Collaborative Research: Sustainability in the Food-Energy-Water nexus; integrated hydrologic modeling of tradeoffs between food and hydropower in large scale Chinese and US basins

水是种植粮食和发电的关键。这项研究涉及两个全球重要的农业系统，中国的黑河流域和美国加利福尼亚州的中央山谷，这两个系统体现了大规模水能系统的复杂性。黑河和中央河谷代表着数十亿美元的经济生产力，每年产生数十亿千瓦时的电力。虽然这两个盆地在许多方面都很相似(水从高山中流出，滋养下面的作物)，但它们的历史和管理存在关键差异，提供了许多重要信息。该项目汇集了来自美国和中国的研究人员，以更好地了解这些复杂农业系统中水和能源供应之间的权衡。利用美国和中国团队在当地盆地进行的计算机模拟、数据集和研究，并合作促进我们对这些盆地的共同理解。这里开发和应用的最先进的计算机模拟平台旨在捕捉人类和自然系统之间的联系，这是以前的建模方法不可能实现的。该项目还寻求通过为美国和中国开发K-12教材来教育下一代用水者、规划者和科学家地下水的可持续性，这些教材将在两国的真实课堂上试行。这个项目将帮助我们更好地了解黑河和中央山谷等管理粮食-水-能源系统的弱点，以加强它们的发展。在灌溉农业系统中，水将粮食生产、能源需求和能源生产联系起来。集约化管理的流域通常有地表水灌溉、地下水灌溉和水电生产同时运行。虽然已经有许多大规模灌溉系统的运行研究，但大多数应用于这些问题的工具侧重于人类系统，简化了自然水文学。这项研究弥补了这一差距，开发了新的工具，可以在复杂的人类和自然系统中模拟很少的相互作用。在这个项目中，利用基于物理的综合数值模拟方面的国际进展，将来自美国和中国的两个建模团队聚集在一起。其目标是探索两个全球重要农业系统：美国加州中央山谷和中国黑河流域的农业供水、水电生产和环境退化之间的权衡。具体地说，探索(1)粮食和能源系统的脆弱性有何不同，(2)利益冲突在哪里可能导致系统低效和环境退化，以及(3)将综合水文模型应用于这些人类系统的优势。该项目还寻求教育下一代用水者、规划者和科学家有关地下水可持续性的知识。项目成果将用于为美国和中国开发K-12教育材料，并将在真实课堂上进行试点。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Water is critical for growing food and generating power. This study deals with two globally important agricultural systems, the Heihe River Basin in China and the Central Valley of California, USA, that exemplify the complexities of large scale water-energy systems. The Heihe and the Central Valley represent billions of dollars in economic productivity and produce billions of kilowatt hours of electricity every year. While the two basins are in many ways similar (water flows from high in the mountains to nourish crops below), there are key differences in their history and management that provides many important information. This project brings together researchers from the US and China to better understand tradeoffs between water and energy supply in these complex agricultural systems. Advantage is taken of computer simulations, datasets and research from US and Chinese teams in their local basins and collaborate to advance our shared understanding of these basins. The state of the art computer simulation platforms developed and applied here are designed to capture connections between humans and natural systems not possible with previous modeling approaches. This project also seeks to educate the next generation of water users, planners and scientists on groundwater sustainability by developing K-12 education materials for both the US and China that will be piloted in real classrooms in both countries. This project will help us better understand weaknesses in managed food-water-energy systems like the Heihe and Central Valley to strengthen them moving forward. Water connects food production, energy demand and energy production in irrigated agricultural systems. Intensively managed basins routinely have surface water irrigation, groundwater irrigation and hydropower production operating in tandem. While there have been many operational studies of large scale irrigated systems, the majority of tools applied to these problems focus on the human systems and simplify the natural hydrology. This study bridges this gap developing novel tools that can simulate FEW interactions in complex human and natural systems. In this project leverage of international advances in physically based integrated numerical modeling is accomplished by bringing together two teams of modelers from the US and China. The goal is to explore the tradeoffs between agricultural water supply, hydropower production and environmental degradation in two globally important agricultural systems: the Central Valley of California (USA) and the Heihe River basin in China. Specifically, exploring (1) how the vulnerabilities of food and energy systems differ, (2) where conflicting interests can lead to system inefficiency and environmental degradation, and (3) the advantages of applying integrated hydrologic models to these human systems. The project also seeks to educate the next generation of water users, planners and scientists on groundwater sustainability. Project outputs will be used to develop K-12 education materials for both the US and China that will be piloted in real classrooms.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.