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Christopher Kucharik

University of Wisconsin
457 Agronomy - Moore Hall
1575 Linden Dr.
Madison, WI 53706
kucharik@wisc.edu
(608) 890-3021
http://www.sage.wisc.edu/people/kucharik/kucharik.html

Research Projects

Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts WICCI

WICCI represents a unique and innovative process to develop a statewide climate change adaptation strategy. WICCI has formed through a non-bureaucratic, bottom-up approach to engage scientists, researchers and management agencies in understanding the impacts of climate change on communities and natural resources across the state, and to develop strategies to make them more resilient to climate change.

Climate Change, Shifting Land Use, and Urbanization in a Midwestern Agricultural Landscape: Challenges for Water Quality and Quantity

The cycling of water between the atmosphere, ecosystems, and humans is a growing concern in urbanizing agricultural watersheds where changing climate, human demands, agricultural practices, land use and other policies interact. How will the benefits we receive from our diverse landscapes be sustained as climate, land use, cities, and human demands change? We will address this question using integrated scenarios, model experiments to assess effects of changing drivers on human benefits derived from ecosystems, evaluations of governance, public engagement, and information management. Our focus is the Yahara Watershed of Wisconsin, which is an exemplar of water-related issues in the Upper Midwest. We will address three specific questions.

Modeling the Impact of a Changing Climate and Land Management on Vegetation

My research is generally concerned with understanding the impacts of changing environmental conditions on natural and managed vegetation ecosystems. To perform my research I use a dynamic global vegetation model which simulates ecosystem processes such as carbon, water and energy cycling at both large and small spatial scales. Future work as a PhD student will investigate the impact of land management as well as changing climate on landscapes within the Yahara Watershed. Other general interests include the relationship between climate and vegetation and the role of computer modeling within environmental science.

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Recent Publications

Kucharik CJ, Serbin SP, Vavrus S, Hopkins EJ, Motew MM.  2010.  Patterns of climate change across Wisconsin from 1950 to 2006. Physical Geography. 31:1–28.
Vano JA, Foley JA, Kucharik CJ, Coe MT.  2008.  Controls of climatic variability and land cover on land surface hydrology of northern Wisconsin, USA. Journal of Geophysical Research. 113
Vano JA, Foley JA, Kucharik CJ, Coe MT.  2006.  Evaluating the seasonal and interannual variations in water balance in northern Wisconsin using a land surface model. Journal of Geophysical Research. 111
Foley JA, DeFries R, Asner GP, Barford C, Bonan G, Carpenter S, Chapin SF, Coe MT, Daily GC, Gibbs HK et al..  2005.  Global consequences of land use. Science. 309:570-574.
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