Anton A. Reznicek, Rachel Rosenberg, Eric J.B. Von Wettberg

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Applications in Plant Sciences is published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of the Botanical Society of America Premise of the Study: Fine-scale variation in temperature and soil moisture contribute to microhabitats across the landscape, affecting plant phenology, distribution, and fitness. The recent availability of compact and inexpensive temperature and humidity data loggers such as iButtons has facilitated research on microclimates. Methods and Results: Here, we highlight the use of iButtons in three distinct settings: comparisons of empirical data to modeled climate data for rare rock ferns in the genus Asplenium in eastern North America; generation of fine-scale data to …


Seeing Is Not Always Believing: Crop Loss And Climate Change Perceptions Among Farm Advisors, Meredith T. Niles, Sarah Wiener, Rachel E. Schattman, Gabrielle Roesch-Mcnally, Julian Reyes Mar 2019

Seeing Is Not Always Believing: Crop Loss And Climate Change Perceptions Among Farm Advisors, Meredith T. Niles, Sarah Wiener, Rachel E. Schattman, Gabrielle Roesch-Mcnally, Julian Reyes

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

As climate change is expected to significantly affect agricultural systems globally, agricultural farm advisors have been increasingly recognized as an important resource in helping farmers address these challenges. While there have been many studies exploring the climate change belief and risk perceptions as well as behaviors of both farmers and agricultural farm advisors, there are very few studies that have explored how these perceptions relate to actual climate impacts in agriculture. Here we couple survey data from United States Department of Agriculture farm service employees (n = 6, 514) with historical crop loss data across the United States to explore …


Now I See: Photovisualization To Support Agricultural Climate Adaptation, Rachel E. Schattman, Stephanie Hurley, Martha Caswell Feb 2019

Now I See: Photovisualization To Support Agricultural Climate Adaptation, Rachel E. Schattman, Stephanie Hurley, Martha Caswell

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. To remain viable, agricultural producers will need to adapt to changing climatic conditions in coming decades. Agricultural advisers play an important role in helping producers decide to adopt appropriate adaptation practices. Photovisualizations have the potential to complement currently utilized outreach and education strategies. This research uses a focus group approach to explore (1) whether photovisualizations can aid in decision-making about climate change adaptation, and (2) what characteristics of photovisualizations are most effective at conveying spatial aspects of adaptation practices. We found that photovisualizations generate rich discussions about ecological and economic effects …


Does Household Capital Mediate The Uptake Of Agricultural Land, Crop, And Livestock Adaptations? Evidence From The Indo-Gangetic Plains (India), Sameer H. Shah, Courtney Hammond Wagner, Udita Sanga, Hogeun Park, Lia Helena Monteiro De Lima Demange, Carolina Gueiros, Meredith T. Niles Jan 2019

Does Household Capital Mediate The Uptake Of Agricultural Land, Crop, And Livestock Adaptations? Evidence From The Indo-Gangetic Plains (India), Sameer H. Shah, Courtney Hammond Wagner, Udita Sanga, Hogeun Park, Lia Helena Monteiro De Lima Demange, Carolina Gueiros, Meredith T. Niles

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Farmers in the Indo-Gangetic Plains produce much of the wheat and rice grown in India. However, food production and millions of farm-based livelihoods in this region will continue to be adversely affected by hydro-climatic change and variation, reduced land productivity, and declining groundwater levels. Thus, agricultural adaptations are essential for protecting and improving upon intersecting goals of food security, poverty alleviation, and wellbeing. Household “capital” (e.g., natural, human, financial, physical, and social) is commonly cited as an indicator of livelihood adaptability and innovation. We develop a series of mediated structural equation models to empirically evaluate the validity of capital as …


From The Household To Watershed: A Cross-Scale Analysis Of Residential Intention To Adopt Green Stormwater Infrastructure, Sarah Coleman, Stephanie Hurley, Donna Rizzo, Christopher Koliba, Asim Zia Dec 2018

From The Household To Watershed: A Cross-Scale Analysis Of Residential Intention To Adopt Green Stormwater Infrastructure, Sarah Coleman, Stephanie Hurley, Donna Rizzo, Christopher Koliba, Asim Zia

