David Lobell

Benjamin M. Page Professor, William Wrigley Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute, at the Woods Institute for the Environment and at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research

Bio

David Lobell is the Benjamin M. Page Professor at Stanford University in the Department of Earth System Science and the Gloria and Richard Kushel Director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment. He is also the William Wrigley Senior Fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy and Research (SIEPR). His research focuses on agriculture and food security, specifically on generating and using unique datasets to study rural areas throughout the world. He has been recognized with the Macelwane Medal from the American Geophysical Union (2010), a Macarthur Fellowship (2013), a McMaster Fellowship from CSIRO (2014), and the National Academy of Science Prize in Food and Agriculture Sciences (2022). He also served in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report as lead author for the food chapter and core writing team member for the Summary for Policymakers.

Prior to his Stanford appointment, Dr. Lobell was a Lawrence Post-doctoral Fellow at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory from 2005-2007. He received a PhD in Geological and Environmental Sciences from Stanford University in 2005, and a Sc.B. in Applied Mathematics, Magna Cum Laude from Brown University in 2000.

Academic Appointments

Professor, Earth System Science
Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Senior Fellow, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
Senior Fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR)
Affiliate, Precourt Institute for Energy

Administrative Appointments

Lawrence Postdoctoral Fellow, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (2005 - 2007)
Senior Research Scholar, Program on Food Security and the Environment, Stanford University (2008 - 2009)
Senior Fellow, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University (2009 - Present)
Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University (2009 - Present)
Center Fellow, Center on Food Security and the Environment, Stanford University (2009 - Present)
Associate Director, Center on Food Security and the Environment, Stanford University (2012 - 2014)
Deputy Director, Center on Food Security and the Environment, Stanford University (2014 - Present)
Assistant Professor, Environmental Earth System Science, Stanford University (2009 - Present)

Honors & Awards

NAS Food and Agriculture Prize, National Academy of Sciences (2022)
Outstanding Student Paper Award, American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting (1999)
Honorary Doctorate, Brown University (2021)
Graduate Research Fellowship, NSF (2000-2004)
Carbon, Climate and Society Initiative Fellowship, NSF Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (2001-2002)
Best of Session Award, ERIM Conference on Geospatial Information in Agriculture and Forestry (2001)
Graduate Student Fellowship, EPA Science to Achieve Results (2004)
Graduate Student Fellowship, NASA Earth System Science (2004)
Lawrence Fellowship, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (2005-2008)
NASA New Investigator Program Award, NASA (2008-2011)
Google Science Communication Fellow, Google (2010)
James B. Macelwane Medal, American Geophysical Union (2010)
Terman Fellow, Stanford University (2011-2014)
Macarthur Fellow, Macarthur Foundation (2014-2018)
Sir Frederick McMaster Fellowship, CSIRO, Australia (2014)

Boards, Advisory Committees, Professional Organizations

Advisor, Global Commission on Adaptation (2018 - Present)
Editorial Advisory Board Member, Global Food Security (2012 - Present)
Core Writing Team Member, IPCC Working Group 2 Summary for Policy Makers (2012 - 2014)
Editor, Global Change Biology (2011 - Present)
Woodrow Wilson Fellowship selection committee, School of Education, Stanford University (2011 - 2013)
Committee on Assessing the Impact of Climate Change on Political and Social Stresses, Member of National Academy of Sciences (2011 - 2012)
Member of Technical Advisory and Review Panel, World Bank Group activities related to climate change adaptation (2011 - 2012)
Advisory committee for Haas center, Stanford University (2010 - Present)
Fellow, American Geophysical Union (2010 - Present)
Freshman Advisor, Stanford University (2010 - Present)
Lead Author, IPCC Working Group 2, "Food Production Systems and Food Security" (2010 - 2014)
Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowship review committee, Stanford University (2010 - 2013)
Woods Institute Environmental Venture Project proposal review committee, Stanford University (2010 - 2013)
Carnegie Institution Dept. of Global Ecology Search Committee, Stanford University (2010 - 2010)
EESS department seminar organizer, Stanford University (2010 - 2010)
Earth Systems Executive Committee, Land Track Leader, Stanford University (2009 - Present)
Earth Systems masters advisor, Stanford University (2009 - Present)
Goldman Honors Program Advisory Committee, Stanford University (2009 - Present)
PhD committees for four students, Stanford University (2009 - Present)
Editorial Board Member, Environmental Research Letters (2009 - 2013)
Member, National Academy of Sciences Committee on Stabilization Targets for Atmospheric Greenhouse Gas Concentrations (2009 - 2010)
Associate Editor, Journal of Environmental Quality (2008 - 2010)
Panel on Climate, Energy, and Security, Panel on Climate, Energy, and Security (2008 - 2008)
Workshop on Remote Sensing for Human Welfare, National Academy of Sciences (2006 - 2006)
Member, American Society of Agronomy (2005 - Present)
Member, Ecological Society of America (2005 - Present)
Land Cover Land Use Change Grant Review Panel, NASA (2005 - 2005)
Member, American Geophysical Union (2000 - Present)

