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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 …

Sociological Perspectives On Climate Change And Society: A Review, Md Saidul Islam, Edson Kieu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Society is at an important intersection in dealing with the challenges of climate change, and this paper is presented at a critical juncture in light of growing recognition that the natural sciences are insufficient to deal with these challenges. Critical aspects of sociological perspectives related to climate change research are brought together in this review in the hope of fostering greater interdisciplinary collaboration between the natural and social sciences. We fervently argue for the need to inculcate interdisciplinary approaches that can provide innovative perspectives and solutions to the challenges we face from the impacts of climate change. As such, some …

Climate-Smart Agriculture: Building Resilience For Women Farmers In Kalchebeshi, Nepal, Annika Ruben

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This case study outlines women’s involvement in climate-smart agriculture and key climate adaptation strategies which are being implemented in the town of Kalchebeshi, Nepal. Kalchebeshi is considered a Resilient Mountain Village because of the town’s integrated approach to addressing climate change and building resilience for farmers. Key findings examined gender differences in farming responsibilities and the significance of farmers’ groups in women’s overall decision making and community involvement. Additionally, changes in water management and pesticide use have been shown to have a positive impact on the lives of women farmers in Kalchebeshi. This paper reinforces the importance of involving vulnerable …

Food And Earth Systems: Priorities For Climate Change Adaptation And Mitigation For Agriculture And Food Systems, Ana Maria Loboguerrero, Bruce M. Campbell, Peter J.M. Cooper, James W. Hansen, Todd Rosenstock, Eva Wollenberg

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Human activities and their relation with land, through agriculture and forestry, are significantly impacting Earth system functioning. Specifically, agriculture has increasingly become a key sector for adaptation and mitigation initiatives that address climate change and help ensure food security for a growing global population. Climate change and agricultural outcomes influence our ability to reach targets for at least seven of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. By 2015, 103 nations had committed themselves to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, while 102 countries had prioritized agriculture in their adaptation agenda. Adaptation and mitigation actions within agriculture still receive insufficient support across …

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 …

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 …

The Climate-Smart Village Approach: Framework Of An Integrative Strategy For Scaling Up Adaptation Options In Agriculture, Pramod K. Aggarwal, Andy Jarvis, Bruce M. Campbell, Robert B. Zougmoré, Arun Khatri-Chhetri, Sonja J. Vermeulen, Ana Maria Loboguerrero, Leocadio S. Sebastian, James Kinyangi, Osana Bonilla-Findji, Maren Radeny, John Recha, Deissy Martinez-Baron, Julian Ramirez-Villegas, Sophia Huyer, Philip Thornton, Eva Wollenberg, James Hansen, Patricia Alvarez-Toro, Andrés Aguilar-Ariza, David Arango-Londoño, Victor Patiño-Bravo, Ovidio Rivera, Mathieu Ouedraogo, Bui Tan Yen

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Increasing weather risks threaten agricultural production systems and food security across the world. Maintaining agricultural growth while minimizing climate shocks is crucial to building a resilient food production system and meeting developmental goals in vulnerable countries. Experts have proposed several technological, institutional, and policy interventions to help farmers adapt to current and future weather variability and to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This paper presents the climate-smart village (CSV) approach as a means of performing agricultural research for development that robustly tests technological and institutional options for dealing with climatic variability and climate change in agriculture using participatory methods. It …

Genomic Signature Of Adaptive Divergence Despite Strong Nonadaptive Forces On Edaphic Islands: A Case Study Of Primulina Juliae, Jing Wang, Chao Feng, Tenglong Jiao, Eric Bishop Von Wettberg, Ming Kang

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Both genetic drift and divergent selection are expected to be strong evolutionary forces driving population differentiation on edaphic habitat islands. However, the relative contribution of genetic drift and divergent selection to population divergence has rarely been tested simultaneously. In this study, restriction-site associated DNA-based population genomic analyses were applied to assess the relative importance of drift and divergent selection on population divergence of Primulina juliae, an edaphic specialist fromsouthern China. All populations were found with low standing genetic variation, small effective population size (NE), and signatures of bottlenecks. Populations with the lowest genetic variation were most genetically differentiated from other …

Mountain Forests And Sustainable Development: The Potential For Achieving The United Nations' 2030 Agenda, Georg Gratzer, William S. Keeton

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

The world is facing numerous and severe environmental, social, and economic challenges. To address these, in September 2015 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the resolution Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The United Nations' 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) and their 169 targets are ambitious, broadly encompassing, and indivisible. They are intended to guide nations and communities toward attaining healthy and peaceful livelihoods free of poverty and hunger. Collectively the goals envision sound and safe environments, where global threats like climate change are successfully combated through both mitigation and adaptation. Agenda 2030 envisages sustainable …