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Improved stormwater management for the protection of water resources requires bottom-up stewardship from landowners, including adoption of Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI). We use a statewide survey of Vermont paired with a cross-scale and spatial analysis to evaluate the influence of interacting spatial, social, and physical factors on residential intention to adopt GSI across a complex social-ecological landscape. Specifically, we focus on how three GSI practices, (“rain garden (bio retention),” “infiltration trenches,” and “actively divert roof runoff to a rain barrel/lawn/garden instead of the street/sewer”) vary with barriers to adoption, and household attributes across stormwater contexts from the household to watershed …


Similarity Of Introduced Plant Species To Native Ones Facilitates Naturalization, But Differences Enhance Invasion Success, Jan Divíšek, Milan Chytrý, Brian Beckage, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Zdeňka Lososová, Petr Pyšek, David M. Richardson, Jane Molofsky Dec 2018

Similarity Of Introduced Plant Species To Native Ones Facilitates Naturalization, But Differences Enhance Invasion Success, Jan Divíšek, Milan Chytrý, Brian Beckage, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Zdeňka Lososová, Petr Pyšek, David M. Richardson, Jane Molofsky

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

The search for traits associated with plant invasiveness has yielded contradictory results, in part because most previous studies have failed to recognize that different traits are important at different stages along the introduction–naturalization–invasion continuum. Here we show that across six different habitat types in temperate Central Europe, naturalized non-invasive species are functionally similar to native species occurring in the same habitat type, but invasive species are different as they occupy the edge of the plant functional trait space represented in each habitat. This pattern was driven mainly by the greater average height of invasive species. These results suggest that the …


Farm Service Agency Employee Intentions To Use Weather And Climate Data In Professional Services, Rachel E. Schattman, Gabrielle Roesch-Mcnally, Sarah Wiener, Meredith T. Niles, David Y. Hollinger Jun 2018

Farm Service Agency Employee Intentions To Use Weather And Climate Data In Professional Services, Rachel E. Schattman, Gabrielle Roesch-Mcnally, Sarah Wiener, Meredith T. Niles, David Y. Hollinger

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

This is a work of the U.S. Government and is not subject to copyright protection in the United States. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.. Agricultural service providers often work closely with producers, and are well positioned to include weather and climate change information in the services they provide. By doing so, they can help producers reduce risks due to climate variability and change. A national survey of United States Department of …


Climate Change Mitigation Beyond Agriculture: A Review Of Food System Opportunities And Implications, Meredith T. Niles, Richie Ahuja, Todd Barker, Jimena Esquivel, Sophie Gutterman, Martin C. Heller, Nelson Mango, Diana Portner, Rex Raimond, Cristina Tirado, Sonja Vermeulen Jun 2018

Climate Change Mitigation Beyond Agriculture: A Review Of Food System Opportunities And Implications, Meredith T. Niles, Richie Ahuja, Todd Barker, Jimena Esquivel, Sophie Gutterman, Martin C. Heller, Nelson Mango, Diana Portner, Rex Raimond, Cristina Tirado, Sonja Vermeulen

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

A large body of research has explored opportunities to mitigate climate change in agricultural systems; however, less research has explored opportunities across the food system. Here we expand the existing research with a review of potential mitigation opportunities across the entire food system, including in pre-production, production, processing, transport, consumption and loss and waste. We detail and synthesize recent research on the topic, and explore the applicability of different climate mitigation strategies in varying country contexts with different economic and agricultural systems. Further, we highlight some potential adaptation co-benefits of food system mitigation strategies and explore the potential implications of …


Land Use And Land Cover Mapping In Detailed Scale: A Case Study In Santa Rosa De Lima-Sc, Rodrigo De Campos Macedo, Abdon Luiz Schmitt Filho, Joshua C. Farley, Alfredo Celso Fantini, Ademir Antonio Cazella, Paulo Antonio De Almeida Sinisgalli Apr 2018

Land Use And Land Cover Mapping In Detailed Scale: A Case Study In Santa Rosa De Lima-Sc, Rodrigo De Campos Macedo, Abdon Luiz Schmitt Filho, Joshua C. Farley, Alfredo Celso Fantini, Ademir Antonio Cazella, Paulo Antonio De Almeida Sinisgalli

