Iowa scientists say climate change threatens state agriculture

Popular Science: At the Iowa Climate Science Educators' Forum last week, a group of more than 150 scientists representing 36 colleges and universities around Iowa released a statement of action concerning future climate change. Calling climate change a "rising challenge to Iowa agriculture," this year's Iowa Climate Statement says that changing weather patterns and an increase in extreme events has put the state's ability to grow food at risk.

The researchers, who gathered at Drake University in Des Moines, note that Iowa has vacillated between two weather extremes over the past few years. The state went from widespread drought in 2011 and 2012 to the wettest spring on record in 2013 and back to drought this summer. Last year, the group's report focused mainly on how climate change makes extreme drought more likely.

Iowa is the nation's top corn and soybean producer, so this state's problems are really every state's problems. Combined, Iowa and Illinois grow about a third of the corn in the U.S. The scientists are calling for individual farms and the USDA to work to make the land more resilient in the face of climate change.

They wrote: Iowa’s soils and agriculture remain our most important economic resources, but these resources are threatened by climate change. It is time for all Iowans to work together to limit future climate change and make Iowa more resilient to extreme weather. Doing so will allow us to pass on to future generations our proud tradition of helping to feed the world.

On an Iowa farm, shot by Steve Evans, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license 

Soil determines fate of phosphorus

Brown University News: Just 20 years ago, the soils of the Amazon basin were thought unsuitable for large-scale agriculture, but then industrial agriculture — and the ability to fertilize on a massive scale — came to the Amazon. What were once the poorest soils in the world now produce crops at a rate that rivals that of global breadbaskets. Soils no longer seem to be the driver — or the limiter — of agricultural productivity. But a new Brown University-led study of three soybean growing regions, including Brazil, finds that soils have taken on a new role: mediating the environmental consequences of modern farming.

The study focuses on the relationship between soils and phosphorus, a key agricultural nutrient. Typically in short supply, particularly in tropical soils, phosphorus is unique among fertilizer requirements. It is finite, irreplaceable and mined in just a few places around the world.

“If that suggests scarcity, which is a concern, the overuse of phosphorus can also pose another problem, causing harmful algal blooms in waterways,” said Stephen Porder, assistant professor of biology in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and co-author of the study in the January 2013 edition of BioScience, posted early online. “It’s a bit of a Goldilocks problem — too much and our waterways are choked with algae, too little and we cannot produce enough food.”

...The new study compares the production of a single crop, soybeans, in the three places they are grown most — Iowa in the United States, Mato Grosso in Brazil, and Buenos Aires in Argentina. What the authors found was an example that illustrates how the combination of management and soil type frames the phosphorus-related concerns associated with these massive agricultural enterprises.

“Here are three regions where the crop that comes off the farm field is the same, but the fertilizer that goes in and the effects of this fertilizer on the environment are very different,” said lead author Shelby Riskin of Brown University and the Marine Biological Laboratory.

 “Having a one-size-fits-all approach to our understanding of interaction between people and their environment via agriculture is going to lead us to some erroneous concerns and conclusions if we don’t take the regional biophysical setting into account,” Porder said. “If you are concerned about the global phosphorus supply, Brazil is your problem — they are using a ton of it. If you are concerned about lakes and rivers being filled with algae, then Iowa is your problem, and learning how to mitigate even very small amounts of loss after decades of overfertilization is a real challenge.”...

Harvesting cotton in Brazil, shot by João Felipe C.S, public domain

Climate change miscalculation endangers Des Moines Riverwalk

David Elbert in the Des Moines Register explains a terrible error that throws a costly piece of new infrastructure into jeopardy. Why, yes, the Army Corps of Engineers was involved, why do you ask?: A little more than a year ago, Des Moines City Manager Rick Clark received a piece of shockingly bad news that is likely to take years and nearly $40 million to fix. The gist of the news was that federal officials had recalculated a worst-case flood on the Des Moines River, and the new numbers showed water in downtown Des Moines was likely to rise nearly two feet higher than previously projected.

