Conference on Balancing Technological and Institutional Solutions within Food-Energy-Water Systems

人类的快速发展对水、能源和农业资源造成了越来越大的压力。这种日益增长的压力加强了这些部门之间的相互依赖性，并加剧了管理的复杂性。对粮食-能源-水系统的综合性质有了更深入的了解，使人们更加认识到旨在提高一个系统的生产力或效率的技术和体制变革如何能够影响整个粮食-能源-水系统的经济、政治和环境安全。例如，采用廉价的抽水技术可以在短期内提高农业生产力，但可能会迅速耗尽地下水资源，特别是在缺乏强有力的地下水抽取管理的情况下，并破坏整个系统的安全。管理系统的复杂性也产生了一些管理问题，以处理多种相互关联和相互竞争的需要。适当应用技术和体制解决方案来应对少数系统的挑战，对于每个部门和整个系统的成功管理至关重要。很少有系统管理人员必须知道何时以及如何使技术革新与适当的体制变革相平衡，反之亦然。然而，解决少数系统挑战的技术和制度方法之间的关系以及解决方案在所有部门实施的后果，人们知之甚少。华盛顿州立大学将主办一个为期三天的会议，以检查FEW系统背景下的技术和制度创新，并确定需要进一步科学研究的具体知识差距。本次研讨会将超越仅仅理解少数系统中的物理相互依赖关系；相反，它将寻求1)确定驱动技术和制度创新及其在少数几个系统内部和跨系统采用的因素，以及2)描述这些相互作用对政策和更广泛的制度设计的影响。参与者将来自学术界、工业界和政府，并将代表学科、专业和少数专业领域的多样性。本次研讨会专家的多样性将是其主要优势之一，通过创造一个环境来促进知识的综合，在这个环境中，来自个人的专业观点和见解可以被整合，从而更好地理解跨FEW系统的技术和机构之间的耦合。为了促进这一努力，将采用从国家生态分析和综合中心以及其他成功的跨学科综合工作中学到的最佳实践。

Rapid human development has placed increasing stress on water, energy and agricultural resources. This growing stress has strengthened interdependencies between these sectors and intensified management complexity. A deeper understanding of the integrated nature of food-energy-water (FEW) systems has led to an increased awareness of how technological and institutional changes, directed at increasing productivity or efficiency in one system, can impact the economic, political and environmental security of the whole FEW system. The introduction of inexpensive pumping technology, for example, can lead to short-term gains in agricultural productivity but may quickly deplete groundwater resources, especially in the absence of strong governance of groundwater withdrawals, and undermine the security of the whole system. FEW management issues also emerge from the complexity of managing the system to address multiple interrelated and competing needs. Appropriate application of both technological and institutional solutions to FEW system challenges is critical to the successful management of each sector and across the system as a whole. FEW system managers must know when and how technological innovations need to be balanced with appropriate institutional change and vice versa. However, the relationships between technological and institutional approaches to addressing FEW system challenges and the ramifications of solution implementation across all sectors are poorly understood.Washington State University will host a three day conference to examine technological and institutional innovation within FEW system contexts and identify specific knowledge gaps requiring further scientific study. This workshop will move beyond understanding only the physical interdependencies within FEW systems; instead it will seek to 1) identify factors driving both technological and institutional innovations and their adoption, within and across FEW systems, and 2) characterize the implications of these interactions for policy and broader institutional design. Participants will be drawn from academia, industry, and government and will represent a diversity of disciplines, professions, and areas of FEW expertise. The diversity of experts in this workshop will be one of its primary strengths, fostering a synthesis of knowledge by creating an environment where specialized perspectives and insights from individuals can be integrated to better understand the couplings between technology and institutions across FEW systems in general. To facilitate such an endeavor, best practices learned from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis and other successful interdisciplinary synthesis efforts will be employed.