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

It is challenging to reconcile large scale data with the dynamic characteristics present in land use. Such dynamism requires data with a high repetition of sampling. An alternative is the integration of data of high spatial resolution and low temporal resolution, with that of high temporal resolution and low spatial resolution. The aim addressed in this article is related to the integration of aerial photographs and temporal series for land use and land cover mapping in high detail scale. We conducted a case study in Santa Rosa de Lima-SC. The main data used was the aerial survey that overlaid the …


Effects Of Different Soil Media, Vegetation, And Hydrologic Treatments On Nutrient And Sediment Removal In Roadside Bioretention Systems, Paliza Shrestha, Stephanie E. Hurley, Beverley C. Wemple Mar 2018

Effects Of Different Soil Media, Vegetation, And Hydrologic Treatments On Nutrient And Sediment Removal In Roadside Bioretention Systems, Paliza Shrestha, Stephanie E. Hurley, Beverley C. Wemple

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Water quality performance of eight roadside bioretention cells in their third and fourth years of implementation were evaluated in Burlington, Vermont. Bioretention cells received varying treatments: (1) vegetation with high-diversity (7 species) and low-diversity plant mix (2 species); (2) proprietary SorbtiveMedia™ (SM) containing iron and aluminum oxide granules to enhance sorption capacity for phosphorus; and (3) enhanced rainfall and runoff (RR) to certain cells (including one with SM treatment) at three levels (15%, 20%, 60% more than their control counterparts), mimicking anticipated precipitation increases associated with climate change. A total of 121 storms across all cells were evaluated in 2015 …


Soil Media Co2 And N2O Fluxes Dynamics From Sand-Based Roadside Bioretention Systems, Paliza Shrestha, Stephanie E. Hurley, E. Carol Adair Feb 2018

Soil Media Co2 And N2O Fluxes Dynamics From Sand-Based Roadside Bioretention Systems, Paliza Shrestha, Stephanie E. Hurley, E. Carol Adair

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Green stormwater infrastructure such as bioretention is commonly implemented in urban areas for stormwater quality improvements. Although bioretention systems' soil media and vegetation have the potential to increase carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) storage for climate change mitigation, this storage potential has not been rigorously studied, and any analysis of it must consider the question of whether bioretention emits greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. We monitored eight roadside bioretention cells for CO2-C and N2O-N fluxes during two growing seasons (May through October) in Vermont, USA. C and N stocks in the soil media layers, microbes, and aboveground vegetation were also …


Mixed Methods Approach To Understanding Farmer And Agricultural Advisor Perceptions Of Climate Change And Adaptation In Vermont, United States, Rachel E. Schattman, V. Ernesto Méndez, Scott C. Merrill, Asim Zia Feb 2018

Mixed Methods Approach To Understanding Farmer And Agricultural Advisor Perceptions Of Climate Change And Adaptation In Vermont, United States, Rachel E. Schattman, V. Ernesto Méndez, Scott C. Merrill, Asim Zia

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

The relationships among farmers’ belief in climate change, perceptions of climate-related risk, and use of climate adaptation practices is a growing topic of interest in U.S. scholarship. The northeast region is not well represented in the literature, although it is highly agricultural and will likely face climate-related risks that differ from those faced in other regions. We used a mixed methods approach to examine northeast farmers’ perceptions of climate change and climate-related risks over time, and perceived trade-offs associated with on-farm practices. Our investigation shows how northeastern farmers think about climate-risk, and what they are doing to address it.