The new flood estimates from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers arrived in December 2010, just as the city and Principal Financial Group were ramping up to complete the final phases of the downtown Principal Riverwalk.

The new calculations meant that the flood specifications used in the design of the $70 million riverwalk were no longer valid. It meant that the riverwalk, and several million dollars’ worth of flood protection associated with it, was designed and built based on a worst-case flood that was nearly two feet lower than what the new numbers indicated.

...The new information created a virtual train wreck. The city and Principal had to figure out what to do. The riverwalk was more than 90 percent complete, but it was already several years behind schedule. Should they stop everything until new, higher flood walls could be designed and built? Or should they go ahead and finish the riverwalk while they figured out a Plan B?

There really wasn’t much choice, Clark said. The riverwalk project had to move forward, and it will. Paving of most of the walkway is expected to be completed late this year or early in 2013, and once it is, the riverwalk will formally open. But the work will now take place against a backdrop of uncertainty...

The Des Moines skyline, shot by Des Moines Guy, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

A compact couldn't be worse than the Corps

An editorial in the Bismarck Tribune (North Dakota): The degree to which the Missouri River has been mismanaged became clear when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced it would only reduce the elevation of Lake Sakakawea behind Garrison Dam to 1,837 feet by March 1, 2012. That elevation, slightly below March of this year, means the odds of flooding again next spring remain strong.

Circumstances on the nearly 2,400-mile river -- saturated banks, levees and flood plains, dams near capacity, continued high releases into the fall, ongoing wet weather -- give the corps little choice. Record snow pack, rain events and corps decisions over the years combined to set up this disaster, and now we are nearly out of options in preparing for 2012.

Gov. Jack Dalrymple wants to dump the corps management of the river and replace it with a compact of Missouri River states. Presently, the corps finds itself bound by a congressional act, restrained by Congress, locked in by a master operating manual, pressured by special interests and second-guessed by everyone. Shifting to a compact would be complicated, but not impossible. Once in place, it could be more responsive to the changes by eliminating one or more layers of absentee (Washington) river management.

"It's hard to imagine that it can be worse than it is today. Any compact would establish clearly the priorities of uses," Dalrymple said this week. He's right on that account...

An aerial view of the Garrison Dam in North Dakota, US Army Corps of Engineers photo

Iowa's governor wants to exit the Missouri River Assocation

Wallaces Farmer (Iowa): Iowa Governor Terry Branstad is urging governors in three surrounding states to consider pulling out of a Missouri River Association because of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' long-term management of the river and what he believes is a tendency for the Corps to favor upstream states.

Last week it was announced that Branstad wrote a letter earlier this spring urging the governors of Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska to discuss forming a new group of downstream states. The four states are now members of the Missouri River Association of States and Tribes, which was formed in 2006 to advise federal agencies. The association also includes Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming, and American Indian tribes in the Missouri River Basin.

The Missouri River has flowed from its banks in 2011 and public officials and residents have criticized the Corps of Engineers for its management of the upstream series of reservoirs in the Dakotas. Those reservoirs filled to the brim with water from spring rains and an enormous Rocky Mountain snowpack.

Branstad sent his letter to the other governors in April. That was more than a month before the corps opted to begin massive releases of water from the upstream dams that raised the Missouri River to historic levels and forced residents along the river to erect temporary barriers with sandbags and dikes and levee extensions. In some cases people have had to abandon their homes and farms. A significant amount of farmland along the river has been flooded....

Intersection of I-29 and I-680 by Mormon Bridge in Council Bluffs, Iowa during the 2011 Missouri River floods, shot by the US Army Corps of Engineers

Landsat 5 captures Missouri River Flooding near Omaha

NASA: Landsat 5 captured an image of flooding occurring along the Iowa/Nebraska border on June 30, 2011. Flooding is still occurring on July 6, and Flood Warnings are still in effect from the National Weather Service.

