Division: ASA Section: Environmental Quality

Title: Sustainable Intensification Research: Assessing Multiple Biophysical and Socioeconomic Outcomes

Lead Community Sponsor: Sustainable Intensification Community
Cosponsor:
Community Cosponsor:
Format: Oral Topical Session
Keywords: Environmental footprint, Multidisciplinary research, Socioeconomic impact and Sustainability indicators

Session Description: Sustainable Intensification (SI) encompasses efforts to improve crop production while also addressing agricultural and environmental sustainability, in addition to social well-being needs. The goals of SI are therefore broad-reaching and complex. Resource-use efficiencies, environmental impact indicators, and ecological services have been proposed to evaluate SI (e.g. water quality, GHG emissions, nutrient, water, and energy use efficiency, carbon footprints, soil quality, and the flow of environmental services, etc.), but integrating these metrics with agronomic and socioeconomic outcomes remains a challenge for agricultural science. Research evaluating strategies for SI implementation at the farm, landscape, and/or regional scale using a number of the above indicators will be presented, with the goal of developing an improved understanding of SI management approaches, potential tradeoffs, and frameworks for evaluation.