Recipient Organization
COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY
(N/A)
FORT COLLINS,CO 80523
Performing Department
Natural Resource Ecology Lab
Non Technical Summary
The UVMRP strives to meet the monitoring and modeling needs of its stakeholders. (1) High energy ultraviolet solar radiation can significantly damage plants, crops, animals, and ecosystems, alone or in combination with other environmental stress factors such as temperature and moisture. To address these concerns, in 1992 the USDA established the UV-B Monitoring and Research Program (UVMRP) at Colorado State University to provide cost-effective monitoring of UV-B levels over wide geographic areas of the United States. Most monitoring stations are located at USDA agricultural research facilities, or on University facilities with ties to USDA. Monitoring sites were selected to provide measurements useful for studies of national, regional, and local scope. This UVB Network is the only remaining US national monitoring effort for these wavelengths. This program provides high quality UVB data, dating back to 1995, which is publically available through the Internet. The UVMRP dataset is being used for agricultural research at the Agricultural Research Station at Beltsville, University of Maryland, Colorado State University, Mississippi State University, Purdue University, Cornell University, and the University of Nebraska; for health research at the University of California at Davis, University of Colorado Health Center and the University of Hawaii-Manoa; for education (including at several high schools), and at other universities and government agencies for a variety of projects. (2) The U.S. agriculture has been under severe stresses by frequent climate anomalies, threatening national food security. The threat is increasing and is made imminent as the earth?s climate is experiencing unequivocal, significant, and continuing changes. As a result of human activities, the concentration of atmospheric CO2 and other gases and particles continues increase with an unprecedented magnitude, possibly, as predicted by general circulation models, causing a global warming of 1.8-4.0 ?C at the end of this century. The warming is expected to accompany important shifts in precipitation distribution, and more frequent occurrences of cold/hot extremes and drought/flood events. Changes in these variables (CO2, temperature, precipitation, UV-B will alter plant growth, biomass, and community composition, which in turn affect water and nutrient cycling in and across ecosystems. Collectively, global changes in emissions and climate will likely have serious consequences on the terrestrial hydrology, ecosystem production, and water quality in the U.S. These components are intimately coupled in nature and should be modeled as such to assess their responses to global change. This proposed research will develop such an integrated modeling system for future credible assessment of food security, yield, and economic impact.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
100%
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Knowledge Area
601 - Economics of Agricultural Production and Farm Management;
102 - Soil, Plant, Water, Nutrient Relationships;
203 - Plant Biological Efficiency and Abiotic Stresses Affecting Plants;
132 - Weather and Climate;
202 - Plant Genetic Resources;
Subject Of Investigation
0430 - Climate;
0799 - Rangelands and grasslands, general;
1719 - Cotton, other;
0199 - Soil and land, general;
0440 - Solar radiation;
0699 - Trees, forests, and forest products, general;
2499 - Plant research, general;
Field Of Science
2070 - Meteorology and climatology;
1070 - Ecology;
1080 - Genetics;
3010 - Economics;
1020 - Physiology;
Goals / Objectives
GOALS-The UV-B Monitoring and Research Program (UVMRP) maintains two distinct and complementary program components.(1)The primary goal of the monitoring component is continued operation of the national UV-B monitoring network. Agricultural research scientists rely on the network's high quality data, data products, and services to support agricultural research describing the geographic distribution of UV-B solar irradiance, effects of increased or diminished UV-B on crops, native and invasive plants, and animals, and to facilitate the use of these measurements directly or as input to climate and crop models.(2) The goal of the program's modeling component is to develop an Integrated Agricultural Impact Assessment System that will couple a state-of-the-art regional climate model with comprehensive crop models to study climate-crop interactions and related economic impacts stemming from crop response to a wide range of stressors, including those associated with global climate change. Decision makers need reliable crop yield assessment tools to determine optimal cultural practices, assess risks and risk management strategies, and determine economic impacts. OBJECTIVES-(1)Effective and efficient operation of the UV-B network will be assured by adhering to the existing, proven methods of instrument servicing, data processing, and web-based data dissemination developed, enhanced, and refined over the past 16 years. Concurrently, work will continue to develop in-house instrument characterization capabilities, upgrade data processing algorithms and products, automate quality assurance checks, and consider next-generation instrumentation.(2) Development of the Integrated Agricultural Impact Assessment System is a large scale, multi-year effort that will integrate new and existing technology to meet objectives. First, to lay the foundation, a large volume of satellite and ground based data will be collected and assimilated. Second, the best, state-of-the-art climate and crop models will be improved, recoded, and optimized for integration. Third, quantitative, UVMRP supported, study-based crop stress modules and algorithms will be incorporated into crop models. And fourth, all components will be integrated into a system that will be validated as to its capability for providing relevant and credible crop yield and economic assessments for managers. EXPECTED OUTPUTS-(1)Solar irradiance data and data products collected from 37 monitoring sites in the United States, Canada, and New Zealand, will continue to be provided for near real-time viewing and data download on the UVMRP web site.(2)Valuable intermediary products will result from the development and validation of the numerous modeling modules to be integrated into the assessment system. These products, and the methodology behind them, will be reported in refereed journal articles and conference proceedings. Both the monitoring and modeling components of the UVMRP continue to be active in the scientific community. Last year project scientist's published 21 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals, conference proceedings, and transactions while continuing to advise graduate and undergraduate students.
Project Methods
The UV-B Monitoring Network is comprised of 37 stations, each equipped with ultraviolet and visible solar radiometers. The network has been operational since 1993, providing high quality data necessary to determine climatology and variation of UV-B radiation.(1)The UVMRP will continue to use and enhance the mature and proven methods for operation of the network that have been developed and tested over many years. Methods and procedures exist for all facets of network operation: calibration and servicing of instruments; on-site maintenance and troubleshooting; and data collection, processing, management, and dissemination. Data integrity and security is of primary importance and is ensured through automated and manual quality control activities, the use of an extensive MySQL database, and implementation of the most current computer security measures in operation of the program's mature web site. The UVMRP continues to find methods to increase the efficiency of network operation: in-house instrument characterization capabilities are under development to assure uninterrupted collection of high quality data; data analysis algorithms are continually being developed to derive additional useful products from the measurements; and enhanced methods for web based data and data product dissemination are continually being deployed. Finally, looking to meeting the future needs of agricultural researchers, next-generation instrumentation and data products are being considered.(2) Several on-going experiments in growth chambers, green houses, and open fields will be continued to quantify the cross effects of UV-B radiation with other factors such as CO2, high temperature, and water stress on agricultural crops, trees, grasses, and ecosystems. Quantitative functional algorithms describing the UVB effects on phenomenological, growth, and physiological parameters of crop plants are being derived from the extensive experiments and incorporated into well-developed crop models.Enhancement of existing crop simulation models is underway to comprehensively study the impacts of UVB radiation, especially the combined effects with other abiotic and biotic factors, on crop growth, development, and yield.The crop models will also be coupled with regional climate models to evaluate the potential risks of climate change and UVB variation on the US agricultural production, and with economic models to assess financial impacts.Collaborations with scientists from other universities, research institutions, and government agencies are necessary to run this comprehensive and extensive monitoring and research program.We have established a good and efficient cooperative network in the US and throughout the world.The program will continue to develop this important crop yield and economic assessment tool.