Handbook of Climate Change and Agroecosystems - Climate Change and Farming System Planning in Africa and South Asia: Agmip Stakeholder-Driven Research

This two-part handbook focuses on the work that the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) accomplished using a new method ― the AgMIP Regional Integrated Assessment Protocol ― in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and South Asia (SA), with funding from the UK Department for International Development. Through this research, AgMIP substantially improves the characterization and understanding of food security in SSA and SA and how its affected by climate variability and change.

The chapters in this handbook demonstrate how AgMIP has enhanced the capacity of developing country researchers and stakeholders to work together, exploring and prioritizing adaptation to current and future climate stresses. Part 1 describes regional integrated assessment methods and analyses, while Part 2 presents the outcomes of farming system studies. The entire volume shows how AgMIP has established, as a public good, protocols for Regional Integrated Assessments that improve the capability of developing countries to address climate change challenges.

Cynthia Rosenzweig is a leader in the field of climate change impacts. She is an adjunct senior research scientist at Columbia University’s Center for Climate Systems Research and a Professor in the Department of Environmental Science at Barnard College. She is also a senior research scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, where she heads the Climate Impacts Group. She is the co-founder of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP), a major international collaboration to improve global agricultural modeling, understand climate impacts on the agricultural sector, and enhance adaptation capacity in developing and developed countries. She is now spearheading the AgMIP coordinated global and regional assessments of effects of climate change on the food system, including effects on nutrition. She was a coordinating lead author of the food security chapter for the IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land. She was named as one of Nature’s ‘Ten People Who Mattered in 2012’. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, she joins impact models with climate models to project future outcomes under altered climate conditions.

Carolyn Mutter is a senior staff officer of research at Columbia University's Center for Climate Systems Research. She regularly serves as Principal Investigator for Columbia grants and awards in support of AgMIP research and network building activities. This includes partner visits to facilitate collaborative planning and proposals for work packages involving AgMIP teams nationally and internationally, as well as contributions to research publications, including through role of co-editor for AgMIP Research volumes. She also heads the AgMIP Coordination Unit team, facilitating activities of the AgMIP Steering Council, Executive Committee, and Leaders Forum in support of a diverse membership of over 1000 scientists worldwide; providing oversight of budget and staff, web development, updates, and blogs to increase visibility and awareness of, as well as access to results; and, the convening of regular high level global and regional workshops that enable AgMIP members to advance research collaborations including protocols for comparing and improving models.

Erik Mencos Contreras is a staff officer of research at Columbia University's Center for Climate Systems Research. He serves as member of the AgMIP Coordination Unit. He assists AgMIP research output by supporting the writing and editing of multi-author, peer-reviewed papers, as well as white papers, concept notes, and reports. He was a contributing author and chapter scientist of the food security chapter in the IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land. He supports AgMIP by working collaboratively with program managers, researchers, Columbia University finance officers, and sponsor agency officials on the overall research coordination and financial management of the program. He also supports the organization and execution of multi-disciplinary international workshops and meetings, which bring together the community of AgMIP researchers from all around the world to share cutting edge methods and findings, identify key science messages, and plan future initiatives.