A Cross-Country Analysis Of Climate Shocks And Smallholder Food Insecurity, Meredith T. Niles, Jonathan D. Salerno Feb 2018

A Cross-Country Analysis Of Climate Shocks And Smallholder Food Insecurity, Meredith T. Niles, Jonathan D. Salerno

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Future climate changes will affect smallholder farmers in the developing world, posing threats to household food security. Nevertheless, there remains limited comparable evidence across multiple countries and regions regarding the global extent of climate shocks affecting smallholder food security. We examine data from 5,299 household surveys across 15 countries in Latin America, Africa and South Asia to assess the extent of climate shocks and their association with food insecurity, as well as what strategies may help buffer against climate shocks. We find that 71% of households reported experiencing a climate shock in the previous five years. Fifty-four percent reported experiencing …


Small-Scale Genotypic Richness Stabilizes Plot Biomass And Increases Phenotypic Variance In The Invasive Grass Phalaris Arundinacea, Alexandra R. Collins, Brian Beckage, Jane Molofsky Jan 2018

Small-Scale Genotypic Richness Stabilizes Plot Biomass And Increases Phenotypic Variance In The Invasive Grass Phalaris Arundinacea, Alexandra R. Collins, Brian Beckage, Jane Molofsky

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Botanical Society of China. All rights reserved. Aims We aim to understand how small-scale genotypic richness and genotypic interactions influence the biomass and potential invasiveness of the invasive grass, Phalaris arundinacea under two different disturbance treatments: intact plots and disturbed plots, where all the native vegetation has been removed. Specifically, we address the following questions (i) Does genotypic richness increase biomass production? (ii) Do genotypic interactions promote or reduce biomass production? (iii) Does the effect of genotypic richness and genotypic interactions differ …


Crowdsourced Delphis: Designing Solutions To Complex Environmental Problems With Broad Stakeholder Participation, Sarah Coleman, Stephanie Hurley, Christopher Koliba, Asim Zia Jul 2017

Crowdsourced Delphis: Designing Solutions To Complex Environmental Problems With Broad Stakeholder Participation, Sarah Coleman, Stephanie Hurley, Christopher Koliba, Asim Zia

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

There is a well-established need for increased stakeholder participation in the generation of adaptive management approaches and specific solutions to complex environmental problems. However, integrating participant feedback into current science, research, and decision-making processes is challenging. This paper presents a novel approach that marries a rigorous Delphi method, borrowed from policy and organizational sciences, with contemporary “crowdsourcing” to address the complex problems of water pollution exacerbated by climate change in the Lake Champlain Basin. In an online Delphi forum that occurred over a six-week period during the Spring of 2014, fifty-three participants proposed and commented on adaptive solutions to address …


Addressing Climate Change Impacts On Agriculture And Natural Resources: Barriers And Priorities For Land-Grant Universities In The Northeastern United States, Daniel Tobin, Rama Radhakrishna, Allison Chatrchyan, Shorna B. Allred Jul 2017

Addressing Climate Change Impacts On Agriculture And Natural Resources: Barriers And Priorities For Land-Grant Universities In The Northeastern United States, Daniel Tobin, Rama Radhakrishna, Allison Chatrchyan, Shorna B. Allred

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Climate change has serious implications for agricultural production, natural resource management, and food security. In the United States, land-grant universities and the U.S. Cooperative Extension System have a critical role to play in conducting basic and applied research related to climate change and translating findings into meaningful programming. However, land-grant universities and Extension have had difficulty maintaining their roles as the preeminent source of trusted information on complex topics like climate change. To help guide research and programming agendas of land-grant universities, the authors explored the barriers and priorities that researchers and Extension personnel at 16 northeastern land-grant universities perceive …


Total And Extreme Precipitation Changes Over The Northeastern United States, Huanping Huang, Jonathan M. Winter, Erich C. Osterberg, Radley M. Horton, Brian Beckage Jun 2017

Total And Extreme Precipitation Changes Over The Northeastern United States, Huanping Huang, Jonathan M. Winter, Erich C. Osterberg, Radley M. Horton, Brian Beckage

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

The northeastern United States has experienced a large increase in precipitation over recent decades. Annual and seasonal changes of total and extreme precipitation from station observations in the Northeast were assessed over multiple time periods spanning 1901-2014. Spatially averaged, both annual total and extreme precipitation across the Northeast increased significantly since 1901, with changepoints occurring in 2002 and 1996, respectively. Annual extreme precipitation experienced a larger increase than total precipitation; extreme precipitation from 1996 to 2014 is 53% higher than from 1901 to 1995. Spatially, coastal areas receive more total and extreme precipitation on average, but increases across the changepoints …