With population growth and affects from climate change the demand for water is increasing, thus finding viable ways to reduce water use is essential. In irrigation dependent regions, the need to reduce water use is important because as the population grows, stress on freshwater sources will increase. This research will determine if a reduction of water pumping due to technology has occurred. We hypothesize that if technology is introduced then there will be less applied irrigation while not affecting crop yield. I worked with the Central Nebraska Irrigation Project lead by the Nebraska chapter of The Nature Conservancy, to find if pumping reduction occurred due to technology being introduced. The Central Nebraska Irrigation Project is a project designed to find ways to increase water sustainability. The technologies introduced were soil moisture probes, center pivot telemetry, an Arable Mark 2 Weather Station, and a flow meter to view irrigation data. Farmers were given technology and trained to use it while control groups had none. In 2018, 2019, and 2020 there were 210.8acre*ft, 442.4 acre*ft, and 701.6 acre*ft of water pumping reduction respectively. (p=.19 for 2018). (p=.27 for 2019). (p=.22 for 2020). (p= .07 for all three years combined). A reduction in water pumping was seen across all three years. While the p-value of the water savings was not significant, there would likely be significant results had the funding for the project allowed for a larger sample size. There is also likely a time lag for the behavior of participants to change.

Understanding how stream flow in rivers across Michigan is responding to climate change is important because they are used for hydroelectricity, recreation, fisheries, and many people own property along them. Michigan’s annual rainfall has increased by 3 inches since 1940 and is expected to increase by 0.036 inches/year through the 21st century due to climate change. In this study, I test the hypothesis that increased rainfall will lead to more-frequent flooding along Michigan’s rivers. I do so by analyzing river discharge data and flow-duration curves from a stream gaging station on the Pere Marquette River, the largest undammed river in Michigan. Results from this study show that the discharge on the Pere Marquette River was ≥1,643 cfs for 27 days and increased 6-fold to 164 days in the 1990s and 2000s. It is likely that other natural rivers in Michigan might also show increases in the historical 1.5 year discharge associated with them and that discharge with the 1% exceedance probability might also increase.

Climate change is a significant issue that can be attributed to high carbon emissions to the atmosphere. Previous research has identified soil as a potential sink in which we can sequester carbon in order to improve climate change mitigation. Adding compost to cropland is a practice that can encourage carbon sequestration by increasing the amount of organic carbon present in soil. However, Arizona farmers have found that most compost added at the start of the growing season has decomposed by the end of the season. Therefore, in order to improve soil carbon sequestration and the soil health of arid croplands, preventing the rapid decomposition of compost is necessary. The present study examines how adding various amendments to pre-prepared compost affects the decomposition rate of compost. The extracellular polymeric substances xanthan gum and beta-glucans were chosen to examine the potential of adding microbial biomass to compost to improve organic matter stability in soil. Additionally, clays in the form of vermiculite and zeolite were chosen to increase surface interactions between organic matter and minerals. These substances were added in varying amounts to compost obtained from a local composting company and left to incubate for 1, 2, 3 and 7 days. The CO2 produced by the incubation trails was measured using the Li-Cor 840A CO2/H2O analyzer to determine decomposition rates. Further research will entail extending the incubation trials for long-term results to determine recommendations for Arizona farmers.