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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Ames, Iowa » National Laboratory for Agriculture and The Environment » Soil, Water & Air Resources Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #285407
Title: Accounting for windbreak's climate change contributions

Author
item SCHOENEBERGER, MICHELE - Forest Service (FS)
item BRANDLE, JIM - University Of Nebraska
item ZHOU, XINHUA - University Of Nebraska
item KORT, JOHN - Agriculture And Agri-Food Canada
item Sauer, Thomas

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/26/2012
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Regional climate change (CC) scenarios call for increased frequency and intensity of drought and storm events. For the North American Great Plains Region this means producers will be even more at the whim of shifting weather patterns and other stressors that may be exacerbated by CC. Options are being called for that can help producers address the challenge of meeting the growing global food/feed/fiber demand under uncertain climate - in a way that reduces agriculture’s contributions to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while still maintaining producer livelihoods (GRA: www.globalresearchalliance.org). Agroforestry is being promoted as one of the CC mitigation and adaptation tools for agriculture in the United States and Canada. Since the Dust Bowl days, windbreaks have been a CC tool to assist crop and livestock production in the Great Plains. Accounting for their contributions to CC mitigation and adaptation is needed as a means to assess the value of these services and to translate these contributions into some type of return to the producers; be it payments and/or enhanced production. Carbon (C) sequestration in windbreak systems will be discussed in terms of tool development to estimate this CC mitigation activity. Additionally, indirect C benefits conferred by these systems will be discussed in the context of building towards the bigger picture of the net GHG impact these systems may have within a producer’s operations.