Daugherty Water for Food Podcast Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute

The Fifth National Climate Assessment is federally mandated by Congress and released every four years to serve as the foremost review of research on the current and future impacts of climate change in the United States.
 
In this episode of the Water for Food Podcast, DWFI Director of Communications and Public Relations Frances Hayes discusses key findings of the report with three of its co-authors. DWFI Faculty Fellows Andrea Basche and Tonya Haigh co-authored the Northern Great Plains chapter, which includes Nebraska. DWFI Director of Water, Climate and Health Jesse Bell, who leads the Water, Climate and Health Program at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, co-authored the chapter on human health. The authors share their take on regional differences related to climate change, who is most affected by its impacts and what bright spots exist.
 
View the full assessment here. Find webinars on each topic hosted by the U.S. Global Change Research Program here.

Aakanksha Melkani, a postdoctoral research associate at the Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute, researches the economic implications of drought in the United States, specifically on agricultural sectors. In this edition of the Water for Food Podcast, we are sharing an episode of Nebraska on Tap, a podcast produced by the Middle Republican Natural Resources District in Nebraska. Host of the show, Heather Dizmang, discusses Aakansha’s findings so far, as well as her time in Africa studying maize production.

The Melting Cryosphere and Food & Water Security, with Randall Ritzema, Tika Gurung, and Nick Brozović
A 2023 report called Water, ice, society, and ecosystems in the Hindu Kush Himalaya: An Outlook (HI-WISE), published by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), was an urgent call for how disappearing snow and ice in the Hindu Kush Himalayas will impact water resources for nearly two billion people. 
But the cryosphere exists elsewhere, too, as part of the globe’s hydrological system. Populations and ecosystems of The Andes, California and Nebraska, for example, all rely on a healthy cryosphere for water. With a changing climate, what are the implications to food and water security? How do we adapt? 
In this episode, DWFI Communications Specialist Arianna Elnes discusses the changing cryosphere with DWFI Research Program Scientist Randall Ritzema, who contributed to Chapter Three of the HI-WISE report; University of Nebraska-Lincoln Graduate Student of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Tika Gurung, who studies glaciers in the Himalayas; and DWFI Director of Policy Nick Brozović.
Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute is co-hosting a webinar on the Water-Food Nexus in Mountain Systems on Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024 at 3-4 P.M. UTC (9-10 A.M. CT). The link to register, and the recording after, is available at go.unl.edu/waterfoodnexus. 
For more on Water for Food’s work visit waterforfood.nebraska.edu

Yufeng Ge, Santosh Pitla and David Jones have already conducted research in the areas of ag-relevant sensors for more efficient application of fertilizer and water, and the development of an autonomous planter capable of seeding a 5-acre field all on its own. But now they’ve set their sights quite a bit higher — growing food in space. The three biological systems engineering faculty at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, along with others on their research team, were awarded a two-year Grand Challenge grant from Nebraska’s Office of Research and Economic Development to find ways to sustainably grow food in space.
In this episode, Frances Hayes, DWFI director of communications and public relations, sits down with Yufeng, Santosh and David as they explore their short-term goal of developing a center dedicated to studying space agriculture and their long-term goals of actually growing enough food on space to sustain people while translating the lessons learned to agriculture here on Earth.

Since 2013, UNL Water Sciences Lab Director Dan Snow and other researchers in the University of Nebraska system (NU) have collaborated with faculty and students in Central Asian institutes to improve water quality research across the globe.  The purpose of this effort is to share NU’s knowledge and expertise in water quality research with a region that has limited resources and important water quality issues to address.
 
In this episode, guest host Ann Briggs, public relations and engagement coordinator at the Nebraska Water Center, chats with Dan during one of his visits to Kazakhstan, along with Marjan Kalmakhanova, an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Technology at M.Kh. Dulaty Taraz Regional University in Kazakhstan. Both discuss the importance and impact of global partnerships in water quality research.
 
To learn more about this partnership, visit centralasiawater.unl.edu.

DWFI was recently selected to lead USAID's Feed the Future Lab for Irrigation and Mechanization Systems (ILIMS). In this episode of the Water for Food Podcast, Nicole Lefore, the director of the new lab and the associate director of sustainable agriculture water management at DWFI, shares the purpose of USAID's overall Feed the Future initiative; how ILIMS will support smallholder farmers in low- and middle-income countries and how the lab can ultimately reduce global hunger, poverty and undernutrition and help increase food and water security.