Belmont Forum Collaborative Research Food-Water-Energy Nexus: Intelligent Urban Metabolic Systems for Green Cities of Tomorrow: an FWE Nexus-based Approach

地球仪上的许多城市都面临着管理食物、水和能源系统的艰巨挑战。这些挑战源于这样一个事实，即粮食、水和能源问题不仅在地方上而且在全球范围内往往彼此密切相关。这就是所谓的食物-水-能源（FWE）关系。 一个地方水问题的有效解决方案可能会引起新的地方性粮食或能源问题，或在全球范围内引起新的水问题。在地方一级，很难预测在地方和全球一级，对这一关系中的一个问题的解决办法是否可持续地贯穿整个粮食、水和能源系统。 包含这一关系的创新解决方案对于使城市能够更好地管理其粮食、水和能源系统以及了解不同解决方案的利弊尤为重要。 该奖项支持美国研究人员参与一个由29个国家倡议通过联合贝尔蒙特论坛-联合规划倡议（JPI）城市欧洲竞争性选择的项目。 可持续城市化全球倡议/粮食-水-能源关系是一项多边倡议，旨在支持研究项目，汇集地球仪各地分散的研究和专门知识，为粮食-水-能源关系挑战找到创新解决方案。 该呼吁旨在制定更具弹性的实用城市解决方案，以使更广泛的利益攸关方受益。世界人口的迅速城市化突出了这一重点的重要性。邀请国际伙伴为这一挑战制定解决方案。 申请的资金将用于支持美国参与者在由至少三个参与国的合作伙伴组成的财团中进行合作，并将自然科学家，社会科学家和研究用户（例如，民间社会、非政府组织和行业）。 来自其他国家的参与者通过其国家供资组织获得资助。该项目旨在从FWE Nexus的角度确定城市新陈代谢的关键因素及其复杂的相互作用，并通过优化食物-水-能源的重新分配来提高FWE消费的成本效益。该项目将利用人工智能、数据挖掘、系统动力学建模、农业物流和情景分析等先进工具，确定关键的FWE因素，并确定向城市中心提供粮食-水-能源的关键途径。 该项目旨在了解食品-水-能源在其生命周期中相互交织的性质，包括生产，加工，交付，消费和处置。主要成果将是智能城市代谢系统的发展，以应对未来绿色城市中心的挑战。 综合解决方案将为利益相关者和决策者提供可用于制定战略的信息，通过有效管理食品-水-能源关系，帮助维持城市化的必然趋势。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Many cities across the globe are facing difficult challenges managing their food, water and energy systems. The challenges stem from the fact that the issues of food, water and energy are often tightly connected with each other, not only locally but also globally. This is known as the Food-Water-Energy (FWE) nexus. An effective solution to a local water problem may cause new local problems with food or energy, or cause new water problems at the global level. On a local scale, it is difficult to anticipate whether solutions to one issue in the nexus are sustainable across food, water and energy systems, both at the local and the global scale. Innovative solutions that encompass the nexus are particularly important to enable cities to better manage their food, water and energy systems and understand the benefits and tradeoffs for different solutions. This award supports U.S. researchers participating in a project competitively selected by a 29-country initiative through the joint Belmont Forum- Joint Programming Initiative (JPI) Urban Europe. The Sustainable Urbanization Global Initiative (SUGI)/Food-Water-Energy Nexus is a multilateral initiative designed to support research projects that bring together the fragmented research and expertise across the globe to find innovative solutions to the Food-Water-Energy Nexus challenge. The call seeks to develop more resilient, applied urban solutions to benefit a much wider range of stakeholders. The rapid urbanization of the world's population underscores the importance of this focus. International partners were invited to develop solutions for this challenge. The funds requested will be used to support U.S. participants to cooperate in consortia that consist of partners from at least three of the participating countries and that bring together natural scientists, social scientists and research users (e.g., civil society, NGOs, and industry). Participants from other countries are funded through their national funding organizations. This project aims to identify the key factors of urban metabolism and their complex interactions from FWE Nexus perspective and to improve the cost-benefit for FWE consumption by optimizing food-water-energy reallocations. This project will identify critical FWE factors and define critical pathways of food-water-energy delivery to urban centers using advanced tools such as Artificial Intelligence, data mining, system dynamics modelling, agro-logistics and scenario analysis. The project seeks to understand the intertwined nature of food-water-energy in terms of their lifecycles, including production, processing, delivery, consumption, and disposal. The primary outcome will be the development of the intelligent urban metabolic systems for cities with challenges for green urban centers of tomorrow. The comprehensive solutions will provide stakeholders and decision makers with information that can be used to develop strategies to help sustain the inevitable trends of urbanization by effectively managing the food-water-energy nexus.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.