BRIDGE - Building Resilience In a Dynamic Global Economy: Complexity across scales in the Food-Water-Energy Nexus

该提案旨在制定一个分析和政策参与框架，以提高巴西粮食-水-能源（FWE）关系对全球环境和经济变化的适应能力。该项目将结合联合收割机在社会经济和环境建模方面的既有专业知识和专门开发的最先进的分析能力，在全球变化的背景下为巴西的FWE关系建立一个强有力的环境政策评估方法。建模能力、技能和知识将转移给巴西的相关参与者，使当地学者能够在本项目期间和结束后通过持续的可持续性过渡继续向决策者提供信息和参与决策。一方面，由于全球不可持续的资源使用和温室气体排放，全球环境变化极有可能改变天气模式，这将对巴西的土地覆盖和生物多样性产生不利影响，对农业产生严重影响。另一方面，如果没有适当的政策，巴西的经济和环境在很大程度上依赖自然资源的出口来实现繁荣，可能容易受到全球经济变化的影响，在全球经济变化中，商品需求的变化可能导致环境退化和大规模的土地使用变化，或者财富和就业减少。这两种变化都可能影响巴西的家庭妇女工作者关系，并使其复杂化。必须理解这些转变和力量，以尽量减少对巴西福利和环境的不利影响。根据过去的经验，并通过我们目前的EPSRC-CONFAP网络赠款与巴西学术界建立伙伴关系，以建立FWE关系的研究团队（EP/N 002504/1），该项目将对实现这些目标作出独特的贡献，方法是结合使用能源-经济-土地使用-气候耦合全球系统的最新详细多尺度模型，与尖端的环境政策和法律专门知识相联系，以有效地为可行的政策框架的建模活动提供信息。最终目标是将这两种类型的知识和能力转移给巴西的相关学术和非学术行为者。可持续性做法可能受到政策的影响;然而，政策可能会产生意想不到的影响。为了有效地促进可持续性过渡，政策进程和周期必须与知情的行为体积极互动。该项目将联合收割机结合英国和巴西在环境政策和法律方面的尖端专业知识，以及我们最先进的、详细的环境政策建模能力，以参与巴西的政策进程，从而显著提高决策者的远见，并最终通过可持续性转型提高巴西社会对未来可能发生的全球环境和经济变化的适应能力。民间社会和社区可以通过展示最佳做法的可持续性项目加以指导，这些项目和做法可以扩大和推广。在我们巴西团队（REGSA和JELARE项目）以往成功经验的基础上，该项目还将涉及建立小规模的可持续性示范和提高认识项目，以展示每种情况下的最佳做法并与公众互动。这将包括一个与UNISUL大学实验农场的农业实践有关的“可持续森林”项目，一个与可持续森林相关能源产品生产有关的“能源森林”项目，以及一个“少水”模拟活动，以使公众了解如何提高能源系统对水资源短缺的适应能力。

This proposal aims to develop a framework of analysis and policy engagement to improve the resilience of the Brazilian Food-Water-Energy (FWE) nexus to global environmental and economic change. It will combine established UK expertise and specifically developed, state-of-the-art analytical capacity in socio-economic and environmental modelling to build a robust environmental policy assessment methodology for the Brazilian FWE nexus in the context of global change. The modelling capacity, skills and knowledge will be transferred to relevant actors in Brazil to enable local academics to continue informing and engaging policymakers through a continued sustainability transition during and beyond the end of this project.Brazilian society faces significant uncertainty due to two significant global contextual factors. On one hand, global environmental change, due to global unsustainable resource use and greenhouse gas emissions, is highly likely to change weather patterns, which will affect detrimentally the land cover and biodiversity in Brazil, with severe impacts on agriculture. On the other hand, without appropriate policies in place, the Brazilian economy and environment, relying heavily on exports of natural resources for prosperity, can be vulnerable to global economic change, where changes in demand for commodities could lead to either environmental degradation and large scale land-use change, or decreased wealth and employment. Both types of changes are likely to impact and create intricate complexities in the Brazilian FWE nexus. These transformations and forces must be understood in order to minimise detrimental impacts to welfare and the environment in Brazil. Building on past experience and on a partnership with Brazilian academics established through our current EPSRC-CONFAP networking grant for research team building on the FWE nexus (EP/N002504/1), this project will produce a unique contribution to achieve these objectives by using a combination of state-of-the-art detailed multi-scale modelling of the coupled energy-economy-land-use-climate global system, linked to cutting-edge environmental policy and law expertise to effectively inform modelling activities of workable policy frameworks. The ultimate goal is to transfer both types of knowledge and capacity to relevant academic and non-academic actors in Brazil.Sustainability practices can be influenced by policy; however policy can have unexpected and unintended impacts. In order to effectively promote a sustainability transition, the policy process and cycle must be actively engaged with well-informed actors. This project will combine cutting-edge UK and Brazilian expertise in environmental policy and law with our state-of-the-art, detailed environmental policy modelling capacity to engage the Brazilian policy process in order to significantly improve policy-maker foresight and ultimately the resilience of Brazilian society to possible future global environmental and economic change through a sustainability transition.Finally, civil society and communities can be guided by sustainability projects that demonstrate best practice, exercises that can be scaled up and replicated. Building on previous successful experience of our Brazil-based team (the REGSA and JELARE projects), this project will also involve setting up small-scale sustainability demonstration and awareness-raising projects in order to show best-practice in each case and engage with the public. This will include a 'sustainable forest' project related to farming practices at the UNISUL university experimental farm, an 'energy forest' project related to the generation of sustainable forestry-related energy products, and a 'less hydro' simulation exercise to engage the public in understanding how to increase the resilience of the energy system to water scarcity.