EAGER: Microgrid-Supported Hydroponic Crop Cultivation for A Resilient Fresh Food Supply in Island Communities

飓风摧毁了国内农业生产能力，破坏了粮食进口、运输和冷藏的基础设施，严重扰乱了岛上社区的粮食供应。这可能会摧毁当地农民的生计，并使危机发生后立即向居民提供新鲜农产品的后勤和费用大大复杂化，从长远来看，也会使重要的旅游业复杂化。微电网支持的水培作物种植可能能够减轻对岛屿社区粮食安全的这一威胁。这项提议的研究人员已经建立了一个MSCC原型，并试图展示在巴哈马应对飓风多里安的有效性的原则证据。该项目的目标是：i)确定MSCC如何通过小岛屿社区的可持续农业和能源解决方案促进气候适应能力；ii)确定这些社会企业如何通过向居民提供所需的工具，向紧急食品供应商和旅游业提供当地种植的粮食，从而创造经济机会。该项目以遭受飓风破坏的巴哈马国家为例，将严谨的学术研究成果应用于小岛屿社区抗飓风食品供应和生计的人道主义工程应用中。该奖项反映了NSF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。

Hurricanes severely disrupt the food supply for island communities by destroying domestic agricultural production capacity and crippling the infrastructure for food importation, transportation, and cold storage. This can decimate the livelihood of local farmers and greatly complicate the logistics and expense of providing fresh produce to residents in the immediate aftermath of the crisis, and to the important tourism industry in the longer term. Microgrid-supported hydroponic crop cultivation (MSHCC) may be able to mitigate this threat to food security for island communities. The investigators for this proposal have built an MSHCC prototype and seek to show proof-in-principle of efficacy in the Bahamas in response to Hurricane Dorian. The goals of this project are: i) to determine how MSHCC can foster climate resilience through sustainable agriculture and energy solutions in small island communities, and ii) determine how these social enterprises can build economic opportunity by equipping residents with the tools they need to supply emergency food providers and the tourism industry with locally grown food. This project brings rigorous scholarship to the humanitarian engineering application of HCC in the case of hurricane resilient food supplies and livelihoods in small island communities, using the hurricane-damaged country of the Bahamas as a case study.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.