The Landsat 5 image above is an enlargement of the area just north of Omaha. The flood waters show up as very dark blue and, where the water is shallow, medium blue. In the image, the Interstate is cut off by flood waters, just south of Missouri Valley, Iowa, and about 20 miles north of Omaha.

According to Omaha.com, officials from federal, state and local agencies will begin damage assessments from the flooding in the six Iowa counties that line the Missouri River. WOWT-TV reported on July 6 that part of U.S. Highway 30 from Blair to I-29 will be closed today, July 6, until the morning of July 8. The Iowa Department of Transportation closed the road to install a flood barrier.

On July 6, 2011 at 9:39 a.m. CDT, the National Weather Service posted several flood warnings. Flood warnings are in effect for: The Missouri River at Decatur affecting Monona, Burt and Thurston Counties; Missouri River near Blair affecting Harrison and Washington Counties; The Missouri River at Omaha affecting Pottawattamie, Douglas and Sarpy Counties; The Missouri River at Plattsmouth affecting Mills and Cass Counties; the Missouri River at Nebraska City affecting Fremont and Otoe Counties; the Missouri River at Brownville affecting Atchison and Nemaha Counties; and the Missouri River at Rulo affecting Holt and Richardson Counties....

The Landsat 5 image is an enlargement of the area just north of Omaha. The flood waters show up as very dark blue and, where the water is shallow, medium blue. In the image, the Interstate is cut off by flood waters, just south of Missouri Valley, Iowa, and about 20 miles north of Omaha. Credit: USGS/NASA

An Iowa flood study taking shape this fall

Laura Millsaps in the Ames Tribune (Iowa): The city of Ames will partner with Iowa State University, Story County and the Iowa Department of Transportation this fall to study the community’s ability to respond to flooding in the future. At the Ames City Council meeting Tuesday, city staff proposed holding a series of public meetings with affected businesses and homeowners, research experts, emergency responders and surrounding communities, to be followed by meteorological and engineering studies of the area.

The information gathered would be combined to construct flood response and prevention scenarios that could include changes in the city’s building codes, public infrastructure projects and beefed-up disaster-response policies. The City Council first requested the study in September in reaction to flooding in August that had left Story County awash and the city of Ames without clean drinking water for days.

A similar study was launched after flooding in 1993. Completed in 1996, that study suggested widening and straightening stream channels, clearing bridge channels and building upstream reservoirs. However, those projects were considered too costly, and only modifications to the city’s flood plain development standards were implemented.

Assistant City Manager Bob Kindred told the council the new plan was intended to take into consideration all aspects of local flooding, including current and future development, current infrastructure, changing weather patterns, public policy and regulations. “One very important difference from the process we followed, after the floods of 1993, is the addition of the step to assess prediction of future intense rainfall events,” Kindred said....

In Ames, Iowa, Squaw Creek overflows its banks and inundates area businesses. Hundreds of residents were evacuated from their homes and were forced to boil their drinking water. Jace Anderson/FEMA

500 residents of Iowa town homeless

John Pape in Disaster News Network: The mayor of Mapleton, Iowa, said more than half of his city sustained some degree of damage after a tornado tore through the southwestern part of the small community Saturday evening. On Sunday, the National Weather Service confirmed the damage was caused by an EF-3 tornado.

Mayor Fred Standa said he estimated 60 percent of the town sustained damage, and at least 20 percent of the community of 1,200 people was “completely flat.” More than 100 homes are reported to be seriously damaged. Mapleton is near the Iowa – Nebraska state line, about 40 miles southeast of Sioux City.

Moana County Sheriff Jeff Pratt said 12 – 15 blocks of Mapleton were “completely destroyed,” and 500-600 residents were left homeless. Despite the widespread damage, only a few minor injuries were reported, none of them life-threatening. The most serious injury reported was a broken leg. That person was taken to an area hospital for treatment.

A tornado warning was sounded about 10 minutes before the storm hit, giving residents the time needed to seek shelter. The aftermath ranged from trees and power poles uprooted to complete devastation, with piles of debris marking where homes once stood.

