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Many factors are driving interest in improving soil health in potato production systems in the U.S. Pacific Northwest and beyond, including the need for enhanced sustainability and economic viability, and consumer preferences. Potato production poses a particular challenge in terms of soil health due to intensive tillage, minimal residue left on fields, short rotations, and the importance of managing soilborne pathogens. This review discusses existing soil health assessment methods and their relevance for the region and summarizes results of studies conducted in the Pacific Northwest and beyond, examining practices aimed at improving soil health and their effects on soil health, soilborne pathogens, yield and quality of potatoes, and net returns in potato production systems. These practices include reducing tillage; adjusting crop rotation length and species composition; reducing fumigation; and using cover crops, green manures, and organic amendments.

Food systems are increasingly challenged to meet growing demand for specialty crops due to the effects of climate change and increased competition for resources. We apply a novel integrated methodology that includes climate, crop, economic, and life cycle assessment (LCA) models to US potato and tomato supply chains. We assess the effectiveness of changing management strategies to address climate change and the opportunity to relocate away from regions with increased water scarcity. We find that supply chains for two popular processed products in the United States, French fries and pasta sauce, will be remarkably resilient, through planting adaptation strategies that avoid higher temperatures. Land and water footprints will decline over time due to higher yields, and GHG emissions can be mitigated by waste reduction and process modification. Our integrated methodology can be applied to other crops and geographies, and the results could inform decision-making at multiple steps along supply chains.

Managing water resources, air quality, forests, rangelands and agricultural systems in the context of climate change requires a new level of integrated knowledge. In order to articulate a role for university-based research teams as providers of climate services, this paper analyzes environmental change concerns and expectations about climate models among natural resources decision-makers in the Northwest US. Data were collected during a series of workshops organized by researchers from BioEarth, a regional earth systems modeling initiative. Eighty-three stakeholders from industry, government agencies and non-governmental organizations engaged with a team of academic researchers developing integrated biophysical and economic climate modeling tools. Analysis of transcripts of workshop discussions, surveys, and questionnaires reveals diverse attitudes among stakeholders about: 1) preferred modes of engaging in climate science research, 2) specific concerns and questions about climate change impacts, and 3) the most relevant and usable scope and scale of climate change impacts projections. Diverse concerns and information needs among natural resource decision-makers highlight the need for research teams to define clear and precise goals for stakeholder engagement. Utilizing the skills of research team members who have communication and extension expertise is pivotally important. We suggest impactful opportunities for research teams and natural resource decision-makers to interface and learn from one another. Effective approaches include structuring group discussions to identify gaps in existing climate change impacts information, explicitly considering changing policies, technologies and management practices, and exploring possible unintended consequences of decisions.

This paper presents the design and use of Representative Agricultural Pathways (RAPs) in regional integrated assessment of climate impacts. In the first part of the paper, we describe the role of pathways and scenarios in regional integrated assessment as well as the three RAPs developed for a study of dryland wheat-based systems in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. We use this example to illustrate the challenges associated with the development and implementation of RAPs, including the engagement of research team and stakeholders, the dimensionality problem in integrated assessment, incorporation of economic data, and quantification of uncertainties. In the second part, we illustrate the use of RAPs in the study of climate impacts on dryland wheat-based systems. Results show that the direct impacts of future climate projections through crop yields provide the largest source of uncertainty in the climate impact and vulnerability analysis, but the indirect impacts of climate change through price projections embedded in RAPs also play an important role in the analysis. We conclude that in addition to being an essential element in designing an integrated assessment at the regional level, the RAPs development process can facilitate stakeholder engagement and improve communication of climate impact assessments.

In order for agricultural systems to successfully mitigate and adapt to climate change there is a need to coordinate and prioritize next steps for research and extension. This includes focusing on “win-win” management practices that simultaneously provide short-term benefits to farmers and improve the sustainability and resiliency of agricultural systems with respect to climate change. In the Northwest U.S., a collaborative process has been used to engage individuals spanning the research-practice continuum. This collaborative approach was utilized at a 2016 workshop titled “Agriculture in a Changing Climate,” that included a broad range of participants including university faculty and students, crop and livestock producers, and individuals representing state, tribal and federal government agencies, industry, nonprofit organizations, and conservation districts. The Northwest U.S. encompasses a range of agro-ecological systems and diverse geographic and climatic contexts. Regional research and science communication efforts for climate change and agriculture have a strong history of engaging diverse stakeholders. These features of the Northwest U.S. provide a foundation for the collaborative research and extension prioritization presented here. We focus on identifying research and extension actions that can be taken over the next five years in four areas identified as important areas by conference organizers and participants: (1) cropping systems, (2) livestock systems, (3) decision support systems to support consideration of climate change in agricultural management decisions; and (4) partnerships among researchers and stakeholders. We couple insights from the workshop and a review of current literature to articulate current scientific understanding, and priorities recommended by workshop participants that target existing knowledge gaps, challenges, and opportunities. Priorities defined at the Agriculture in a Changing Climate workshop highlight the need for ongoing investment in interdisciplinary research integrating social, economic and biophysical sciences, strategic collaborations, and knowledge sharing to develop actionable science that can support informed decision-making in the agriculture sector as the climate changes.

