The economy of this risk, as noted by a 2011 global risk report, is manifested by global projections for a 50% increase in food demand, 30% increase in water demand, and 40% increase in energy…

This is a $436,786.01 grant for research awarded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Shared Services Center to the University of Georgia Research Foundation, Inc. The grant is part of NASA's Precipitation Measurement Missions (PMM) program and will fund research on the energy-water-food nexus in the context of urbanization. The research aims to develop precipitation-based metrics and frameworks for analyzing the implications of urban agriculture on water and energy demand, as well as the resilience of urban agriculture to hydroclimatic variability. The grant does not have a set-aside designation, and the research builds upon the prime contractor's extensive experience in executing federal awards for various government agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Department of Defense.

The economy of this risk, as noted by a 2011 global risk report, is manifested by global projections for a 50% increase in food demand, 30% increase in water demand, and 40% increase in energy demand by 2030. Such demands are, in part, driven by urbanization and population increases. The PMM has funded a coordinated research effort over the past decade to explore connections between urbanization and precipitation. We now turn our attention to the energy-water-food nexus (ewfn). Tomas ET AL. (2015) note that the many frameworks have been used to study the ewfn, however, we find very little attention to the hydroclimate implications and interactions. Herein, we approach ewfn from the perspective of NASA PMM program. Our motivation is to link PMM data and other NASA data to support the ewfn nexus related to urban transitions related to agriculture. Our precipitation-based framework seeks to address the following research questions in 3 broad topical areas: metrics for precipitation within the ewfn framework 1. Can precipitation per capita or per individual be quantified and used as a variable in the assessment of the ewfn capacities and vulnerabilities? Ecosystem services and water 2. What are the implications of transition of cities to urban agriculture on water and energy demand in cities? 3. How will addition of urban agriculture and irrigation affect urban microclimate and regional precipitation patterns? 4. How resilient is urban agriculture to hydroclimate variability and extreme events? Urban-agricultural interactions 5. Can PMM data augment NOAA-NASA efforts to evaluate and manage urban/suburban water resources and impacts on agriculture? 6. How can NASA precipitation data be used as part of a global urban agriculture management toolset? Data and methodology: we propose to use the new GPM-based imerg blended, global precipitation product to developed global precipitation indices as a function of several societal indicators our goals are to develop indices that can be used to diagnose trends in precipitation stress and how that manifests as water stress. Our precipitation productivity measures will be derived as a function of population, urban land cover, and agricultural land. We also build upon team member burian ET ALS (2015) PMM-based analysis of ecosystems services and rainwater harvesting in india with the explicit goal of advancing our understanding of the urban-agriculture complexity and demands for water. We will build on the trmm MPA-based analysis with imerg and for other relevant study regions. Daily gross primary production (GPP) and annual net primary production (NPP) at the 1 KM spatial resolution are now produced operationally for the global terrestrial surface using modis. In addition, satellite observations of atmospheric and land surface temperatures, humidity sounding, together with PMM rainfall data, will be used to first identify the urban impact on agriculture GPP and NPP and then to develop new schemes for the current weather forecasting model coupled with land schemes (noah model) to simulate such impact. We will build upon ongoing team partnerships with the NOAA ncep land modeling team on improving the GFS noah urban scheme to enhance urban simulations. We will incorporate rain and snow information from the PMM program, coupled with with NOAA operational efforts, will help predict, evaluate and manage urban/suburban wateragriculture resources. Our research is most closely aligned with element 2.2 and 2.3, respectively, of the PMM science team RFP. Our project has elements clearly aimed at improvement of land surface models and development of applications related to agriculture, water availability, and food supply (as detailed at http://PMM.NASA.GOV/applications). Our team also has over a decade of experience working within the PMM team framework, science teams, and programmatic expectations.