…The storm also damaged local utilities, including natural gas service. The smell of gas permeated much of the city immediately following the storm, prompting Standa and other local officials to call out the Iowa National Guard to block off most of the city. That blockade was lifted Sunday morning after the gas supply was shut off….

This map shows the incorporated and unincorporated areas in Monona County, Iowa, highlighting Mapleton in red. By Arkyan, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Iowa must change with the climate

An editorial in the Des Moines Register: Experts from all three state universities and several state agencies spent a year and a half examining climate data for Iowa going back to the 1870s. They submitted a report to the Legislature this month that makes this simple point: Climate change has already happened in Iowa. It's not a matter of computer models predicting climate change in the future. It's a matter of real measurements showing real change already.

So the question isn't whether climate change is happening. The question is, what are Iowans going to do about it? The facile answer is: nothing. Iowa can't put its climate back the way it was. But while Iowans can't change the climate, they can try to adapt intelligently to the new climate.

That's where the Legislature comes in. Bound up in tough fiscal and ideological issues, lawmakers this year might not be inclined to come to grips with adapting to climate change. But for the long-term well-being of the state, there is probably nothing more important.

In particular, the state must begin shaping policies around the reality of increased flooding, soil erosion, pollution and stream degradation. Unless the process of adaptation begins soon, Iowa faces a future in which its cities are perpetually recovering from floods and its farms are annually losing topsoil faster than it can be restored. That's a future of decline and chronic disaster.

The report, "Climate Change Impacts on Iowa 2010," documents that Iowa is, on average, slightly warmer than it used to be. The growing season is a few days longer, and winter heating-degree days are less numerous…

Cedar Falls, Iowa, June 11, 2008 -- This stairway goes down into the Cedar River which rose to a record high of 102 feet, endangering the town. Photo by Patsy Lynch/FEMA

Floods might become the norm for southeast Iowa

Heartland Connection: Flooded rivers may be something Southeast Iowans are just going to have to get used to. That is if a report by the Iowa Climate Change Advisory Council turns out to be accurate. The council, consisting of top Iowa scientists and economic development specialists, spent the last 18 months studying the issue of climate change in the state and recently released its findings.

The report claims that Iowans are already facing the effects of climate change. Some might seem pleasant like warmer winters or backyard plants flowering sooner. But some are more troubling like the long term trend toward more rain, particularly the extremely heavy summer rains like those that tormented the Hearltand last summer….

Iowa City, IA, June 16, 2008 -- Danforth Chapel on the grounds of the University of Iowa is surrounded by floodwaters from the Iowa River. Shot from FEMA

Report suggests increase in severe weather for Iowa

James Pusey in the Ames Tribune (Iowa): Severe flooding, heat waves and storms could become increasingly common in Iowa due to the effects of global warming, according to a recent report. The report, titled “Global Warming and Extreme Weather: The Science, the Forecast and the Impacts on America,” was released by Environment Iowa, a citizen-based environmental advocacy group.

The report highlights several recent extreme weather incidences, including the 2008 floods that caused between $8 billion and $10 billion in damage in Iowa. Jessica Buchberger, field associate for Environment Iowa, said the report should be a call to action to cut down on emissions of greenhouse gases. “Given that unchecked global warming will likely fuel even more severe weather, we need to start cutting global warming pollution now,” Buchberger said.

Scientists at Iowa State University said there is evidence to support the report’s findings, although there are other factors that contribute to the trend of increasing severe weather. Gene Takle, a climate scientist at Iowa State University, said these other factors include irrigation and crop-planting practices. “Irrigation throughout the Great Plains, from the Dakotas all the way to Texas, has led to a tremendous amount of water that’s been mined and put into the atmosphere,” Takle said.

There also has been an increase in corn plants per acre over the last 50 years, Takle said, pulling more water from the soil and evaporating it to the atmosphere. Today’s farmers are planting up to 35,000 corn plants per acre, he said, whereas 50 years ago they planted about 15,000 per acre.

Climate change compounds the problem, he said, because the warmer that atmosphere is, the more water it can hold. This means when water is released from the atmosphere, it is released in higher quantities. In other words, when it rains, it pours….

