Greg Barron-Gafford
· Professor Associate Director of the School Garden Workshop Director of Food, Energy, and Water Resilience Solutions for Biosphere 2University of Arizona · Geography and Development Studies
Active 2003–2025
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About
Greg Barron-Gafford is an associate director of the School of Geography, Development & Environment at the University of Arizona, where he also serves as the workshop director of Food, Energy, and Water Resilience Solutions for Biosphere 2. His research focuses on the food-water-energy nexus, global change ecology, and ecosystem ecology, with a particular emphasis on understanding how external environmental and human factors, as well as internal plant characteristics, influence species distribution and ecosystem function. He is a biogeographer studying the interactive effects of vegetation and climate change on plant and ecosystem responses, especially in semiarid environments. His group investigates how threats such as drought, climate change, and human pressures impact ecosystems, and they have been pioneering the field of 'agrivoltaics'—the co-location of agriculture and photovoltaic solar energy—over the past 12+ years. This work originated in southern Arizona and has expanded into national and international collaborations across the United States, Mexico, Africa, and the Middle East, aiming to develop science-based solutions to help communities adapt to a changing climate.
Research topics
- Environmental science
- Ecology
- Biology
- Geography
- Geology
- Atmospheric sciences
- Agronomy
- Meteorology
- Botany
- Remote sensing
Selected publications
Remote Sensing of Environment · 2021 · 100 citations
Water Availability Impacts on Evapotranspiration Partitioning
Agricultural and Forest Meteorology · 2020 · 94 citations
Cell Reports Physical Science · 2023-07-26 · 66 citations
articleOpen accessHarnessing solar energy to renewably produce electricity can contribute to climate mitigation while meeting current energy demands. However, utility-scale photovoltaics are land intensive and can compete with food production. Agrivoltaics, which combines both energy and food production, has the potential to reduce competition for land. However, its benefits remain uncertain. Here, we review the literature to assess how agrivoltaics can provide synergistic benefits across the food-energy-water ne…
Biological invasions and climate change amplify each other’s effects on dryland degradation
Global Change Biology · 2021 · 59 citations
Climate models predict that, in the coming decades, many arid regions will experience increasingly hot conditions and will be affected more frequently by drought. These regions are also experiencing rapid vegetation change, notably invasion by exotic grasses. Invasive grasses spread rapidly into native desert ecosystems due, in particular, to interannual variability in precipitation and periodic fires. The resultant destruction of non-fire-adapted native shrub and grass communities and of the in…
High productivity in hybrid-poplar plantations without isoprene emission to the atmosphere
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2020 · 57 citations
Hybrid-poplar tree plantations provide a source for biofuel and biomass, but they also increase forest isoprene emissions. The consequences of increased isoprene emissions include higher rates of tropospheric ozone production, increases in the lifetime of methane, and increases in atmospheric aerosol production, all of which affect the global energy budget and/or lead to the degradation of air quality. Using RNA interference (RNAi) to suppress isoprene emission, we show that this trait, which is…
Recent grants
Frequent coauthors
- 66 shared
Russell L. Scott
Southwest Watershed Research Center
- 52 shared
Travis E. Huxman
University of California, Irvine
- 51 shared
R. K. Murthy
University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore
- 50 shared
John F. Knowles
Montana State University
- 41 shared
R. L. Minor
Bates College
- 29 shared
Guo‐Yue Niu
University of Arizona
- 25 shared
Enrique P. Sánchez‐Cañete
- 25 shared
David D. Breshears
University of Arizona
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