Natural Resources and Conservation Commons^™

Impacts Of Climate Change On The Surface Water Balance Of The Central United States, 1984-2007, Bo Dong

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The climate system and the hydrologic cycle are strongly connected with each other. Understanding the interactions between these two systems is important, since variations in climate can trigger extensive changes in the hydrologic cycle, with significant impacts on agriculture, ecosystems, and society. Observations over the central U.S. in recent decades show numerous changes in climatic variables. This includes decreases in cloud cover and wind speed, increases in air temperature, and seasonal shifts in precipitation rate and rain/snow fraction. To assess the impacts of these variations in climate on the regional water cycle, a terrestrial ecosystem/land surface hydrologic model (Agro-IBIS) is …

Changing Land Use On Unproductive Soils, Andrew Blake, Mike Clarke, Angela Stuart-Street

Resource management technical reports

A three year study completed in 2010 examined farming systems in the north-eastern agricultural region and eastern wheatbelt of Western Australia which experienced a succession of variable seasons from 2000. This culminated in severe drought in 2006 and 2007. At that time, farmers experienced labour shortages and declining terms of trade triggered by cost inflation outpacing growth in commodity prices. As a result, farm business equity was eroded as farm debt escalated. This left many farm businesses in a highly vulnerable state. At the time of the study many farmers were facing an uncertain future.

These experiences, coupled with a …