Human and environmental factors are changing agriculture worldwide. How can farms provide food, fiber and fuel for growing populations, and conserve vital physical and biological resources?

Agriculture uses land and other resources to feed the world. In the process, agriculture transforms the planet, including surface energy, water and nutrient balances, and the health of biological systems. Researchers at SAGE are improving our understanding of the physical and ecological outcomes of agriculture, and of the agricultural management and policies that can shape these outcomes. As part of this research, we work closely with colleagues in UW departments of Agronomy and Soils, The Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC), the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP), University of Minnesota, and McGill University. Our projects also provide graduate research opportunities for students in the Nelson Institute's Environment & Resources Program. Agriculture research at SAGE is currently funded by the U.S. DOE, USAID, NASA, NSF, NOAA, USDA, and Wisconsin Focus on Energy.

P.I.s

• Dr. Carol Barford assesses potential energy-crop production and broader issues in land use, farm economy, and energy.

• Dr. Chris Kucharik's work focuses on sustainable agriculture, and links between biofuels, climate, and food production.

• Dr. Mutlu Ozdogan examines the interrelationships between agriculture, water use, productivity, and climate change in arid and semi-arid regions.

• Dr. Annemarie Schneider investigates dynamic land use impacts on agriculture across a range of spatial scales by exploiting remote sensing analysis, and statistical and numerical modeling techniques.

Students & Post-Docs

Ash Anandanarayanan, Kate Anderson, Justin Bagley, Ash Bharatkumar, Rachel Licker, Melissa Motew, Evren Soylu, Yang Yang

Ongoing Projects

Assessing Carbon Neutrality and Ecology of Different Biofuel Cropping Systems in the Midwest U.S. – Kucharik is collaborating with colleagues in the Department of Agronomy (Prof. Randy Jackson, Prof. Josh Posner) to better understand how a shift to new cropping systems or rotations may impact carbon balance across the Midwest, as well as ecosystem structure and functioning. The work is part of the Sustainability Science Team (Area 4) of the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC), funded through the U.S. Department of Energy. Studies of net ecosystem exchange, plant phenology, greenhouse gas fluxes, and soil carbon pool changes at the field scale (near the UW Agricultural Research Station at Arlington) will be used to help parameterize and validate ecosystem modeling tools designed to scale-up across the Midwest. Funded by U.S. Department of Energy.

Climate and Management Drivers of Agricultural Productivity in Eastern Mediterranean – Ozdogan is investigating the role of local management (fertilizer use, better seeds) versus global atmospheric teleconnections (North Atlantic Oscillation) on cereal productivity in Turkey and the Middle East using empirical evidence and Agro-IBIS, an advanced ecosystem model.

Climate Change, Shifting Land Use, and Urbanization in a Midwestern Agricultural Landscape – Challenges for Water Quality and Quantity – Kucharik leads a large team of UW and other collaborators, including SAGE student Melissa Motew and postdoc Evren Soylu. This project focuses on the Yahara Watershed of southern Wisconsin, which is an exemplar of water-related problems in the Upper Midwest, exacerbated by urbanization. The project addresses key questions: (1) How do different patterns of land cover, land management, and water resource engineering practices affect the resilience of freshwater ecosystems under a changing climate? Numerical models will evaluate changes in key benefits humans receive from sustainable management of freshwater resources (flood regulation, groundwater recharge, water quality, and lake recreation) as well as benefits related to terrestrial landscapes (food, bioenergy, carbon sequestration, climate regulation, and recreation). (2) How can governance systems for water and land use be made more responsive to drivers of change to meet diverse human needs? (3) In what ways are human-environment systems able to cope with change and in what ways are they vulnerable to potential changes in climate and freshwaters? The project also includes a subcomponent that will establish a network of temperature/humidity sensors across Dane County to quantify the spatial extent and intensity of the Urban Heat Island centered on the city of Madison. Funded by the National Science Foundation. 

Evaluating the Role of Risk in Wisconsin Biomass Infrastructure Development – Ashwini Bharatkumar (Informations Systems, Operations and Technology Management) and Barford are assessing the risk assumed by Wisconsin farmers in bioenergy crop production, and formulating potential risk mitigation strategies. The project uses existing data and farmer surveys to identify the primary risks faced in biomass production, and quantifies the impacts on farmers of these risks by evaluating potential financial losses due to each risk. The project also utilizes Monte Carlo simulation to assess the impact of the primary risks on optimal infrastructure scale and life-cycle analysis. Finally, the project aims to identify potential risk mitigation strategies. Funded by a UW-Holstrom Environmental Scholarship.

