Earth Sciences Commons^™

Development Of A Long-Term (1884-2006) Serially Complete Dataset Of U.S. Temperatures And Precipitation For Climate Services, Jinshing You, Kenneth G. Hubbard, Martha Shulski, Mark D. Svoboda, Michael J. Hayes

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Serially complete climate datasets with no missing data are necessary for a diverse group of users working in many economic sectors. In this article we describe the procedures used to create a Serially Complete Data set (SCD) for the U.S. We include the selection criterion applied to potential SCD stations, the various procedural steps and the details applied to each step. A few observations that were not previously digitized were obtained from observers official paper reports. The methods used to estimate missing data are the Spatial Regression Test and the Inverse Distance Weighting technique. Using the criterion for selecting stations …

A Historical Perspective On Nebraska’S Variable And Changing Climate, Martha Shulski, William Baule, Crystal J. Stiles, Natalie A. Umphlett

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Nebraska is situated at the intersection of the northern and southern Great Plains, exhibiting a dramatic longitudinal gradient for precipitation and humidity, and benefiting from groundwater resources. The continental climate is highly variable temporally both for temperature and precipitation. Our assessment of long-term meteorological observations shows that over the last century the annual average temperature in Nebraska has warmed approximately 0.6°C, which is similar to the increase in the global average temperature over the same time period. Furthermore, we found minimum temperatures have warmed more than maximum temperatures, and winter and spring show the strongest warming. We found no significant …

Productivity And Biological Nitrogen Fixation Of Different Species Of Vetches (Vicia Spp.) Under The Rainfed Conditions Of West Asia, Ali Abd El Moneim, Mohan C. Saxena

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

The low rainfall areas of West Asia are characterized by pastoral production system primarily based on small ruminants (sheep and goats). Rangelands serve as the main source of feed. With increasing population, the demand for livestock products has increased. As a consequence, the stocking rates have soared, increasing the pressure on rangelands. Rangeland degradation has therefore been increasing threatening the sustainability of livestock production system and the livelihood of the people dependent on it. Production of additional feed is essential to reduce the pressure on rangelands. Vetches (Vicia spp.) are endemic in the area and can be potential source …

Livestock Production From Grasslands With Improved Management Compared To Traditional Management, Florian Leiber

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

The value of traditional versus improved management systems for grassland is discussed. The set target is the persistence of the ecological, economic and social multifunctionality of grasslands and the increase of food output from these areas without increasing parallel requirements for arable crop or energy inputs. Based on the fact that historically traditional systems were stable and sustainable in many cases, while severe damage is faced nowadays, it is argued that lot of improvement should be based on the acknowledgment of successful traditional practises. The challenge might rather be to define improvement as a contemporary development of traditional techniques. The …

Potential Of Forages In Crop Diversification And Crop Rotation, Martin H. Entz, Joanne Thiessen Martens

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Redesign of agricultural systems according to ecological principles has been proposed for the development of sustainable systems. We review a wide variety of ecologically-based crop production practices that focus on forage crops in farming systems and discuss their potential role in enhancing the profitability, environmental sustainability and resilience. Crop-livestock systems that most closely mimic natural systems through appropriate integration of diverse components appear to offer the greatest potential benefits. These systems are more energy efficient and combine high productivity with low ecological footprint. Greater understanding of ecological relationships within crop-livestock systems are required to purposefully and proactively redesign agricultural systems …

Forage Seed Quality: Dormancy, Standards And Quarantine, John G. Hampton

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

There are many dimensions to the concept of seed quality. Viable seed which will not germinate when provided with all the requirements for germination is dormant. Forage grasses mostly exhibit non-deep physiological dormancy (PD), while physical dormancy (PY) is common in forage legumes where imbibition is prevented by the seed coat’s impermeability to water (hard seed). Methods for breaking PD and PY to allow germination testing and/or crop establishment are discussed.