Projects

Use of Climate Information in International Negotiations for Adaptation Resources, Stanford University
Adaptation of vulnerable areas to climate change is---and will continue to be---an important subject of negotiations taking place in several international forums, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; the Major Economies negotiations; and the G-8 talks. Ideally, adaptation assistance to any given nation would be commensurate with the social and economic impacts of future climate change and the cost of the required adaptation measures. Instead, neither is known. Climatic changes themselves are only projected in broad strokes: important details at the regional and sub-seasonal scale---such as the changes in frequency of monsoon breaks in the Niger River basin, to make just one example---are not simulated directly by current climate models. Moreover, determining the economic impact of a given climate scenario is challenging, as is assessing the cost and efficacy of adaptation scenarios, as demonstrated by the controversy that followed the Stern review.

Yet, as imperfect and incomplete as it is, the output of climate and economic models must inform negotiations for international adaptation funds---if those are not to be solely the result of political expediency. The aim of this project is to bring together climate scientists, economists, and law scholars to identify how to best achieve the goal of bringing climate and economic modeling results to bear on these negotiations. In particular, we want to identify (i) what is the most useful information that can be delivered to negotiators by state-of-the-art climatic and economic models, (ii) how that information can be most effectively presented, and (iii) how measures of uncertainty can be brought into the negotiation process as additional, valuable information.

The proposed project is organized around three main questions that address (i) the nature of the information needed for the best allocation of resources, (ii) the form in which such information should be framed in order for it to be most comprehensible and useful to negotiators, and (iii) the extent to which uncertainty in the projections is now used to discount climate impact information and how instead uncertainty estimates can be reformulated as valuable information regarding the range and likelihood of possible outcomes and incorporated in the negotiation process.

Location

Africa

Collaborators
- Kaiyu Guan, Postdoctoral Research fellow, Environmental Earth System Science, School of Earth Sciences
For More Information:
- Use of Climate Information in International Negotiation for Adaptation Resources
Quantification and reduction of uncertainties in projections of climate impacts on drought and agriculture for North America, Stanford (8/1/2011 - 7/31/2015)
Agricultural productivity is highly dependent on climate variability and is thus susceptible to future changes including temperature extremes and drought. The latter is expected to increase in frequency regionally over this century. However, the uncertainty in projections of drought and its impacts on agriculture is high due to emission scenarios, climate model differences, uncertainty in initial/boundary conditions, and translation to regional scales. Climate models are unanimous in projecting future warming but differ in the magnitude and even sign of regional precipitation changes. They also differ in terms of extremes of temperature, precipitation and other meteorology. When projecting future impacts on crop productivity, these uncertainties are compounded because current crop models often use simplified treatments of climate response and do not include comprehensive treatments of water availability. Therefore, projections of regional climate change, variability and its impacts on water availability and agriculture are highly uncertain and reduction of uncertainties requires attention to all levels in the climate-water-agriculture continuum.

