About Ag-Dec
The US Agricultural Decarbonization Network (Ag-Dec) is a grass-roots effort connecting over 30 researchers through ten federally-funded projects. The common goal of said projects is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase soil carbon sequestration in US agricultural systems. With a focus on developing advanced and scalable Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) solutions via geospatial data, AI-based model-data fusion, knowledge-guided machine learning, and digital twins, Ag-Dec is at the forefront of quantifying agricultural carbon outcomes.
Formality and Structure
The Ag-Dec network an informal and relatively young network (~4 years) that emerged from collaborations among several funded projects focusing on climate-smart agriculture. There are four working groups inside Ag-Dec:
- Midwest Agricultural Systems
- Rice Systems and CH4
- N2O Net, focused on agricultural N2O emissions
- Digital Twin, focusing on building digital replicates for plants and soil systems
Major Funded Projects
Projects cover major agricultural systems in the US, including corn-soybean systems in the Midwest, wheat systems in the Great Plains, and paddy rice systems in the Mississippi Delta region:
- DOE ARPA-E SMARTFARM (2)
- NASA Carbon Monitoring System (3)
- USDA NIFA (2)
- NSF (3)
Funder (Number of Projects)
Members
More than 30 researchers across 13 universities/institutes are involved. The current Ag-Dec network includes the following Principle-Investigator-level scientists across the nation:
| Scientist(s) | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Kaiyu Guan, Bin Peng, Evan DeLucia, Shenlong Wang, Wendy Yang | UIUC |
| Ben Runkle | University of Arkansas |
| Kim Novick, Lixin Wang | Indiana University |
| Licheng Liu, Zhenong Jin | University of Minnesota |
| Lisa Ainsworth, Carl Bernacchi | USDA ARS |
| Brian Bailey | UC Davis |
| Xiaopeng Song | University of Maryland |
| Zutao Ouyang | Auburn University |
| Jinyun Tang | DOE LBNL |
| Kang Sun | University of Buffalo |
| Min Chen | University of Wisconsin |
| Xi Yang | University of Virginia |
| Xiangtao Xu | Cornell University |
