This paper discusses the diverse climate forcings that impact agricultural systems, and contrasts the current paradigm of using global models downscaled to agricultural areas (a top-down approach) with a new paradigm that first assesses the vulnerability of agricultural activities to the spectrum of environmental risk including climate (a bottom-up approach). To illustrate the wide spectrum of ...

Groundwater-fed irrigation has supported growth in agricultural production around the world by allowing farmers to buffer production against the risks associated with variable and uncertain climatic conditions. However, uncontrolled exploitation has also led to rapid rates of groundwater depletion in many semi-arid and arid regions that threaten farmers' long-term capacity to adapt to future cl...

Twenty-three stream sites representing a range of forested, agricultural, and urban land uses were sampled in the South Platte River Basin of Colorado from July through September 2002 to characterize water quality during drought conditions. With a few exceptions, dissolved ammonia, Kjeldahl nitrogen, total phosphorus, and dissolved orthophosphate concentrations were similar to seasonal historic...

By J. ARTHUR HARRIS, Head, Department of Botany, University of Minnesota, and Collaborator, Bureau of Plant Industry, United States Department ofAgriculture; W. F. HOFFMAN, Assistant Professor of Agricultural Biochemistry, University of Minnesota, formerly {1920-1924) Field Assistant, Alkali and Drought Resistant Plant Investigations, and Biophysical Investigations, Bureau of Plant Industry, Un...

An agricultural drought risk-assessment model was developed for Nebraska, USA, for corn and soybeans on the basis of variables derived from the standardized precipitation index and crop-specific drought index using multivariate techniques. This model can be used to assess real-time agricultural drought risk for specific crops at critical times before and during the growing season by retaining p...

Drought is a stochastic natural hazard that is instigated by intense and persistent shortage of precipitation. Following an initial meteorological phenomenon, subsequent impacts are realized on agriculture and hydrology. Among the natural hazards, droughts possess certain unique features; in addition to delayed effects, droughts vary by multiple dynamic dimensions including severity and duratio...