Untangling the dynamics of soil erosion through the confluence of data, hydro-ecologic, and decision analytics for a sustainable agro-production system
Program Area: Food and Agriculture Cyberinformatics Tools (FACT)
Award: $500,000
PI: Maria L. Chu
CO-PI: Jorge Alberto Guzman Jaimes
Summary: Achieving a sustainable agro-production system involves evaluating the tradeoffs between ecosystem services and disservices. However, in meeting the challenges for food security amidst threats such as soil erosion and soil degradation, tradeoffs have become more visible in policy-making and a growing concern for conservation and sustained productivity. Yet, a platform that evaluates sediment production and transport at large scales in a mechanistic manner with the ability to capture the dynamics in agricultural landscapes, and transform this information into decision analytics that stakeholders can interactively use is not available. The overall goal of this project is to disseminate interactive information to address soil erosion based on an evaluation system that predicts sediment production and transport in a mechanistic way assimilating Earth Observations at scales that are important to our agro-production systems. This project will develop a framework composed of (1) a back-end system for data management, and assimilation of Earth and ground-based observations into hydrologic and erosion models, and (2) a front-end system to create an interactive visually rich user interface that stakeholders can use to estimate local and regional sediment production under varied managing practices. By being able to develop a computational system that can underpin mitigation strategies from farm to regional scales with the capacity to render interactive information, we are better positioned to assist the stakeholders through the decision-making process. Upon completion, we expected to have improved sediment assessment and facilitated the evaluation of risk and tradeoffs associated with different land management schemes and preferred alternatives to increase productivity while minimizing soil degradation.