{"id":25,"date":"2018-10-04T04:46:27","date_gmt":"2018-10-04T04:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/?p=25"},"modified":"2018-10-29T20:27:48","modified_gmt":"2018-10-29T20:27:48","slug":"resilience-training-tackles-food-water-energy-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/resilience-training-tackles-food-water-energy-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"Resilience Training Tackles Food, Water, Energy Issues"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u2022 409 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.<\/strong> \u2022 18.7 million acres deforested annually.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

These and other numbers hang above Daniel Rico\u2019s laboratory desk \u2013 daily reminders of the urgent resilience and climate change problems he aims to tackle in his career. With support from a new National Science Foundation-funded interdisciplinary graduate training program, the Nebraska computer science and engineering master\u2019s student is gaining skills to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m a far more capable and better engineer because I\u2019m learning to collaborate with people from other fields,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Graduate student Daniel Rico and Craig Allen<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A five-year, $3 million NSF Research Traineeship grant funds Nebraska\u2019s program, focused on agricultural resilience and vulnerability. Its goal is helping participants make informed decisions about using limited natural resources as demand for food, energy and water increases. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The program focuses on the Platte River Basin, where agricultural systems are among the world\u2019s most productive and efficient. But water shortages, demographic shifts, climate variability and land use changes threaten the basin and other landscapes worldwide. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf we discover ways to make the Platte Basin more resilient, not only will we be able to maintain it long term, we can also replicate the model globally to help ensure local and global food security,\u201d said project leader Craig Allen, research professor and director of the Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit. The project includes experts in environmental science, engineering, agriculture, computational sciences and social sciences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rico is developing networks of tether-powered drones to measure crops\u2019 responses to climatic changes, such as torrential rainfall. This information could reveal which crops respond best to adversity, enabling researchers to analyze those plants\u2019 DNA and develop crops with heightened resilience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

” … we can also replicate the model globally to help ensure local and global food security.”<\/p>Craig Allen <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Rico is one of about 20 trainees and 15 management professionals participating in research, coursework, seminars and externships through the School of Natural Resources-based program. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The curriculum bridges existing graduate offerings in water and agricultural sciences, laying the foundation for a permanent resilience-focused graduate program at Nebraska. It\u2019s one of the nation\u2019s first to fully embrace panarchy theory, a social-ecological approach encompassing all system functions \u2013 large and small. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s no better place for this type of training, Rico said, because Nebraska is one of the world\u2019s most vibrant agricultural hubs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re looking to study resilience, this is the place to be.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2022 409 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. \u2022 18.7 million acres deforested annually. These and other numbers hang above Daniel Rico\u2019s laboratory desk \u2013 daily reminders of the urgent resilience and climate change problems he aims to tackle in his career. With support from a new National Science Foundation-funded interdisciplinary graduate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[131,128,120,119,121,135,134,123,51,125,127,118],"class_list":["post-25","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-resilience","tag-agriculture","tag-climate-change","tag-craig-allen","tag-daniel-rico","tag-education","tag-food-energy-and-water-systems","tag-food-security","tag-interdisciplinary-graduate-training","tag-national-science-foundation","tag-natural-resources","tag-platte-river-basin","tag-resilience"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":425,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions\/425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}