Ames, IA, August 11, 2010 -- Duff Avenue is impassable as the waters of the Squaw Creek flood Ames businesses. Record flooding swamped the city after back-to-back-to-back storms. Jace Anderson/FEMA

Data suggests Iowa really is getting wetter

Orlan Love for KCRG (Iowa): Muddy rivers, moldy classrooms, swarming mosquitoes, blighted tomatoes and effulgent quack grass will be mere annoyances in Iowa’s new era of serial cloudbursts.

Unless Iowans adjust dramatically to more extreme precipitation and flooding, they can expect more swamped crops, failed dams, sub­merged cities and monolithic public institutions turned into indoor swim­ming pools, said Gov. Chet Culver, who recently dubbed the chronically wet conditions plaguing Iowa as ‘the new normal.’ It’s an assessment shared by other public officials and Iowa climate scientists. ‘It’s just something we are going to have to deal with, and we’d better adjust in all ways that we can," Culver said earlier this month, following the Maquoketa River dam failure that drained Lake Delhi.

"We need to face reality," said Kamyar En­shayan, director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Education at the University of Northern Iowa and a member of the Cedar Falls City Council. "There is significant, solid evidence that Iowa is experiencing a new normal in precipitation and flooding."

Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett, who is leading an effort to secure funding for flood-wall protection on both sides of the Cedar River, said he believes the research and evidence support increased precipitation causing more frequent and severe flooding. "My worst fear," he said, "is the kind of heavy, prolonged downpours that we have experienced in recent summers happening in the spring when the rivers are already full of snowmelt."…

A 2008 flood in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Shot by Matt Herzberger, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Iowans reel from new flooding

James Pape in Disaster News Network: Residents across large portions of central and southeastern Iowa have begun the clean-up process in the wake of record flooding following three days of torrential rainfall. Flood waters drove hundreds from their homes in the Ames and Des Moines areas and left one teenager dead after the car she was riding in was washed from a rural road.

…In the state capital of Des Moines, flood-prone Four Mile Creek rose to more than 16 feet on Wednesday, some 4 feet above flood level, driving hundreds of people from their homes. By Friday, waters had receded to 7 feet, and crews were going into flooded areas to assess the damage, according to Jon Davis with Polk County Emergency Management.

“The crews are continuing to assess the safety of the flooded homes and apartments so we can give the green light to residents to return home and begin the clean-up,” Davis said. “We first need to make certain there is no structural damage or other health or safety issues that would put them at risk if they return.”

…Just north of Des Moines, crews in the city of Ames were spending the weekend getting the community’s drinking water system back on line following a major water line break that happened during the height of the flooding. John Dunn, the city’s water and pollution control director, said crews had been working literally around the clock to repair the break and purge the city’s water system of any potential pollutants.

…At the height of the flooding in Ames, Squaw Creek rose to a near-record level of 18.13 feet. The record is 18.5 feet. The South Skunk River, which runs along the eastern edge of the city, reached an all-time record flood level of 26.72 feet, eclipsing the old record of 25.6 feet. By midday Saturday, both the South Skunk River and Squaw Creek were back within their banks…

August 11, 2010 -- Duff Avenue in Ames, Iowa, is impassable as the waters of the Squaw Creek flood local businesses. Record flooding swamped the city after back-to-back-to-back storms. Jace Anderson/FEMA

Western U.S. Midwest gets soaked, Iowa soaked

Reuters: The worst flooding in nearly 20 years was pounding parts of Iowa on Wednesday, washing cars off roadways and forcing hundreds of people to flee their homes. Highways were closed and crops were drowning in farm fields following days of heavy downpours that left the state facing conditions that officials said could rival the historic flooding seen throughout the Midwest in 1993.

The central part of Iowa was hit particularly hard as nearly four inches of rain fell in the past day on top of more than seven inches since the weekend in that area. Iowa State University in Ames was forced to cancel football practice as high waters overtook the school and players rushed to help stack sandbags around buildings on campus.

