WIRA: A platform for Water-centered Integrated Resource Assessment in Canada

水是加拿大经济的核心，因为它是多个经济部门以及娱乐活动和生态系统健康的基本资源。因此，可持续的水资源管理对加拿大的社会经济安全非常重要。提出了水资源综合管理(IWRM)，根据水资源的可获得性对不同用户进行水资源分配决策。然而，水资源综合管理在实施和对政策制定者的影响方面都是有限的。水资源综合管理的使用和影响有限的两个主要原因是：(I)水资源综合管理需要应用于河流流域，这与作出决策和政策的行政边界无关；(Ii)水资源综合管理中的隐含假设是水资源分配和分配决策的唯一驱动力，但在一个由生产最大化活动驱动的经济中，社会对水、能源和食物(WEF)有多种需求。世界经济论坛需要对世界经济论坛的资源(世界经济论坛的联系)进行综合和同步的评估和管理，因此，首要问题是如何在现实和全面的背景下重新制定和解决水资源管理问题，以满足社会对综合世界经济论坛资源的需求。这项研究计划的长期目标是开发以水为中心的综合资源评估(WIRA)，作为一个现实的、可供决策者采用的加拿大综合资源评估平台。虽然是全国性的，但WIRA最初将被开发为一个以省或地区为基础的工具，模拟水、能源和粮食的生产和消费，将自然系统与社会发展和基础设施相结合。Wira最终将与全球食品和能源贸易模型相结合，将进出口纳入加拿大资源使用的评估。未来五年(2019-2024年)的具体短期目标是：(I)为萨斯喀彻温省开发一个由需求驱动的世界经济论坛综合纽带模式。WEF-SASK将是WIRA平台的核心，在这里，三个部门之间的所有相互关系和反馈将首次在加拿大被感知和量化。随后，WEF-SASK将扩大覆盖加拿大大草原各省(艾伯塔省、萨斯喀彻温省、马尼托巴省)作为一个单元(WEF-Prairie)；以及(Ii)开发一个工具来评估和量化加拿大能源部门的水足迹，该模型与全球能源贸易模型相结合，以评估加拿大能源形式的水的出口和进口。这项研究将有助于评估世界经济论坛网络的可持续性和使用效率，以及对经济和环境的影响。拟议研究的主要创新方面是(I)将加拿大世界经济论坛模式与全球粮食和能源贸易联系起来，(Ii)是一个现实的、明确整合的资源需求驱动模式。

Water is central to the Canadian economy as it is a fundamental resource for multiple economic sectors, as well as for recreational activities and ecosystem health. Therefore, sustainable water resource management is important for Canadian socioeconomic security. Integrated water resources management (IWRM) has been proposed for making decisions on water allocation to different users based on the availability of water resources. However, IWRM is limited in terms of both implementation and influence on policy makers. The two main reasons for its limited use and influence are (i) the need for IWRM to be applied to a river basin, which is irrelevant to administrative boundaries where decisions and policies are made and (ii) the implicit assumption in IWRM that water availability is the single driving force for water allocation and distribution decisions, yet society has multiple needs for water, energy, and food (WEF) in an economy driven by production maximization activities. The WEF needs dictate an integrated and simultaneous assessment and management of WEF resources (the WEF nexus) and, thus, the overarching question is how to reframe and solve the water resource management problem in a realistic and comprehensive context that addresses the societal needs for integrated WEF resources. The long-term objective of this research program is to develop water-centered integrated resource assessment (WIRA) as a realistic, and adoptable by policy makers, platform for integrated resource assessment in Canada. Although national in scope, WIRA will be initially developed as a province- or territory- based tool that simulates water, energy, and food production and consumption, integrating natural systems with societal development and infrastructure. WIRA will eventually be coupled with global food and energy trade models to include imports and exports into the assessment of Canadian resource use. Specific short-term objectives for the next five years (2019-2024) are: (i) To develop an integrated demand-driven WEF nexus model for the province of Saskatchewan. WEF-Sask will be the nucleus of the WIRA platform, where all of the inter-relationships and feedbacks among the three sectors will be perceived and quantified for the first time in Canada. Subsequently, WEF-Sask will be expanded to cover the Canadian Prairie provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba) as one unit (WEF-Prairie); and (ii) To develop a tool to assess and quantify the water footprint of the energy sector in Canada with the model interfacing with global models of energy trade to assess Canada's exports and imports of water in the form of energy. This research will help evaluate the sustainability and use efficiency of WEF nexus, along with impacts on the economy and environment. The main innovative aspects of the proposed research are (i) linking the Canadian WEF model to the global food and energy trade, and (ii) being a realistic, explicitly integrated resource demand-driven model.