Farm-Based Bioenergy Infrastructure for Wisconsin – Barford, Anandanarayanan and Doug Reinemann (Biological Systems Engineering) are investigating the effects of infrastructure scale on bioenergy logistics, especially feed-stock transportation. This project uses GIS and life-cycle analysis to find how to reduce costs of bioenergy by targeting investments in processing, storage, energy conversion and transportation equipment. Investments are targeted in space using field-scale maps of Wisconsin farms, coordinated with road and transportation spatial data. Funded by Wisconsin Focus on Energy.

Impacts of Biofuel-driven Changes in Land Use and Cover on Flows of Water, Carbon and Nutrients to Freshwaters – Kucharik and Ph.D. student Kate Anderson are collaborating with co-investigators of the North Temperate Lakes Long Term Ecological Research project to study how the changing distribution of croplands affect nutrient flux to freshwaters and the cycling of C in the terrestrial-aquatic system, as well as how alternative biofuel feedstocks other than corn grain might impact water quality, carbon sequestration, and climate regulation. The Agro-IBIS model is being used across the Yahara Lakes watershed in southern Wisconsin to address these questions. Funding is provided by the National Science Foundation.

Impacts of Urbanization on Ecosystem Goods and Services – Kucharik and Schneider evaluate how past and projected urban expansion impacts ecosystem goods and services at the urban-agricultural fringe, with a specific focus on changes in energy balance, hydrology, and productivity.  Scenarios for high-, medium- and low-density urban areas are simulated using a dynamic agro-ecosystem model (Agro-IBIS), calibrated with agricultural inventory data, remotely sensed observations, and high-resolution climate data.

Introducing Remotely Sensed Irrigation Information into the USDA FAS Decision Support System – In partnership with USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), Ozdogan and graduate student Tim Wallace are developing irrigated area datasets for the Middle East and South Africa using remote sensing to improve FAS area production estimates. Funding is provided by NASA's Application Sciences Program.

Investigating the Relationship Between Land Use/Land Cover Change, Hydrologic Cycle, and Climate in Semi-Arid Central Asia – In collaboration with the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography in PRC, Ozdogan and his students are processing satellite data to map changes in agricultural area, implementing a simple evapotranspiration model, and testing a groundwater model specifically suited for predicting the locations of recharge and discharge areas in semi-arid Central Asia.

Landscape Structure and Natural Pest-suppression Services in Bioenergy Landscapes – Implications for Regional Food and Fuel Production - Kucharik and colleagues Claudio Gratton, Tim Meehan, and Phil Townsend are studying how changes in the structure of the agricultural landscape will affect crop yield through indirect effects on natural enemies and crop pests. Focusing on soybean-based biofuel, the principal pest (soybean aphid), and its natural enemies (generalist predators such as ladybeetles) across a 19-county region of southern Wisconsin, the research team is using empirical and biophysical crop modeling to evaluate the role of landscape structure on biofuel yield through the indirect effects on natural enemies and pests.  Kucharik and colleagues will further develop remote-sensing approaches to expand predictions of biofuel yield and the effect of biocontrol services to the regional landscape scale.  By merging these interdisciplinary approaches to address complex issues of species interactions at broad scales, they will generate maps that can help evaluate how ecosystem services such as biocontrol and crop yield trade off at the landscape scale, thereby making the outcomes of this proposal relevant to land managers and policy makers. Funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Monitoring and Modeling Urbanization in China – As part of a larger initiative to understand current and future land use change in 15 urban and peri-urban regions in China, Schneider and collaborators are working to understand the consequences of China's economic transition, industrialization and rapid urbanization on the rate and magnitude of agricultural land loss. Funded by NASA's Land Cover-Land Use Change Program.

Monitoring the Global Impacts of Urbanization on Agricultural Resources – In collaboration with Navin Ramankutty (McGill) and Jon Foley (University of Minnesota), Schneider investigates the impact of current and projected urban growth on agricultural lands at regional to global scales. To address how urban sprawl might affect our most agriculturally productive lands, this project integrates satellite image analysis, urban growth forecasting, field studies, and agricultural databases and census information to identify farmlands most vulnerable to urban expansion.

