Climate risk

by Alexa Jay and James Hansen

Our research theme, Adaptation through managing climate risk, is leading efforts to build the resilience of agriculture and food systems to a variable and changing climate. From the field level to government policy, efforts to reduce the impacts of climate risk on food security depend increasingly on information and knowledge. Improving climate-related information and connecting it to those who need it is a vital part of our work. 

In an increasingly uncertain climate, climate information and advisory services can help farmers better manage risk and take advantage of favorable climate conditions. Climate services are receiving increasing attention among development organizations as a way to support climate change adaptation and immediate development goals. Read more »

by Arame Tall

”If we are to be successful in going from research to practice, it is important to keep farmers at the centre. This ranges from the design and delivery, to the evaluation of the participatory project.” This said climate scientist Arame Tall at a recently held side event at the Conference on Climate Smart Agriculture in Davis, California. 

The session discussed ways to increase the likelihood that research will influence changes in policies, institutions and technologies. Read more about the session on the theme "Linking knowledge with Action" in our first blog story ”Turning research into actions that matter.”

This story continues on the same topic, further investigating key aspects of research projects that will increase the likelihood that the research we conduct is transformed into actions on the ground. Read more »

By Alexa Jay

We know that smallholder farmers in the developing world are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate fluctuations and weather extremes. In the face of a more uncertain climate, effective climate information and advisory services have great potential to help farmers make decisions regarding their farms. Climate information also offer potential to improve the management of climate-related risk within an agricultural context and help farmers adapt to change.

Climate services for agriculture and other sectors are receiving increasing attention globally. As a sponsoring partner of the Climate Services Partnership (CSP), our research theme Adapting through managing climate risk is playing a key role in making climate information services work better for smallholder farmers.

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by Wilco Terink, Futurewater

Crop growth models play a major role in sustaining the world-wide food security. These models are used to simulate crop growth during the growing season, and the final crop yield at the end of the growing season, given the farmers’ management practices. At a more strategic level, these crop growth models play an important role to decision makers to take timely decisions regarding food import and export strategies.

The simulation accuracy of crop growth models relies on the quality of the input data. Since crop yield forecasting applications are often applied over large areas that rely on a spatially distributed crop growth model, the uncertainty in the spatial variation of the input data increases. Read more »