Climate Change Roadmap
A Research Framework for Agriculture, Forestry, and Working Lands
Addressing the impact of climate change on agriculture and natural resources requires the translation of science to solutions and policies that support more sustainable forms of land use, efficient agricultural production, and community-engaged research globally.
The National Climate Roadmap is a science agenda holistically designed to serve researchers, policymakers, farmers and practitioners. The project is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
CSU Leading the Climate Conversation
A team of researchers from Colorado State University engaged 61 leading scientists from 51 U.S. institutions to contribute expertise in a wide range of disciplines, including social and biophysical sciences, to ensure diverse, inclusive perspectives.
Meet the Team
Eugene Kelly
Associate Director of the Colorado Agricultural Experiment Station and Professor of Pedology, Soil & Crop Sciences
Jan Leach
Associate Dean for Research in the College of Agricultural Sciences and a University Distinguished Professor of Agricultural Biology
Courtney Schultz
Associate Professor and Director of the Public Lands Policy Group
Becca Jablonski
Assistant Professor and Food Systems Economist in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics
Erin Jackson
Doctoral student from the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences.
Setting Climate Change Research Priorities
“This is really a unique opportunity to help inform the next decade of research into climate change” — Gene Kelly.
The Framework
The National Climate Change Roadmap provides a framework for science and funding grounded in a systems-based, highly participatory, and just approach, which acknowledges the ongoing, evolving challenges of climate change. This framework is not intended as an endpoint, but a place from which to evolve and refine to meet climate science challenges for the benefit of agriculture, working landscapes, and the communities that rely upon them.
The final National Climate Change Roadmap outlines thematic priorities and guiding principles, with an emphasis on the system-based and continuous nature of the research endeavor.
Thematic Areas
1.
Systems-based innovations
Cultivate and advance systems-based innovations and approaches that bridge biophysical and socioeconomic disciplines to build system resiliency to climate change.
2.
Participatory research processes
Co-create a science continuum that bridges fundamental research to producer knowledge, practice, and experience and incorporates principles of environmental and social justice.
3.
Mitigation and adaptation through ecosystem management
Adapt to and/or mitigate the impacts of climate change across diverse environments and land use systems via science-based management opportunities.
4.
Climate-informed water resource management
Address earth system interactions and the growing challenges created with increasing agricultural water demand.
5.
Energy-smart agriculture and technology integration
Integrate new energy technologies into diverse production systems to help achieve carbon neutrality.
6.
Strategic, sustainable, and regenerative agricultural practices
Develop and promote practices that improve biodiversity and ecosystem health while strengthening resiliency to climate change.
7.
Socioeconomic and policy research
Develop and evaluate models that assess impacts of markets, consumption patterns, socioeconomic conditions, and food systems on human well-being under a changing climate.