Monitoring the Water Cycle in the Arab Region Using NASA Satellite and Data Assimilating Model Technology – As a Co-Investigator in a joint NASA-USAID project, Ozdogan aids the development of a Land Data Assimilation System (LDAS) for the Arab region. His specific role is to assemble an up-to-date database of irrigated area and crop types to drive a suite of advanced land surface models, with the goal of providing optimal estimates of hydrological states and fluxes relevant to water resources in the region.

Quantifying Carbon Sequestration in Midwest US Bioenergy Cropping Systems – Scaling CO2 Fluxes from Leaf-level to Landscapes - Kucharik, Randy Jackson (UW Agronomy Dep’t) and graduate student Michael Cruse are studying how land-use shifts to perennial grasses such as switchgrass or fast-growing trees like hybrid poplar (to support cellulosic ethanol production) could sequester large quantities of carbon (C) in vegetation and soils.  This would support ecosystem sustainability while providing a new income stream to farmers via participation in C-crediting programs. However, we currently lack the necessary field observations to verify that C-sequestration is occurring.   This project is quantifying the C sequestration potential associated with three cropping system monocultures in the Arlington, WI region (continuous corn, switchgrass, and hybrid poplar) that are known for biomass production potential. The work couples field measurements of leaf area index, soil temperature and moisture, soil CO2 respiration, and CO2 uptake by vegetation with a theoretical approach to scale leaf-level CO2 fluxes at the landscape scale in order to quantify the net ecosystem exchange of CO2. The study sites are associated with the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) and the Wisconsin Integrated Cropping Systems Trial (WICST). The field observations will be used to validate an agroecosystem model (Agro-IBIS) to support future studies of ecosystem service trade-offs associated with bioenergy crops. Funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (Hatch Grant).

Spatial-temporal Analysis of Current Power Generation and Potential Bioenergy Substitution in the GLBRC Region – Carol Barford, Paul Barford and student Scott Alfeld (Computer Sciences) are analyzing the spatial and temporal characteristics of electric power generation in the Upper Midwest, using a unique data set of real-time power generation characteristics. This data set includes power output, CO2 emission rate, feedstock type, and market information. The analysis will be targeted to find economically and logistically feasible substitutions of biomass feedstock for fossil-based electric power. Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.

The role of irrigated croplands in North American hydroclimatic regimes – Ozdogan and his colleagues at NASA GSFC are quantifying the effects of cropland irrigation on water and energy cycle variables over North America. Funded by NOAA, the goal of this research is to investigate irrigation's influences on the land-atmosphere interactions at regional scales with an eye towards improved initialization of land surface moisture and energy states in numerical weather prediction models.

Selected Recent Publications

Johnston, M., R. Licker, J. Foley, T. Holloway, N.D. Mueller, C. Barford and C. Kucharik (2011). Closing the gap: global potential for increasing biofuel production through agricultural intensification Environmental Research Letters 6 034026 (doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/6/3/034028) (Article)

Licker, R., M. Johnston, Foley, J.A., C. Barford, C., Kucharik, C.J., Monfreda, C. and N. Ramankutty. (2010) Mind the Gap: how do climate and agricultural management explain the 'yield gap' of croplands around the world? Global Ecology and Biogeography. DOI: 10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00563.x (Article)

Ozdogan, M. (2011). Exploring the potential contribution of irrigation to global agricultural primary productivity. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 25, GB3016, doi:10.1029/2009GB003720. (Article) (UW News press release)

Sacks, W.J., D. Deryng, J.A. Foley, and N. Ramankutty (2010). Crop planting dates: an analysis of global patterns. Global Ecology and Biogeography 19, 607-620. DOI: 10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00551.x. (Article)

West, P.C., H.K. Gibbs, C. Monfreda, J. Wagner, C.C. Barford, S.R. Carpenter, and J.A. Foley (2010). Trading carbon for food: Global comparison of carbon stocks vs. crop yields on agricultural land. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) 107(46), 19645–19648. (Article) (Letter in response to article)

Zaks, D.P.M., N. Winchester, C.J. Kucharik, C.C. Barford, S. Paltsev, and J. Reilly (2011). The contribution of anaerobic digesters to emissions mitigation and electricity generation under U.S. climate policy. Environmental Science and Technology, DOI: 10.1021/es104227(Article)

Updated: 12/1/11

SAGE is a Research Center of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Contact us with feedback, questions or accessibility issues

Copyright © 2011 Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System