Suitaiology: A strategic science for reframing agricultural risks under climate extremes — from water-use efficiency to water-situation wisdom

Title : Suitaiology: A strategic science for reframing agricultural risks under climate extremes — from water-use efficiency to water-situation wisdom

Abstract:

Climate extremes are increasingly challenging agriculture and horticulture through droughts, floods, waterlogging, soil erosion, groundwater decline, crop stress, and ecological degradation. Although major progress has been made in crop breeding, irrigation technology, soil management, precision agriculture, and biotechnology, many agricultural systems remain vulnerable to compound climate risks. This suggests that some risks cannot be fully understood through single variables, single disciplines, or field-level technologies alone. This presentation introduces recent progress in Suitaiology, or Water-Situation Science, as a strategic framework for reframing agricultural risks under climate extremes. Suitaiology does not seek to replace hydrology, irrigation science, soil-water research, or agricultural water management. Rather, it builds on these fields and asks a further question: in a water–soil–crop– ecology–engineering–society system, what is water becoming? Hydrology studies how water moves; Suitaiology asks whether water is becoming flood, erosion, and disaster, or soil water, groundwater, ecological support, and agricultural resource. From this perspective, agricultural climate risk is not only a matter of too much or too little water. It may be better understood as a dynamic mismatch between water situations and agricultural systems. Floods are not only excessive water, but water entering agricultural systems with unfavorable timing, pathways, concentration, and energy. Droughts are not only present water scarcity, but may also reflect earlier failures to retain, infiltrate, store, and transform rainfall into useful water-resource situations. Agricultural resilience, therefore, begins before water reaches the field. The presentation proposes a shift from water-use efficiency to water-situation wisdom. Wateruse efficiency asks how available water can be used more efficiently. Water-situation wisdom further asks how water, before reaching the field, can be slowed, dispersed, infiltrated, stored, regulated, and transformed into resourceful, ecological, and resilience-supporting situations. By connecting agriculture, horticulture, soil, water, ecology, engineering, and management as dynamic systems, Suitaiology offers a cross-disciplinary perspective for climate adaptation and sustainable agricultural futures.
Keywords: Suitaiology; Water-Situation Science; Agricultural Resilience; Climate Extremes; Water-Use Efficiency; Water-Situation Wisdom; Precision Agriculture; Soil and Water Management; Horticulture.

Biography:

Dr. Dachang Zhang received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Hydrogeology and Engineering Geology from the Changchun Institute of Geology and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1982 and 1985, respectively, and subsequently became a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He obtained his Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Vienna in 1996, during which he made significant contributions to a national water project in Austria. From 1997 to 2000, Dr. Zhang conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Waterloo, Canada. He later worked as a geological and environmental consultant in Canada and the United States, and has been a Licensed Professional Geologist in the State of California since 2007. Between 2008 and 2014, he served as Professor and Deputy Dean of the Academy for Bijie Experimental Region at the University of Bijie, China, where his work focused on water management and rural development in impoverished mountainous regions. In 2010, Dr. Zhang founded the Water & Eco Crisis Foundation (USA), where he currently serves as President. Since 2012, Dr. Zhang and his research team have been developing a new water science framework, Suitaiology (Water-Situation Science). This framework was first officially introduced at the 1st Global Conference on Agriculture and Horticulture (AGRI 2021), and its research progress has been continuously presented at subsequent AGRI conferences.