IOWA: UI spearheads $6M multistate NSF grant to help Midwest agricultural communities better manage extreme weather

The University of Iowa has been awarded a $6 million, four-year National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to lead a multistate collaboration with universities, local governments, health care providers, and other experts on a project that will help Midwest agricultural communities grappling with effects of severe weather, such as floods, droughts, and heat waves.

A network of small, low-cost sensors invented by UI researchers will be placed in local fields and neighborhoods across Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Arkansas to gather measurements of soil temperature and moisture, air temperature, relative humidity and surface pressure, and other weather and soil data points. These measurements will be used to produce model forecasts of weather that will be delivered in real time to individuals in ag-communities via phone apps and interactive on-demand virtual systems.

Through local partnerships and data training, the hyper localized forecasts will help individuals and communities in a variety of ways:

• Manage water usage and agricultural field operations.
• Recognize when and where environmental factors such as heat waves or smoke from wildfire are harmful to health.
• Strategically use resources to mitigate heat stress, such as by building greenspaces.
• Grow the local workforce by instilling technical skills and demand for data analytics, operation of unmanned arial vehicles, irrigation systems, and elements of precision agriculture intended to create more economically resilient communities.

“This significant NSF award underscores the University of Iowa’s role in creating engineering solutions to address critical issues facing our rural communities. Through collaborations such as these we can continue to raise the bar in transformative research, benefiting all Iowans,” says Ann McKenna, dean of the UI College of Engineering.