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.

The project, called Data-Advanced Research and Education (DARE), is under the guidance of Principal Investigator Jun Wang, UI’s James E. Ashton Chair of Engineering, departmental executive officer of chemical and biochemical engineering, and the assistant director for the Iowa Technology Institute. 

 “Ag-based communities in the central U.S. are disproportionally affected by climate change,” Wang says. “The DARE project, in partnerships with various state and local stakeholders, will strengthen communities’ resilience and grow the next generation workforce to tackle the impacts of severe weather and climate change.”

Faculty and staff from 10 departments and schools across the UI Colleges of Engineering, Medicine, and Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Graduate College are contributing to the study. 

The NSF funding is part of a $77.8 million national investment in the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), which aims to leverage interdisciplinary research teams across regions to develop climate adaptation and mitigation strategies, expand STEM opportunities, and drive economic growth in disproportionately affected communities nationwide. 

The project team comprises 29 experts from various sectors, and includes the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Arkansas, and Kansas State University. The team’s expertise spans engineering, journalism, urban planning, sociology, medicine, sustainability sciences, agronomy, geosciences, agribusiness, and more