In the seed industry seed quality standards are an important feature of quality assurance and may apply for seed production contracts, seed certification, seed sale and seed importing. Standards …

Quality Seed Production And Effective Marketing Systems For Development Of Grasslands, M. Philip Rolston

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Seed quality is defined as (i) maintaining genetic purity using seed certification principles (generation system; isolation; previous cropping history); (ii) achieving high levels of physical purity (especially low weed seed levels) by in field weed control and seed cleaning; (iii) achieving high levels of seed germination at harvest and maintaining germination through the seed supply chain. Seed production systems must not only produce high quality seed but also achieve economic seed yields. Seed crops have to be profitable (by being high yielding) to justify the investment of time and input costs to achieve quality. This in turn requires supporting research …

Scouting Benefits And Developing Innovations In Temperate Grassland To Sustainable Agriculture Production, Walter Ayala, Ethel Barrios, Ignacio Macedo, Jorge Sawchik, José A. Terra

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Agricultural intensification raises concern about land use and future effects to natural resources. The world demand for grain, meat and forest products is increasing constantly. Changes are occurring at large scale, being a compromise for policy makers to contribute to identify opportunities to readdress the productive scenario. There is available technology to reduce impacts, without restricting necessarily productivity. Grasslands provide a large series of economical and ecological benefits to the agricultural systems, being the literature exhaustive in examples. Ley-farming and cover crops technologies are good examples of environmentally sound soil management practices. The society is also worried about an improper …

Evergraze: A Partnership Between Researchers, Farmers And Advisors To Deliver Effective Grassland Management, Warwick B. Badgery, Kate Sargeant, Michael A. Friend, Scott Glyde, Paul Sanford, Ralph Behrendt, Meredith L. Mitchell, Sean Murphy, Angela Avery

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

The profitable and sustainable management of livestock production from grassland systems is challenging and it can be difficult to develop a research structure that addresses farmer’s needs and has acceptable rigour and on-ground impact. This paper describes the attributes of research, development and extension (RD&E) programs that are required for a successful partnership between researchers, farmers and advisors. Insights are provided from the EverGraze program that designed, tested and implemented farming systems based on perennial pastures across southern Australia. With this project farmers and advisors were involved in setting research direction, designing experiments, providing strategic guidance over the management of …

Ecologically And Socially Sustainable Livestock Development In Marginal Areas, Ilse Köhler-Rollefson

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

“Marginal areas” are perceived as difficult and unproductive landscapes, always under the threat of drought, desertification and poverty. Yet, both dryland and high altitude marginal areas have an extraordinary output of livestock products; in the efficiency of producing human-edible protein they far surpass more fertile areas. This productivity under adverse climatic conditions rests on sophisticated strategies and social institutions developed by pastoral communities to deal with variability in the availability of resources. It depends on the use of animal genetic resources that are adapted to make best use of local vegetation and can cope with seasonal variations in availability. Livestock …

Valuing Variability--New Perspectives On Climate Resilient Dryland Development, Saverio Kratli

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Valuing Variability is a challenge to the view of the drylands as naturally vulnerable to food insecurity and poverty. It argues that improving agricultural productivity in dryland environments is possible by working with climatic uncertainty rather than seeking to control it – a view that runs contrary to decades of development practice in arid and semi-arid lands.

Participatory And Holistic Approaches With Grassland Farmers And Development Of Policies, Alain Peeters

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

The world is changing rapidly. Grassland farmers and ruminant livestock breeders will have to adapt to these changing environmental, social and economic conditions. Research can help them at the condition that linear ‘top-down’ technology transfer methods are abandoned for the benefit of participatory and holistic approaches. These approaches classified in the generic term of ‘Farming System Research’ consider farmers as real research partners, and they merge farmer’s and scientist’s ideas with those of other stakeholder types. They combine scientist’s and farmer’s knowledge for creating fast innovations, easily adopted by farmers since farmers themselves contribute to their design and their development. …

Sustainable Grasslands: Resolving Management Options For Livelihood And Environmental Benefits, David R. Kemp, Warwick B. Badgery, David L. Michalk

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

To help solve the major issues of improving livelihoods and environmental services, grassland research needs to be evaluated within the context of relevant farm systems. Treatments need to show that they not only have significant effects but that they have effects that are meaningful in the context of the relevant farm system. Research often defines an optimum criterion for management that is a single point, but that is difficult to achieve in practice, especially when there are several components in a grassland system that need to be optimised. It is argued that an appropriate criterion for optimising management is a …

Climate Change Impact And Adaptation In Temperate Grassland And Livestock Industries, Afshin Ghahramani, Andrew D. Moore

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Climate is projected to have negative impact on temperate grassland and livestock productions across the globe. Moderately elevated atmospheric CO₂ in the near future is expected to increase plant photosynthetic rates but this is likely to be limited by soil nitrogen deficits. However, in Australia at least it is unlikely that positive effect of elevated CO₂ on plant production be able to offset the negative impacts of climate change. Currently there is a considerable gap between actual and achievable production and profit in Australian grazing systems and many management and genetic improvements for climate adaptation would operate by …

