Climate change and agriculture

Nutrient and water resources

Food security and development

Crop monitoring and yields

Research in the Mueller Lab is focused on agriculture in the Earth System. We study both how agriculture drives global environmental change and how environmental change influences agricultural systems. Our work characterizes relevant biophysical processes, explores the environmental impacts of land management strategies, and reveals linkages between agricultural systems and food security. Ultimately, our goal is to produce science that informs a more sustainable and food secure world.

Lab News

6/2019 - Our new paper in Nature Sustainability, led by postdoctoral scholar Yue Qin, reconstructs the global history of major water uses to map global water stress and reveal targeted opportunities to reduce global water use intensities.

12/2018 - Our new paper in PNAS describes farmer adaptation to "peculiarly pleasant" climate trends we previously identified in the US Midwest. Press: How US Corn Farmers Adapted to Climate Change.

10/2018 – Our new analysis in Nature Plants on climate extremes, barley, and beer got some major press. Favorites: Trevor Noah and Stephen Colbert!

8/2018 – Welcome to postdoctoral scholar Lindsey Sloat! Lindsey is researching global cropland expansion in the context of climate change. Check out Lindsey's recent paper on precipitation variability across global pasturelands.

1/2018 – Welcome to postdoctoral scholar Yue Qin! Yue is researching the inertia of global water demand and the vulnerability of agriculture to future changes in snowfall, co-advised by Profs. Mueller and Davis.

8/2017 – New analysis on the global relationships between agricultural land use change and extreme temperatures is out in Journal of Climate.

3/2017 – Nathan's new paper on the spatial efficiency of global nitrogen use is featured in Nature News and Views! (Nature article, original research article in Global Biogeochemical Cycles)