ABSTRACT 9711628 Weiss, et al This project on methods and models for integrated assessment combines enhancement of scientific components. The former category will address modeling ecosystem function, value, and adaptive behavior while the latter category will address economic feedback mechanisms throughout the agricultural economy. Quality as well as quantity are major components of the wheat agroecosystem. Evaluating future hard winter wheat ecosystems in terms of quantity alone is not adequate, quality must also be considered. Thus, the following objectives have been identified: To quantitatively evaluate hard winter wheat quantity and quality responses to climate change scenarios in the Great Plains; to quantitatively determine the economic impact of climate change scenarios on future hard winter wheat ecosystems in the Great Plains. An end-use quality submodel based on the translocation of nitrogen to the grain will be modified to include protein quality, in terms of gliadin and glutenin concentrations and dough mixing properties. Validation of this submodel will be based on detailed field experiments existing data sets, and laboratory analyses of protein content and dough mixing properties. This submodel will be incorporated into an existing wheat growth, development, and yield model which will be validated from existing data sets at selected locations in the Great Plains. Using generated weather data sets representative of different climate change scenarios, quantity and quality reponses of different wheat cultivars will be evaluated. These outputs will be used as inputs to the economics analysis. An integrated assessment of the economic impact from projected climate change on winter wheat ecosystems requires the inclusion of both wheat quality and quantity impacts in the region. The analysis uses equilibria-imposed feedback mechanisms to analyze how projected climate changes impact wheat and other agricultural output and input sectors in the Great Plains as well as other regions. The overall approach models the resource and output substitution phenomena which regularly operate in the economic adjustment process in an economy.
