InFACT Hire and Graduate Students Look Comprehensively at Flooding

InFACT faculty hire Marília Chiavegato, assistant professor in the Department of Horticulture and Crop Science, and her graduate students, Ricardo Henrique Ribeiro and Marina Miquilini, are studying the effects of flooding on forage, soil and the environment to determine the best pasture management strategies to mitigate the effects of flooding.

As extreme weather changes agricultural production conditions worldwide, it's increasingly important to consider how these conditions can be managed rather than treating them as exceptions to the norm, since they are becoming the norm. “I observed the flooding effects specifically on grazing and hay farms,” Chiavegato says. “I realized then that increased flooding frequency and intensity was a current challenge faced by Ohio farmers, which is a consequence of climate change.”

Chiavegato uses a systems approach to her fieldwork, looking at all aspects of an environment when studying it. For example, the critical components of her flooding research would include the soil, the forage, the environment, the livestock and the producers, among others. “A systems approach takes into consideration all parts of the system and the interconnectedness among those parts,” Chiavegato says. Chiavegato was introduced to the systems approach for fieldwork during her PhD research evaluating two grazing systems. She felt it was the best way of fully evaluating both grazing systems and representing their relative strengths and weaknesses. Now Chiavegato is training students, including Ribeiro and Miquilini, on the systems approach in agricultural fieldwork.

“As a soil scientist I believe that the constant and complex transformation and dynamics of organic and inorganic elements in the soil is driven by many factors and looking only at one single specific process is not enough to understand the whole picture at an ecosystem level,” says Ribeiro, a visiting scholar and third-year PhD student in soil science from Federal University of Parana in Curitiba, Brazil. “This way, applying the systems approach to my research helps me to understand all the interactions between soil, water, plants and atmosphere.”

Ribeiro, as the soil scientist of the group, is examining the effects of flooding on soil carbon sequestration, a process by which carbon is pulled from the atmosphere and stored — which can reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. He is also looking at how flooding affects the soil's other physical and chemical characteristics. “I believe soil health to be the core component of agroecosystems, and the one that when managed well will improve overall ecosystems resilience as well as productivity,” Ribeiro says.

Miquilini is a second-year master's animal science student; her master's project is examining the effect of regular and recurring flooding on grazing and hay pastures. “In my project, a systems approach was necessary to understand the long-term effects of recurring short-term flooding on soil and plant characteristics, that ultimately dictate GHG emissions, C and N contents, and forage quality,” she says. “If we used the traditional research method and simulated flooding in a randomized area, we would not be able to see the effect of flooding on the environment in the long term; we would not be able to generate the same relationships between soil microbial community, soil physical and chemical conditions, GHG emissions, C and N contents and forage characteristics; or provide satisfactory results to address the research questions.”

The advantage of the systems approach, its comprehensiveness, is also its disadvantage, in terms of complexity. Field work using a systems approach requires building teams with a diversity of expertise and approaches. “It usually involves large-scale, long-term research projects, which can be difficult to implement,” Chiavegato says. Specific studies within the overall projects address narrower research questions. “They will all come together to support understanding the effects of flooding on the relationships and interconnectedness between the different ecosystem component parts, such as forages, soil, roots, nutrient flows and management strategies,” she says.

Together, Chiavegato, Ribeiro and Miquilini are determining strategies and practices that will allow grazers and producers to use their lands profitably and sustainability. Since flooding induced by climate change will be a part of the agricultural landscape for the foreseeable future, research such as theirs will help keep producers in business and food on consumers' tables for the long term.