Project GoalsThis project will increase the resilience of agricultural production in the Tennessee and Cumberland River Basins (TCB) by promoting the adaptation of agricultural production to realized and anticipated climate-related changes in water availability and growing conditions.

We are a multi-disciplinary partnership of researchers and educators at five different universities across Tennessee.

The University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture (UTIA) is the lead for the project. The six project tasks are being conducted by faculty and staff from UTIA in partnership with the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK), the University of Tennessee, Martin, Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, and the University of Memphis.

Project Investigators are organized into four topical teams (Hydrological Modeling, Economic Modeling, Crops, and Livestock) and two cross-cutting teams (Education and Extension). Education and outreach events will take place in a variety of locales, including four University of Tennessee Research & Education Centers – Milan, Middle Tennessee, East Tennessee, and Greeneville.

Research Objectives Task 1: Scenario Development – Develop a range of anticipated climate and land use scenarios for the southeastern US.

Task 2: Coupling of Physical Models – Couple a suite of physically-based, spatially-distributed hydrodynamic and biogeophysical models with observational/remote sensing data for agricultural management practices, landscape characteristics, and hydrologic parameters.

Task 3: Modeling Effects of Adaptive Management Practices on Water Quality – Test the effects of the adoption of adaptive management practices (AMPs) on watershed-scale hydrology using the range of anticipated climate and land use scenarios identified above with the newly developed modeling framework.

Task 4: Upscaling Model Results – Upscale modeling results to a regional scale using emergent patterns acquainted by remote sensing, analysis of fractality and patch theory.

Task 5: Economic Modeling – Determine how changes in water availability affect farm profitability and rural economies and the extent to, and conditions under, which farmers are likely to adopt AMPs

Outreach and Education ObjectivesTask 6: Education and Extension Programming – Conduct faculty- and student-led outreach around the theme “Advanced Agricultural and Environmental Technology and Their Implications for Water Availability in Tennessee”, by targeting public event gatherings, such as extension-led field days, and community-based demonstrations.

Acknowledgements: This project was supported by Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Award No. #2015-68007-23212 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Contact: Forbes Walker, frwalker@utk.edu, (865) 974-6402.

Progress to Date

Research – hydrology, flood, groundwater and economic modeling

Extension – row crop and nursery irrigation management, precision ag., weed, pest and disease management, extending grazing season

Education – undergraduate student involvement, 4 H curriculum development

Increasing the Resilience of Agricultural Production in the Tennessee & Cumberland River Basins through More Efficient Water Resource Use

1F.R. Walker, 1C.D. Clark, 2S. Cui, 3 P. Gale, 4 A. Kalyanapu, 1T. Papanicolaou and 5 B. Waldron1University of Tennessee (Knoxville), 2Middle Tennessee State University, 3 University of Tennessee (Martin),

4Middle Tennessee State University, 5 University of Memphis

Study area

Red circles are Groundwater wells; Black triangles are surface water locations

USGS Locations