© 2014, The Author(s). As managers of agricultural and natural resources are confronted with uncertainties in global change impacts, the complexities associated with the interconnected cycling of nitrogen, carbon, and water present daunting management challenges. Existing models provide detailed information on specific sub-systems (e.g., land, air, water, and economics). An increasing awareness of the unintended consequences of management decisions resulting from interconnectedness of these sub-systems, however, necessitates coupled regional earth system models (EaSMs). Decision makers’ needs and priorities can be integrated into the model design and development processes to enhance decision-making relevance and “usability” of EaSMs. BioEarth is a research initiative currently under development with a focus on the U.S. Pacific Northwest region that explores the coupling of multiple stand-alone EaSMs to generate usable information for resource decision-making. Direct engagement between model developers and non-academic stakeholders involved in resource and environmental management decisions throughout the model development process is a critical component of this effort. BioEarth utilizes a bottom-up approach for its land surface model that preserves fine spatial-scale sensitivities and lateral hydrologic connectivity, which makes it unique among many regional EaSMs. This paper describes the BioEarth initiative and highlights opportunities and challenges associated with coupling multiple stand-alone models to generate usable information for agricultural and natural resource decision-making.

The Columbia River Basin (CRB) encompasses parts of seven US states and British Columbia in Canada over a land mass approximately the size of France. It is a vital part of the ecosystem and economies of the entire region. The CRB, like many watersheds around the world, is experiencing increased pressure on water resources and ecosystems, due to population growth, threatened and endangered species, economic development, and climate change. Irrigation is responsible for the majority of consumptive use in the watershed so the implications of climate change are a tremendous concern as we strive to feed a growing population. To facilitate strategic planning and investment, the State of Washington requires a long-term water supply and demand forecast (the Forecast) every five years. An interdisciplinary WSU research team integrated three biophysical models with an agricultural economics model to conduct a system-wide assessment of how future environmental and economic conditions are likely to change water supply and demand by 2030. Timing of supply changes will shift water away from the Sustainable Irrigation and Drainage IV 77 www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3541 (on-line) WIT Transactions on Ecology and The Environment, Vol 168, © 201 WIT Press 2 doi:10.2495/SI120071 times when demands are highest. Unregulated surface water supply at the mouth of the watershed will decrease an average of 14.3% between June and October, and increase an average of 17.5% between November and May. The model predicts an additional 141,000 acre-feet (17.3 MCM) of water will be required just to maintain existing irrigation in Washington. The average gross revenue per acre for irrigated land in Washington was estimated to be $3,500 and average water use is 3.1 acre feet per acre. Applying these two values to the 141,000 acre foot shortage translates into a decrease in value of production of $159 million per year although actual losses would likely be less as farmers could reduce water demand by favoring less water intensive crops such as wine grapes or chose to reduce production of lower value irrigated crops first. Within the entire CRB, an estimated 298,500 acre-feet of additional water will be needed. Localized impacts could be more severe than the broader overall averages. The Forecast will help the State of Washington’s Office of Columbia River strategically fund water supply projects by improving understanding of where additional water supply is most critically needed, now and in the future.

O n-farm anaerobic digesters are a commercially available technology that captures emissions of methane from stored animal manure, provides renewable energy, and opens new opportunities for nutrient management on confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs). The high capital costs for digesters have traditionally been offset through public subsidies and the sale of electricity generated from the biomethane. Extremely low electrical power prices in the Pacific Northwest have proven to be a substantial obstacle to digester projects in the region. Reduced costs and increasing revenues are essential for adoption of digesters as a dairy waste management strategy in the region. Recovery of nutrients from digested manure is a critical need for compliance with increasingly strict environmental regulations facing CAFOs. ### FINANCIAL & BIOPHYSICAL ANALYSIS Through a USDA NRCS Conservation Innovation Grant, our team completed a financial and biophysical analysis of the Vander Haak Dairy digester project. The project was designed for the manure from 1,500 cows, but actual loading rates during the study period fluctuated between 800 and 1,100 cows plus co-digestion of up to 15% food waste by mass. The financial analysis confirmed that electrical production from dairy manure alone provides insufficient return on investment to justify a dairy digester project …

Integrating stakeholder perspectives is increasingly important in environmental science as a growing number of research projects are justified with a “solutions” orientation prioritizing societal relevance. In earth systems modeling, there is potential for model developers to engage with stakeholders who may use modeling results to inform decisions about resource management and policy. Challenges associated with stakeholder engagement relate to how researchers perceive the role of stakeholders and how they view the utility of integrating knowledge and perspectives from outside academia in model development. This study analyzes researchers’ perceptions of stakeholder engagement within BioEarth, a large collaborative regional earth systems modeling project designed to integrate input from agriculture and forestry sector decision-makers. The project addresses the impact of climate change on water, nitrogen and carbon cycling in the US Pacific Northwest. Surveys and semi-structured interviews were conducted to assess perceptions of stakeholder engagement among the 18principal investigators (PIs). Results reveal that PIs have varying perceptions of the role of stakeholders in earth systems modeling and diverse assessments of the optimal type and timing of stakeholder engagement. As funding agencies and research institutions promote increased collaboration with stakeholders from outside academia, these findings demonstrate fundamental differences of opinion among environmental scientists regarding the value of stakeholder engagement. This research has implications for transdisciplinary research projects that seek to address sustainability challenges by involving stakeholders in technical academic modeling. Facilitating learning opportunities for researchers who are new to stakeholder engagement is essential, as is close collaboration among researchers with different levels of prior stakeholder engagement experiences.