A US-Africa workshop for a science and research vision on the food-water-energy (FEW) nexus

该奖项将资助在塞内加尔达喀尔举行的下一届爱因斯坦论坛(NEF)之前举行的为期两天的卫星研讨会。研讨会将于2016年3月6日至7日举行，重点是促进美非合作，解决与食品、能源、水(少数)相关的研究挑战。为人类发展提供充足的食物、能源和水给环境带来了巨大的压力。这一挑战的全球规模要求了解生态系统、气候和社会动态之间复杂且特征不充分的相互关系。这次研讨会将汇集美国和非洲研究人员组成的跨学科团队，围绕这几个联系的关键研究问题，概述战略和解决方案，并提出未来几个研究目标的愿景，特别是在非洲。关注非洲是恰当的，因为如果不考虑到非洲大陆包括全球20%的陆地面积，可能占全球耕地60%的非洲大陆，正在经历快速砍伐和严重的生态系统退化挑战，并且全球人口的16%迅速增长和年轻，越来越多地从农村人口向城市人口转移，对这几个联系的理解是不可能完成的。非洲现在是，也将越来越多地成为一个重要的地区，几乎没有什么纽带研究，美国科学家需要更好地接触到最好的科学家以及关键地点和设施。因此，在非洲举行这次会议，使更多的非洲科学家能够参加，将是非常有价值的。此外，本次会议的初步成果将在下一届爱因斯坦论坛上公布，为对非洲科学和发展感兴趣的一大批有影响力的政策制定者和利益攸关方提供机会，以更实质性地考虑这几个联系。这次研讨会将采取相对定量的方法来了解非洲的几个联系，将几个系统系统视为管理生态系统有限资源的大规模时空优化挑战，目的是通过环境过程的可持续管理来确保食物、能源和水的安全。在环境科学、生态学、水文学、生物学、农业、经济学、文化人类学和地理学方面有专长的美国和非洲研究人员将参加这次会议。对话和由此产生的合作应该会增加美国研究人员未来的机会，让他们了解非洲少数系统的独特和可概括的元素，欣赏现有的研究和资源，并为未来涉及与非洲合作的研究做准备。这项活动由国际科学和工程办公室(OISE)和化学、生物工程、环境和运输系统司(CBET)共同资助。

This award will fund a two-day satellite workshop prior to the Next Einstein Forum (NEF) in Dakar, Senegal. The workshop will be held on March 6-7, 2016, and will focus on enabling US-African collaboration on research challenges related to the food, energy, water (FEW) nexus. Providing adequate food, energy, and water for human development places enormous pressure on the environment. The planetary scale of the challenge requires understanding complex and inadequately characterized inter-relationships between ecosystems, climate, and social dynamics. This workshop will bring together an interdisciplinary team of U.S. and African researchers to sharpen the critical research questions surrounding the FEW nexus, to outline strategies and solutions, and to offer a vision for future FEW research goals, particularly in Africa.The focus on Africa is appropriate since understanding of the FEW nexus cannot possibly be complete without considering the African continent which includes 20% of the global land mass, perhaps 60% of the global arable land, is experiencing rapid deforestation and significant ecosystem degradation challenges, and has a rapidly growing and young 16% of the global population increasingly shifting from rural to urban demographics. Africa is and will increasingly be an important region for FEW nexus research and U.S. scientists need better access to the best scientists as well as key sites and facilities. It will therefore be valuable to hold this meeting in Africa to enable a larger number of African scientists to participate. In addition, the preliminary outputs of this meeting will be presented at the Next Einstein Forum, providing an opportunity for a large and influential group of policy makers and stakeholders interested in science and development in Africa to consider the FEW nexus more substantively.This workshop will pursue a relatively quantitative approach to understanding the FEW nexus in Africa, considering the FEW system of systems as a large-scale space-time optimization challenge to manage the limited resources of ecosystems with the objective of securing food, energy and water via sustainable management of environmental processes. U.S. and African researchers with expertise in environmental science, ecology, hydrology, biology, agriculture, economics, cultural anthropology and geography will participate. The dialogue and resulting collaborations should improve future opportunities for US researcher to understand unique and generalizable elements of African FEW systems, appreciate existing research and resources, and prepare for future research involving collaboration with Africa.This activity is co-funded by the Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE) and the Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems (CBET).