WSC-Category 3 Collaborative: America's Water - The Changing Landscape of Risk, Competing Demands and Climate

最近德克萨斯州、中西部和加州的干旱使农业、能源生产、工业、人类使用和环境之间日益激烈的水资源竞争成为美国关键的经济和可持续性问题。该项目将评估美国在气候变化、新能源选择和技术、经济和农业趋势下的水资源可持续性。它将探讨依赖水的部门如何影响经济的其他部分并与之相互作用，并提供一个概念框架，为公共和私营部门就水资源分配、基础设施发展和水密集型经济活动的区域投资作出决策提供信息。将开发数学和统计模型，突出全国各地的水风险，提供关于过去和未来取水量和可用量趋势的信息，并帮助确定在特定气候、经济和水资源分配情景下，特定种植模式、能源开发和水基础设施可能产生的结果，以及这种配置在持续干旱和洪水期间的表现。该项目将首先评估用水状况以及气候变化，上个世纪的能源发展和经济影响了美国大陆的水资源利用及其价值的变化。这一评估将着眼于气候统计、地表水供应和质量、定价结构、水权和契约、增加供应和储存发展、获取地下水、能源成本、经济因素、保护举措以及用水模式变化背景下的环境问题等方面的变化。评估还将衡量水风险，因为它涉及水的使用和供应的地理分布以及驱动经济因素。然后，该项目将开发一个交互式建模环境，用于设想水资源使用和供应的未来发展。这将考虑水和能源基础设施的能力扩展，相对于气候，能源和经济情景的种植模式的潜在重新分配，以及规定的水权和分配机制以及50年或更长时间的生态需求。该项目将评估可能的市场和政策驱动的适应战略，以适应气候，经济和能源情景，同时考虑对新基础设施的投资需求，保护以及可能由区域供水限制引起的作物和能源使用的潜在变化。

Recent droughts in Texas, the Midwest and California have brought the increasing competition for water between agriculture, energy production, industry, human use and the environment into focus as a critical economic and sustainability issue for America. This project will assess the sustainability of water in America in the face of changing climate, new energy choices and technologies, economic and agricultural trends. It will explore how water dependent sectors affect and interact with the rest of the economy, and provide a conceptual framework to inform public and private decision making on water allocation, infrastructure development and regional investments in water intensive economic activities. Mathematical and statistical models will be developed that highlight water risks across the country, provide information on the trends of past and future water withdrawals and availability, and help identify where particular cropping patterns, energy development, and water infrastructure may result under a specific climate, economic and water allocation scenario, and how this configuration may perform during sustained periods of droughts and floods.The project will first assess the state of water use and how the variations in climate, energy development and economics over the last century have influenced changes in water use and its valuation across the continental USA. This assessment will look at changes in climate statistics, surface water availability and quality, pricing structure, water rights and compacts, supply augmentation and storage development, access to groundwater, energy costs, economic factors, conservation initiatives, and environmental concerns in the context of changes in water use patterns. The assessment will also measure of water risk as it relates to the geographic distribution of water use and supply, and the driving economic factors. The project will then develop an interactive modeling environment for envisioning the future evolution of water use and supply. This will consider the capacity expansion of water and energy infrastructure, potential re-allocation of cropping patterns, relative to climate, energy and economic scenarios, and prescribed water rights and allocation mechanisms and ecological needs over a 50 year or longer horizon. The project will evaluate possible market and policy-driven adaptation strategies for water sustainability at a national scale to climate, economic, and energy scenarios, while considering needs for investment in new infrastructure, conservation, and potential shifts in crops and energy use that may be induced by regional water supply constraints.