Climate-Smart Brachiaria For Improving Livestock Production In East Africa: Emerging Opportunities, Sita R. Ghimire, Donald M. G. Njarui, Mupenzi Mutimura, Juan A. Cardoso, Linda Johnson, Elias M. Gichangi, Suliana Teasdale, Kennedy Odokonyero, John Caradus, Idupulapati M. Rao, Appolinaire Djikeng

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Brachiaria grass is an important tropical forage of African origin with desirable attributes of agricultural and environmental significance. Brachiaria has been extensively cultivated as a pasture across the tropics except in its endemic provenance of Africa. In 2013, a collaborative research program was initiated in Kenya and Rwanda with the aim of improving the availability of quality livestock feeds adapted to drought and low fertility soils using Brachiaria. The outcomes sought were increased livestock productivity leading to improved farmer income and the development of seed production opportunities. The program has identified five preferred cultivars, and four of them are currently …

Tropical Grassland Ecosystems And Climate Change, C. R. Babu, Vivek Kr. Choudhary, Vijay Kumar

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Grasses are unique group of flowering plants that form the foundation for the trophic structure in terrestrial communities. The grasses are found in every conceivable habitat where plants can thrive – from sea to deserts and from wetlands to peaks of highest mountains. The grasses form a distinct biome – a major ecological formation in the global classification of vegetation.

Recent Trends In Breeding Of Tropical Grass And Forage Species, J. S. Sandhu, Dinesh Kumar, Vijay Kumar Yadav, Tejveer Singh, R. P. Sah, Auji Radhakrishna

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Germplasm enrichment in major tropical grasses and their characterization for emerging environmental challenges have been major focussed area in the recent past. Breeding efforts in tropical grasses are still limited to few selected species viz. Panicum spp, Cenchrus spp, Pennisetum spp and Bracharia spp and all other grasses use of land races for varietal development through selection have been major source of improvement. The pace of breeding efforts in the tropical grasses have been slowed because of many inherent characteristics viz. apomixis, poor seed set, high photo and thermo sensitivity often creating problem in designing and implementing an effective breeding …

Sustainability, Biodiversity And Environmental Issues: A Global Perspective For Livestock Production, David L. Michalk

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

To meet world food demand through the 21st century, agricultural production needs to increase, but this needs to be done sustainably through increasing efficiency, optimising sufficiency and achieving consistency, such that resource use is optimised, waste reduced and environmental benefits gained. These strategies need to be developed against changing food patterns, especially a decline in per capita consumption of cereals and an increase in meat consumption as household incomes increase. Grasslands are collectively the larger group of land-based ecosystems on the planet. Their values are not always recognised, often being seen as ‘reserves’ for exploitation for urban expansion, …

Wastelands Of The Mind: The Identity Crisis Of India’S Savanna Grasslands, Abi Tamim Vanak

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

The idea that wastelands are unproductive continues to be pervasive and is used by various agencies to gain control over marginal landscapes and remake them for productive purposes with dire results.

Grassland And Livestock Production: The East African Case, David Miano Mwangi

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Grasslands cover over 26% of the world land mass and about 80% of the agricultural area. They are the source of a livelihood for about 1 million people in the developing countries. Livestock contributes 40% of the global value of agricultural outputs. Approximately 60% of rural households keep livestock. In East Africa there are a number of grasslands. The most extensive of these are the Acacia based Savanna grasslands. Others include the sudd flooded grasslands of South Sudan and the Miobo woodlands of Tanzania. More than 60% of the livestock and wildlife in this region are found on these grasslands. …

Three Is Company: Fixing The Grazing-Land Business Conundrum, Ralph Von Kaufmann

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Grazing-lands have the largest footprint on the world’s land surface area but this is not reflected in the amount of business conducted on them. The most common land use systems are very land intensive, i.e., they use a lot of land to produce not very much and few jobs. The health of the planet depends on having healthy grazing-lands but there is a perfect storm brewing in which the demand from expanding pastoral communities for more food and jobs cannot be met just by applying good grazing-land management practices. Compatible businesses must be found that can create jobs without increasing …

Tropical Grasslands--Trends, Perspectives And Future Prospects, Panjab Singh

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

This paper attempts a rapid summary of the present day state of tropical grassland and livestock based production systems globally, especially in tropics, in relation to recent trends, future assessment, grassland rehabilitation and management strategies, future perspectives of grassland science and development including policy imperatives.

About Sponsors, National Organizing Committee, International Grassland Congress

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

No abstract provided.

