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

最近德克萨斯州、中西部和加利福尼亚州发生的干旱使农业、能源生产、工业、人类利用和环境之间对水资源的竞争日益激烈，成为美国关键的经济和可持续发展问题。该项目将评估美国在气候变化、新能源选择和技术、经济和农业趋势下水的可持续性。它将探讨依赖水的部门如何影响其他经济部门并与之互动，并提供一个概念框架，为公共和私人在水资源分配、基础设施发展和水密集型经济活动的区域投资方面的决策提供信息。将开发数学和统计模型，突出全国范围内的水风险，提供有关过去和未来取水和可用水趋势的信息，并帮助确定在特定的气候、经济和水分配情景下，特定的耕作模式、能源开发和水基础设施可能会产生什么结果，以及这种配置在持续的干旱和洪水期间如何发挥作用。该项目将首先评估用水状况，以及上个世纪气候、能源开发和经济的变化如何影响美国大陆的用水变化及其估值。该评估将着眼于用水模式变化背景下的气候统计、地表水可用性和质量、定价结构、水权和契约、供应增加和储存开发、地下水获取、能源成本、经济因素、保护举措和环境问题的变化。该评估还将衡量水风险，因为它与用水和供应的地理分布以及驱动经济因素有关。然后，该项目将开发一个交互式建模环境，用于设想水的利用和供应的未来演变。这将考虑水和能源基础设施的容量扩张，相对于气候、能源和经济情景的耕作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。该项目将评估全国范围内针对气候、经济和能源情景的水可持续性的可能的市场和政策驱动的适应战略，同时考虑对新基础设施、保护的投资需求，以及区域供水限制可能引起的作物和能源使用的潜在转变。

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.