Thu, 07/15/2021
The Nebraska Governance and Technology Center (NGTC) is pleased to support the work of academics in a number of fields through its various grant programs.
Dr. Rezaul Mahmood, Applied Climatologist and Director of the High Plains Regional Climate Center, is a recipient of a supplemental grant from the NGTC, a program designed to provide supplemental research funding to teams that are already engaged in active internally or externally funded research at the University of Nebraska. The goal of these supplements is to facilitate consideration of law and policy topics relating to ongoing research. This effort is twofold: in the near term, to encourage researchers developing new technologies to consider potential policy aspects of their research and, in the longer term, to facilitate new interdisciplinary collaborations.
Research Context
Dr. Mahmood’s research explores the extent to which “government policies may have significant environmental consequences because of their impacts on land use land cover change (LULCC) related to agricultural production. For example, it is estimated that during the 1990s, federal farm bill subsidies contributed to a 2.5 million acre expansion (.8%) of cultivated cropland.”
In the aggregate, these programs have an effect on “land-atmosphere interactions and their role in weather and climate.” “For example it is well known that LULCC impacts near surface air temperature, timing and location of cloud development, and precipitation which may potentially impact water management.”
“These interactions between LULCC and the atmosphere suggest the need for better understanding and connecting institutional change in general and policies in particular to decisions about LULCC, and therefore to local atmospheric conditions.”
NGTC Funded Research
Dr. Mahmood’s research conducted in conjunction with his NGTC funding “will comprehensively identify and review academic and industry literature examining connections between policies and impact on LULCC, with a focus on how agricultural policies, RFS and trade agreements may influence LULCC in the agricultural sector of Nebraska. The research and final product will also also identify existing data sets for drawing connections between LULCC and policies (e.g., USDA National Resources Inventory and Economic Research Service, National Agricultural Statistics Service, Agricultural Census, Energy Information Agency of the Department of Energy, etc.), and summarize their relevance.”