Rationale: Given the uncertainties in future agricultural production and the complex relationships between climate, hydrology and crop development, there is pressing need to make improved estimates of future changes in climate change and crop yields. We propose to evaluate the uncertainties in estimates of future changes in climate, water availability and agricultural production, and make improved estimates by incorporating state of the art knowledge of the relationships between climate, hydrology and agriculture into modeling and downscaling. This has ramifications for disaster preparedness and mitigation, policy making and the political response to climate change, and intersects with fundamental science questions about climate change, extremes and hydrologic cycle intensification. It is central to the mission of the Climate Program Office’s MAPP program to “enhance the Nation’s capability to predict variability and changes of the Earth’s System” and directly addresses its priorities to evaluate and reduce uncertainties in climate projections. This work will leverage from the PIs’ experience and ongoing activities in large-scale climate analysis and hydrologic modeling, particularly in changes in drought historically and under future climates, and agricultural modeling and relationships between climate and crop productivity.

Summary of work to be completed:

Quantify the relationships between hydroclimate variables and the implications for water, drought and agriculture based on observational data.
Evaluate sensitivities of hydrologic and crop models to changes in climate and drought. Differences in climate variability, land-atmosphere coupling and hydrologic persistence will lead to differences in key metrics of water and agriculture which will form the basis for evaluation of the uncertainties in future projections.
Evaluate current climate models in how they replicate these observed relationships using the CMIP5 long-term and decadal predictions.
Estimate uncertainties in future projections of climate, drought and agriculture using a cascade of climate, downscaling, hydrologic and crop models with strategic sampling to decompose sources of uncertainty.
Implement a set of methods to reduce uncertainties in future projections based on observational constraints including merging of climate model predictions, bias correction and scaling of climate model output, and improvements to impact models.

Location

North America

For More Information:
- Quantification and reduction of uncertainties in projections of climate impacts on drought and agriculture for North America
Evaluating Climate Adaptation Options in African Agriculture, Stanford University (1/1/2011 - 10/31/2014)
FSE's previous Rockefeller project on "Prioritizing Investments in Food Security under a Changing Climate" pursued several research directions in an effort to better characterize the risks that climate change poses to agriculture in Africa. Among the lessons from the project were that climate change poses a substantial impediment to agricultural progress in Africa, that maize and Southern Africa are particularly vulnerable, and that inadequate soil moisture can substantially aggravate the effects of heat.

Although several questions remain on the question of risks and adaptation needs, we are gradually shifting our research program to evaluate priorities from the perspective of adaptation opportunities. What works and what doesn't? Or more specifically, what are the most effective ways to deal with the most serious threats that climate change poses? And given the type and scale of current efforts at adaptation, is Africa on a trajectory to effectively adapt to climate change?

A key lesson from prior work is that climate change is already underway and having non-trivial effects on agriculture, even today. From a research perspective, this increases the urgency of finding effective adaptations but also provides an opportunity to learn from ongoing attempts to adapt production systems.

The research project includes four main components:

Evaluating the adaptation potential for new crop varieties.
Evaluating the adaptation potential of small-scale irrigation.
Evaluating a suite of adaptation options in the Sahel.
Characterizing ongoing and proposed adaptation activities.

Location

Africa

For More Information:
- http://fse.fsi.stanford.edu/research/evaluating_climate_adaptation_options_in_african_agriculture
Interdisciplinary Research on Introducing Heat-Tolerant Wheat to Bolster Food Security, Stanford University (8/1/2014 - 7/31/2017)
The project is supported under the NSF Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability Fellows (SEES Fellows) program, with the goal of helping to enable discoveries needed to inform actions that lead to environmental, energy and societal sustainability while creating the necessary workforce to address these challenges. Sustainability science is an emerging field that addresses the challenges of meeting human needs without harm to the environment, and without sacrificing the ability of future generations to meet their needs. A strong scientific workforce requires individuals educated and trained in interdisciplinary research and thinking, especially in the area of sustainability science. With the SEES Fellowship support, this project will enable a promising early career researcher to establish herself in an independent research career related to sustainability. This project focuses on food sustainability and security on a global scale. The partnerships built into this project will give the Fellow significant inter-disciplinary training (adding the components of randomized controlled trials and crop modeling) beyond the scope of her current expertise. This is particularly important since her goal is to become a sustainability scientist who combines methods and tools from the natural and social sciences to understand how humans are impacted by and adapt to environmental change. Specifically, the Fellow will participate in an interdisciplinary institutes (Center on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford, and Center for Effective Global Action at UC Berkeley). Also, at Stanford University, the Fellow will gain teaching and mentoring experience.