The flooding has caused state transportation officials to close state and U.S. highways and the American Red Cross said Wednesday it was opening shelters in the area to help those having to flee homes hit by flooding….

Man watching an Iowa flood in 2008, shot by Patsy Lynch of FEMA, Wikimedia Commons

Skunk River floods 200 Iowa homes

Adam Belz in the Des Moines Register: The South Skunk River topped the levee at Colfax early Wednesday, inundating neighborhoods on the town's west side, covering streets and parks, and threatening many businesses. More than 200 homes were flooded, Mayor David Mast said.

Boats floated down streets and trailers loaded with sandbags or furniture rumbled through town throughout the day. The worst may be yet to come, officials said. The flood set a record in the town 30 miles downstream from Ames. The previous record was 21.5 feet, set in 1993. The crest Wednesday was 22.5 feet. While the water level dropped 6 inches from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., the National Weather Service predicted a crest of 24 feet by Friday morning.

"Whatever Ames gets, we get 24 hours later," said Pam Weigle, owner of Georgio's, a pizza place surrounded by sandbags a few feet from the floodwater in downtown Colfax. Mast said water pushed over the top of the levee along the west and north side of town about 3 a.m. Wednesday. Neighborhoods near the athletic fields quickly flooded….

A scene in Colfax, Iowa, shot by Billwhittaker, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Iowa's governor asks feds for flood management reviews

Jason Pulliam in the Chicago Tribune via the Des Moines Register: Gov. Chet Culver has asked federal leaders to examine changes to flood management plans at Iowa's four reservoirs, reviews that could cost $8 million. Some of the operating plans for the reservoirs -- Saylorville, Coralville, Red Rock and Rathbun lakes -- have not seen major changes for decades.

…The reviews will include hydraulic, land-use, environmental and various other reviews to determine the impacts of possible changes. "You have to look at every single impact of what changes would cause -- socially, environmentally and economically," Fournier said.

"If the decision is made to either hold back or let out more water in a particular reservoir and flood more people, the government has to come up with the funding to be able to purchase those lands or those easements before you can actually implement those changes. That could be another long, drawn-out process. It all depends on how full-blown it goes."

Earlier this month, Corps officials said they wanted to examine Saylorville Lake's decades-old floodwater management plan. Des Moines officials said a review should include considering whether the reservoir should be enlarged.

The last major updates in the 33-year-old Saylorville reservoir's management plan came in the 1980s. The Corps' Rock Island district manages Saylorville, Coralville and Red Rock. Rathbun is managed by the Corps' Kansas City district. The Corps frequently faces public criticism for not releasing more water sooner from Saylorville….

Red Rock Dam and Lake, also known as Red Rock Reservoir, on the Des Moines River in Marion County, Iowa. Photo by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Iowa dam collapses as flooding hits state

John Pape in Disaster News Network: After days of torrential rains and a record flood crest on the Maquoketa River, the Delhi Dam in eastern Iowa failed around midday on Saturday, sending water crashing into the nearby town of Hopkinton. Authorities immediately began evacuations and emergency flood control activities in communities downstream from the breach.

Iowa Gov. Chet Culver was in Monticello, one of the threatened communities, and immediately activated the Iowa National Guard to assist in evacuation and rescue operations. Jim Flansburg, Culver’s communications director, called the collapse “catastrophic,” saying the torrential rains experienced throughout northeast Iowa simply overwhelmed the dam.

“The rainfall has been massive; there’s been between 9 – 10 inches in the last 12 hours alone, and that was too much pressure on the dam,” Flansburg said. Delaware County authorities began monitoring the dam closely Saturday morning, warning residents to leave the area as early as daybreak.

At around 1 p.m., water eroded the earthen approach road on the south side of the dam’s center concrete spillway structure, sending water crashing 40 feet down into the downstream portion of the Maquoketa River…

A farm in the vicinity of Hopkinton, Iowa, near the collapsed Delhi Dam, shot by Ajasondunlap, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License