Experimental Simulations Of Recurring Slope Lineae On The Surface Of Mars, Elizabeth Eddings

Physics, Astronomy and Geophysics Honors Papers

Recurring Slope Lineae (RSL) are active surface features found on rocky Martian slopes commonly in the southern hemisphere equatorial to mid-latitude regions. These low albedo, dark streaks on Mars demonstrate seasonal characteristics;; they appear and grow darker and longer in warm months and fade to possible disappearance in colder months. One proposed mechanism for the formation and evolution of these features by McEwen et al. (2011) is the melting of subsurface water on Mars. The goal of this study was to test this hypothesis by reconstructing features similar to RSL in the lab that display the same seasonal …

Wind, Waves And Surge: An Analysis Of The Movement And Post-Storm Recovery Of Bushy Point Beach In Groton, Ct, Grace Medley

Physics, Astronomy and Geophysics Honors Papers

Barrier beaches are highly dynamic systems that respond to variations in wave energy, increases in storm surge heights and changes in relative sea level. Bushy Point barrier beach is a barrier spit located in Groton, Connecticut, and is one of the last unconstrained barrier systems in the State of Connecticut. Since 1934, the morphology of the beach has been changing in response to storm events as well as the local rise in sea level. On September 21, 1938, a category three hurricane made landfall in southern New England and devastated many coastal communities, including a summer community on Bushy Point …

Evidence For A Far-Traveled Thrust Sheet In The Greater Himalayan Thrust System, And An Alternative Model To Building The Himalaya, S. Khanal, D. M. Robinson, M. J. Kohn, S. Mandal

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Galchhi shear zone underlies the Kathmandu klippe in central Nepal and has emerged as a key structure for discriminating competing models for the formation of the Himalayan orogenic wedge. New chronologic data from the Galchhi area suggest a new structural and orogenic interpretation. Zircons from quartzites and an orthogneiss restrict protolith deposition to between 467+7/ – 10 Ma and ~570 Ma, with metamorphic zircon growth at 23-29 Ma. Comparable data from the Greater Himalayan Sequence (GHS) at the intra-GHS Langtang thrust, north of Galchhi, similarly restrict GHS deposition to between 475+7/ – 3 and ~660 Ma. Undeformed pegmatites near …

Early Permian Conodont Fauna And Stratigraphy Of The Garden Valley Formation, Eureka County, Nevada, Bruce R. Wardlaw, Dora M. Gallegos, Valery V. Chernykh, Walter S. Snyder

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

The lower part of the Garden Valley Formation yields two distinct conodont faunas. One of late Asselian age dominated by Mesogondolella and Streptognathodus and one of Artinskian age dominated by Sweetognathus with Mesogondolella. The Asselian fauna contains the same species as those found in the type area of the Asselian in the southern Urals including Mesogondolella dentiseparata, described for the first time outside of the Urals. Apparatuses for Sweetognathus whitei, Diplognathodus stevensi, and Idioprioniodus sp. are described. The Garden Valley Formation represents a marine pro-delta basin and platform, and marine and shore fan delta complex deposition. …

Sea Level And Turbidity Controls On Mangrove Soil Surface Elevation Change, Catherine E. Lovelock, Maria Fernanda Adame, Vicki Bennion, Matthew Hayes, Ruth Reef, Nadia Santini, Donald R. Cahoon

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Increases in sea level are a threat to seaward fringing mangrove forests if levels of inundation exceed the physiological tolerance of the trees; however, tidal wetlands can keep pace with sea level rise if soil surface elevations can increase at the same pace as sea level rise. Sediment accretion on the soil surface and belowground production of roots are proposed to increase with increasing sea level, enabling intertidal habitats to maintain their position relative to mean sea level, but there are few tests of these predictions in mangrove forests. Here we used variation in sea level and the availability of …

Training Conservation Practitioners To Be Better Decision Makers, Fred Johnson, Mitchell J. Eaton, James H. Williams, Gitte H. Jensen, Jesper Madsen

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Traditional conservation curricula and training typically emphasizes only one part of systematic decision making (i.e., the science), at the expense of preparing conservation practitioners with critical skills in values-setting, working with decision makers and stakeholders, and effective problem framing. In this article we describe how the application of decision science is relevant to conservation problems and suggest how current and future conservation practitioners can be trained to be better decision makers. Though decision-analytic approaches vary considerably, they all involve: (1) properly formulating the decision problem; (2) specifying feasible alternative actions; and (3) selecting criteria for evaluating potential outcomes. Two approaches …

The Groundwater Atlas Of Saunders County, Nebraska, Dana Divine

Conservation and Survey Division: Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.