Climate change is predicted to negatively impact agricultural communities and food security across the globe, with models estimating up to a 40% reduction in the yield of some crops by the end of the century. This is particularly problematic for wheat, which is a major staple crop (providing 20% of daily calories) that is already facing declining yields due to warming temperatures. Previous studies have shown that autonomous adaptation strategies (e.g. increasing irrigation, shifting planting date) are not enough to mitigate the negative impacts of warming, and planned adaptation strategies that introduce heat-tolerant wheat varieties are needed to sustainably bolster yields and food security in the face of climate change. Interdisciplinary research is necessary to (1) identify the most effective ways to introduce these new technologies to vulnerable communities, and (2) assess whether the predicted yield benefits of these crops are realized in the field where farmers may deviate from ideal management practices. This study uses randomized controlled trials from development economics to evaluate introduction strategies, remote sensing to quantify if new heat-tolerant wheat varieties provide yield benefits in the field, and process-based crop models to assess whether these new varieties provide predicted yield benefits in future warming scenarios. Understanding the effectiveness of information transfer is particularly important for heat-tolerant crops because, unlike high-yielding varieties introduced during the Green Revolution, heat-tolerant crops may not provide immediate benefits and only produce higher yields in unseasonably warm years. Thus, the adoption and diffusion of this technology may depend purely on whether farmers trust and receive accurate information about possible future benefits. This study is one of the first to examine the most effective ways to introduce new crops that mitigate against climate variability and future climate risk, which is necessary to sustainably enhance food security in the face of climate change.

Location

India

Collaborators
- Meha Jain, Postdoctoral Research fellow, Environmental Earth System Science, School of Earth Sciences
For More Information:
- Interdisciplinary Research on Introducing Heat-Tolerant Wheat to Bolster Food Security
Using Remote Sensing to Close the Corn Yield Gap in Northern China, Stan
Location

China

Collaborators
- Yi Zhao, Ph.D. Student in Environmental Earth System Science, admitted Autumn 2011, School of Earth Sciences
Prioritizing Investments in Food Security Under a Changing Climate, Stanford University (2008 - Present)
A team led by FSE fellow David Lobell has found a valuable, untapped resource in historical data from crop yield trials conducted across sub-Saharan Africa. Combined with weather records, they show that yield losses would occur across 65 percent of maize-growing areas from a temperature rise of a single degree Celsius, even with sufficient water.

Over much of the world, the growing season of 2050 will probably be warmer than the hottest of recent years, with more variable rainfall. If we continue to grow the same crops in the same way, climate change will contribute to yield declines in many places. With potentially less food to feed more people, we have no choice but to adapt agriculture to the new conditions. New approaches are needed to accelerate understanding of climate impacts on crop yields, particularly in tropical regions.

This project is studying the potential effects of climate change on agriculture and adaptations options in African agriculture. The work will seek to assess climate threats to staple food crops at a country level, quantify the sources of uncertainty inherent in these assessments, and determine what implications shifts in crop climates have for agricultural adaptation and genetic resources preservation - with the end goal of helping prioritize investments in agricultural development and food security under a changing climate.

