INFEWS/T2: Cyber-Based Decision Support Strategies to Achieve Consensus for FEW System Sustainability using Incentive and Policy Structures

中西部与美国其他地区大不相同，因为农业几乎不需要灌溉。事实上，中西部，特别是爱荷华州的土壤和地形，倾向于积水条件。农民给农田施肥，以最大限度地提高粮食和生物燃料生产的作物产量，但早春高排水量和氮运动与夏季作物吸收之间的时间不匹配，导致过量的氮通过水道输送到墨西哥湾，造成有害的环境，社会和经济影响。推动地方一级决策的主要是上级执行的政策和激励措施，反之亦然，对潜在的意外后果没有真实的了解。该项目旨在使人们了解这些政策和激励措施对与粮食、能源和水（FEW）部门相关的各个利益相关者以及总体系统利益相关者（如联邦政府）的影响。更重要的是，这项研究有可能影响在FEW系统中和关于FEW系统的决策方式，以确保弹性和可持续性。该项目的重点是研究有关的问题，了解少数民族的相互依存关系，建模每个少数民族利益相关者的价值陈述，开发新的多属性效用模型，使少数民族利益相关者之间的共识建设，使协调决策，通过激励和政策，旨在实现在少数民族系统层面的预期行为，开发可视化和基于模拟的决策支持工具，以支持利益相关者使用所开发的方法建立共识。

The Midwest is quite different from other parts of the country in that little to no irrigation is required for farming. In fact, soils and topography in the Midwest, and particularly Iowa, trend toward waterlogged conditions. Farmers fertilize fields to maximize crop yield for both food and biofuel production, but a mismatch in timing between periods of high drainage water flux and nitrogen movement in early spring and crop uptake in the summer, results in excess nitrogen being transported through waterways to the Gulf of Mexico, causing detrimental environmental, societal and economic impacts. Driving much of the decision-making at local levels are policies and incentives implemented at higher levels, and vice versa, with no real understanding of the potential unintended consequences. This project aims to enable understanding of the impact of such policies and incentives on separate stakeholders associated with Food, Energy, and Water (FEW) sectors, as well as overarching system stakeholders, such as the federal government. More importantly, the research has the potential to impact the ways in which decisions are made in and about FEW system so as to ensure resilience and sustainability. The project focuses on research questions pertaining to understanding the FEW inter-dependencies, modeling the value statements of each FEW stakeholder, developing new multi-attribute utility models to enable consensus building among FEW stakeholders, enabling coordinated decision making through incentives and policies designed to achieve the desired behaviors at the FEW system level, and developing visualization and simulation-based decision support tools to support consensus building of stakeholders using the methods developed.