Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

How Much Margin Is Left For Degrading Agricultural Soils? The Coming Soil Crises, Maheteme Gebremedhin, Mark S. Coyne, Karamat R. Sistani

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

Agricultural soils are in peril. Multiple lines of observational and empirical evidence suggest that we are losing the world’s fertile soils at an alarming rate, worsening the on-going global food crisis. It is increasingly clear that the risk of soil crises driven by erratic precipitation, warming air, and farming mismanagement is coming sooner rather than later. At this critical time, society cannot avoid looking for ways to curb soil crises. We argue that now is the right time for science-based mitigation strategies and new insights to protect soils. We offer four research priority areas that society needs to address. Arresting …

Contemporary And Future Characteristics Of Precipitation Indices In The Kentucky River Basin, Somsubhra Chattopadhyay, Dwayne R. Edwards, Yao Yu

Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Faculty Publications

Climatic variability can lead to large-scale alterations in the hydrologic cycle, some of which can be characterized in terms of indices involving precipitation depth, duration and frequency. This study evaluated the spatiotemporal behavior of precipitation indices over the Kentucky River watershed for both the baseline period of 1986–2015 and late-century time frame of 2070–2099. Historical precipitation data were collected from 16 weather stations in the watershed, while future rainfall time-series were obtained from an ensemble of 10 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) global circulation models under two future emission pathways: Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5. Annual …

Drought Risk Management For Beef Cattle Farms, Stephen F. Higgins, Lee Moser, Kylie Schmidt

Agriculture and Natural Resources Publications

One of the most challenging aspects of owning and operating any farming operation is dealing with uncertainty. Uncertainty on the farm comes in many forms; livestock health, feed prices, fuel prices, market prices, and weather to name a few. Over the past decade, the prevalence and impact of drought on agriculture has dramatically increased, thus adding further uncertainty to farmers’ decision-making processes. Drought and the associated loss of productivity is a real risk scenario that all farmers must face. With this inherent risk, one must protect their farm and the environment it impacts through a sound decision-making process that factors …

Executive Summary: Kentucky River Basin Water Supply Assessment Study, L. Ormsbee

KWRRI Research Reports

This is a high level summary of the KWRRI study assessing the water supply concerns in the Kentucky River Basin.

Development Of A Decision Support System For Drought Characterization And Management: Application To Lexington, Kentucky, Lindell E. Ormsbee, Ashu Jain

KWRRI Research Reports

This report presents the results of an investigation into the potential use of expert system technology as an effective tool for drought forecasting and management. Historical data derived from the Kentucky River Basin was used to test the resulting decision support system. This study has demonstrated that expert system technology can serve as an effective platform for use in assisting the decision maker in both characterizing the nature of an existing drought and in selecting and implementing the required management policy.

The success of any decision making process will of course be dependent upon the quality of the data upon …

Effect Of Irrigation On Corn, Soybeans And Alfalfa Yields In Kentucky, Lloyd W. Murdock

Soil Science News and Views

Irrigation is not widely used in Kentucky for two reasons: 1) high average yearly rainfall, and 2) lack of easily accessible and dependable water sources. However, even with the high yearly rainfall, droughts do occur during the growing season. According to past history, they are more likely to occur in West Kentucky than Central Kentucky and least likely to occur in East Kentucky.