Location

Africa

Collaborators
- Walter Falcon, Stanford University
- Rosamond Naylor, William Wrigley Professor, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Professor, by courtesy, of Economics, Stanford University
For More Information:
- Prioritizing Investments in Food Security Under a Changing Climate

Professional Education

Ph.D., Stanford University, Geological and Environmental Sciences (2005)
Sc.B., Brown University, Applied Mathematics (2000)

Patents

David Lobell. "United States Patent 9,953,241 Systems and Methods for Satellite Image Processing to Estimate Crop Yield", Apr 24, 2018

Current Research and Scholarly Interests

Research
I study the interactions between food production, food security, and the environment using a range of modern tools. Current work focuses on three main areas of research: how to effectively adapt agriculture to climate change, how to reduce yield gaps in major cropping regions, and how to quantify environmental consequences of biofuel and food crop production. A common theme is the use of large datasets to constrain and improve models that represent our understanding of how the world works. Prospective students interested in food security, climate change, and/or how to combine models and large datasets in creative ways are encouraged to contact me.

Teaching
I regularly teach three courses open to both undergraduate and graduate students. One is Fundamentals of Modeling (EESS 211), which is a hands-on introduction to environmental modeling concepts and techniques, taught every year. Second is Feeding Nine Billion (ES185), an introduction to basics of crop ecology and agronomy, world crop production systems, and tradeoffs associated with various new practices or technologies, also taught every year (starting in 2013). Third is Climate and Agriculture (ES184) which covers different aspects of climate change impacts on food production and food security, and is taught every other year (next in 2015).

Professional Activities
Current activities in 2012: Lead author for IPCC Fifth Assessment Report; Member of National Academy of Science committee on "Assessing the Impact of Climate Change on Political and Social Stresses"; Member of Technical Advisory and Review Panel for World Bank Group activities related to climate change adaptation; Editor for Global Change Biology and Associate Editor for Environmental Research Letters; numerous academic and public lectures

2022-23 Courses

Climate and Society
SUSTAIN 2 (Win)
Feeding Nine Billion
EARTHSYS 185 (Win)
Rethinking Meat: An Introduction to Alternative Proteins
EARTHSYS 109, EARTHSYS 209, ESS 203 (Spr)

Independent Studies
- Directed Individual Study in Earth Systems
  EARTHSYS 197 (Aut)
- Directed Individual Study in Earth Systems
  EARTHSYS 297 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum)
- Directed Reading
  INTLPOL 299 (Aut)
- Directed Reading in Environment and Resources
  ENVRES 398 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum)
- Directed Research
  EARTHSYS 250 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum)
- Directed Research in Environment and Resources
  ENVRES 399 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum)
- Directed Studies in Applied Physics
  APPPHYS 290 (Spr)
- Graduate Research
  ESS 400 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum)
- Honors Program in Earth Systems
  EARTHSYS 199 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum)
- Ph.D. Research
  CME 400 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum)
- Senior Honors Tutorial
  SYMSYS 190 (Aut, Win)

Prior Year Courses

2021-22 Courses

Climate and Society
EARTH 2 (Win)
Data for Sustainable Development
CS 325B, EARTHSYS 162, EARTHSYS 262 (Aut)
Feeding Nine Billion
EARTHSYS 185 (Win)
Rethinking Meat: An Introduction to Alternative Proteins
ESS 103, ESS 203 (Spr)

2020-21 Courses

Climate and Society
EARTH 2 (Win)
Feeding Nine Billion
EARTHSYS 185 (Win)
Rethinking Meat: An Introduction to Alternative Proteins
EARTHSYS 109, EARTHSYS 209, ESS 103, ESS 203, ETHICSOC 107 (Spr)

2019-20 Courses

Climate and Society
EARTH 2 (Win)
Data for Sustainable Development
CS 325B, EARTHSYS 162, EARTHSYS 262 (Aut)
Feeding Nine Billion
EARTHSYS 185 (Win)

Stanford Advisees

Doctoral Dissertation Reader (AC)
Ju Young Lee, Cesar Lopez, Yuhao Nie, Zhan Zhang
Postdoctoral Faculty Sponsor
Liya Weldegebriel
Doctoral Dissertation Advisor (AC)
Siddharth Sachdeva
Master's Program Advisor
Michelle Leung, Cairo Mo, Elena Press, Rebecca Spencer, Shayana Venukanthan
Doctoral Dissertation Co-Advisor (AC)
Karli Moore, Jeff Wen
Doctoral (Program)
Angela Tsao

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