The Ecological Genomic Basis Of Salinity Adaptation In Tunisian Medicago Truncatula, Maren L. Friesen, Eric J.B. Von Wettberg, Mounawer Badri, Ken S. Moriuchi, Fathi Barhoumi, Peter L. Chang, Sonia Cuellar-Ortiz, Matilde A. Cordeiro, Wendy T. Vu, Soumaya Arraouadi, Naceur Djébali, Kais Zribi, Yazid Badri, Stephanie S. Porter, Mohammed Elarbi Aouani, Douglas R. Cook, Sharon Y. Strauss, Sergey V. Nuzhdin

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Background: As our world becomes warmer, agriculture is increasingly impacted by rising soil salinity and understanding plant adaptation to salt stress can help enable effective crop breeding. Salt tolerance is a complex plant phenotype and we know little about the pathways utilized by naturally tolerant plants. Legumes are important species in agricultural and natural ecosystems, since they engage in symbiotic nitrogen-fixation, but are especially vulnerable to salinity stress. Results: Our studies of the model legume Medicago truncatula in field and greenhouse settings demonstrate that Tunisian populations are locally adapted to saline soils at the metapopulation level and that saline origin …

Beyond Climate-Smart Agriculture: Toward Safe Operating Spaces For Global Food Systems, Henry Neufeldt, Molly Jahn, Bruce M. Campbell, John R. Beddington, Fabrice Declerck, Alessandro De Pinto, Jay Gulledge, Jonathan Hellin, Mario Herrero, Andy Jarvis, David Lezaks, Holger Meinke, Todd Rosenstock, Mary Scholes, Robert Scholes, Sonja Vermeulen, Eva Wollenberg, Robert Zougmoré

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Agriculture is considered to be "climate-smart" when it contributes to increasing food security, adaptation and mitigation in a sustainable way. This new concept now dominates current discussions in agricultural development because of its capacity to unite the agendas of the agriculture, development and climate change communities under one brand. In this opinion piece authored by scientists from a variety of international agricultural and climate research communities, we argue that the concept needs to be evaluated critically because the relationship between the three dimensions is poorly understood, such that practically any improved agricultural practice can be considered climate-smart. This lack of …

Climate Change Adaptation Chapter: Marshfield, Massachusetts, Joshua H. Chase, Jonathan G. Cooper, Rory Elizabeth Fitzgerald, Filipe Antunes Lima, Sally R. Miller, Toni Marie Pignatelli

Jonathan G. Cooper

Climate change, understood as a statistically significant variation in the mean state of the climate or its variability, is the greatest environmental challenge of this generation (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001). Marshfield is already being affected by changes in the climate that will have a profound effect on the town’s economy, public health, coastal resources, natural features, water systems, and public and private infrastructure. Adaptation strategies have been widely recognized as playing an important role in improving a community’s ability to respond to climate stressors by resisting damage and recovering quickly. Based on review of climate projections for the …

Climate Change Adaptation Chapter: Marshfield, Massachusetts, Joshua H. Chase, Jonathan G. Cooper, Rory Elizabeth Fitzgerald, Filipe Antunes Lima, Sally R. Miller, Toni Marie Pignatelli

Sally Miller

Climate change, understood as a statistically significant variation in the mean state of the climate or its variability, is the greatest environmental challenge of this generation (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001). Marshfield is already being affected by changes in the climate that will have a profound effect on the town’s economy, public health, coastal resources, natural features, water systems, and public and private infrastructure. Adaptation strategies have been widely recognized as playing an important role in improving a community’s ability to respond to climate stressors by resisting damage and recovering quickly. Based on review of climate projections for the …

Climate Change Adaptation Chapter: Marshfield, Massachusetts, Joshua H. Chase, Jonathan G. Cooper, Rory Elizabeth Fitzgerald, Filipe Antunes Lima, Sally R. Miller, Toni Marie Pignatelli

Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning Studio and Student Research and Creative Activity

Climate change, understood as a statistically significant variation in the mean state of the climate or its variability, is the greatest environmental challenge of this generation (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001). Marshfield is already being affected by changes in the climate that will have a profound effect on the town’s economy, public health, coastal resources, natural features, water systems, and public and private infrastructure. Adaptation strategies have been widely recognized as playing an important role in improving a community’s ability to respond to climate stressors by resisting damage and recovering quickly.

Based on review of climate projections for the …

Land Use Adaptation To Climate Change: Economic Damages From Land-Falling Hurricanes In The Atlantic And Gulf States Of The Usa, 1900-2005, Asim Zia

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Global climate change, especially the phenomena of global warming, is expected to increase the intensity of land-falling hurricanes. Societal adaptation is needed to reduce vulnerability from increasingly intense hurricanes. This study quantifies the adaptation effects of potentially policy driven caps on housing densities and agricultural cover in coastal (and adjacent inland) areas vulnerable to hurricane damages in the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal regions of the U.S. Time series regressions, especially Prais-Winston and Autoregressive Moving Average (ARMA) models, are estimated to forecast the economic impacts of hurricanes of varying intensity, given that various patterns of land use emerge in the Atlantic …