WSC-Category 3 Collaborative: Designing Robust and Adaptive Water Management Strategies in Regions Transitioning from Abundance to Scarcity

由于人口增长、经济扩张和对新供水开发的限制，美国东南部面临着从水资源丰富到水资源短缺的转变。然而，东南地区并没有为这种转变做好准备，因为现有的管理系统不适合应对短缺。气候变化可能会加剧这种情况，特别是如果其影响被城市化和土地利用变化放大的话。因此，东南社区必须考虑更广泛的供需管理替代方案。不幸的是，关于如何有效协调潜在解决方案的指导很少。综合各种供水资产和需求管理措施的组合办法带来了很大的希望，但这种办法不仅必须考虑到水管理的技术和经济现实，而且还必须考虑决策者的行为。鉴于与水有关的投资具有重大的环境和社会影响，面对增长和气候的不确定性，提高其有效性是一项至关重要的任务。该项目将首次全面评估和改进决策者设计策略的方法，以协调他们的多个经常相互冲突的目标（例如，更多的节约与更低的公用事业收入）。基于模拟的框架将用于设计适应性区域投资组合，与转型区域具有广泛的相关性。该框架将把分析气候变化和土地利用趋势如何影响水文的物理模型与工程、金融和行为模型结合起来。这项工作还将涉及与决策者的密切互动，包括评估他们对供应和金融风险的态度，这些态度如何影响选择，以及降低风险的工具。此外，拟议的研究将提供一个计算平台，可以作为适应性水管理的模板，揭示区域权衡、相互依赖和脆弱性。该项目将利用与公用事业公司和地方政府的现有关系，在研究团队和决策者之间建立建设性的学习反馈，这一因素将导致既实际又理论上合理的战略。

The Southeastern US faces a transition from water abundance to water scarcity due to population growth, economic expansion, and limits on new water supply development. Yet, the Southeast is not prepared for this transition because existing management systems are poorly suited for coping scarcity. Climate change will likely exacerbate this situation, especially if its effects are amplified by urbanization and changing land use. Consequently, Southeast communities must consider a wider range of supply and demand management alternatives. Unfortunately, there is little guidance for how potential solutions can be effectively coordinated. A portfolio approach to integrating a diverse array of water supply assets and demand management measures offers considerable promise, but this approach must consider not only the technical and economic realities of water management, but also the behavior of decision makers. Given that water-related investments have substantial environmental and social implications, improving their effectiveness in the face of growth and climatic uncertainty is a critically important task. This project will be the first to comprehensively assess and improve methods by which decision makers can design strategies to reconcile their multiple, and often conflicting, objectives (e.g. more conservation vs. lower utility revenues). A simulation-based framework will be used to design adaptive regional portfolios with broad relevance to regions in transition. This framework will combine physical models that analyze how climate change and land use trends impact hydrology with engineering, financial, and behavioral models. This work will also involve close interactions with decision makers, including assessments of their attitudes toward supply and financial risk, how these attitudes impact choices, and tools for mitigating risk. Additionally, the proposed research will contribute a computational platform that can serve as a template for adaptive water management, exposing regional tradeoffs, interdependencies and vulnerabilities. This project will leverage existing relationships with utilities and local governments to develop constructive learning feedbacks between the research team and decision makers, an element that will lead to strategies that are both practical and theoretically sound.