Community-Scale Response to Climate Change Impacts on Rural Agricultural Economies

Rural communities with agriculturally influenced economies face significant challenges in adapting to a changing climate. This project's objective is to use physical and economic modeling capabilities that project climate-related impacts on agriculturally influenced rural economies and then establish through Contextual Engineering analysis the role of local identity and values in determining likely community response. The ultimate objective of this team is to deploy a decision-making, smart predictive tool online for use by policy makers at all levels who wish to sustain and enhance rural economies by identifying the climate-induced economic pathway a rural community is likely to follow-regardless of whether that pathway is optimal or even logical. This tool will allow policy makers at the local, regional, and national levels to prepare for, and address shortcomings of, the impacts of a community's actions and can assist in sustaining and improving rural economies by applying appropriate support initiatives. This project engages atmospheric and crop scientists, agricultural economists, strategic business management scholars, systems engineers, and contextual engineers.