Building Resilience to Climate Change: Adaptive Agricultural Management Based on Crop, Soil, and Water Sciences.

Building resilience to climate change requires the creation of adaptive agricultural management tools, technology and methods. The crop, soil, and water sciences are essential sources of new knowledge and technologies for adaptive management. Both China and the United States face water availability problems that limit agricultural production and that are exacerbated by climate variability. The impacts of drought and declining aquifers result in water restrictions and salinity problems such that water availability is limited both in terms of quantity and quality. Irrigation is important for agricultural production in both countries, and improvements in irrigation technologies and management methods can improve outcomes by increasing water use efficiency through reductions in unnecessary losses due to evaporation, runoff and deep percolation. A joint Flagship Program on Water Saving Technologies has been established between the China Ministry of Science and Technology and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to foster research to improve irrigation methods and technologies that increase crop water productivity and work well in the face of declining water availability. These include both subsurface drip irrigation and variable rate center pivot irrigation. The crop sciences are involved through development of new drought and salinity tolerant varieties, and the identification of species that tolerate not only salinity but specific ions such as boron and selenium. The soil, water, agronomic and watershed sciences combine to provide ways to conserve and treat water in landscapes for beneficial use and sustainable agricultural enterprises. Several laboratories of the USDA Agricultural Research Service are involved in cooperative efforts with colleagues in China, with results presented at several past and upcoming conferences. A summary of collaborative efforts and results to date will be presented.