Improved representation, impact assessment, and adaptive management of water resource systems under changing natural and anthropogenic conditions

生态系统服务和人类生计在历史上依赖于自然水文循环，而这种循环现在受到与土地和水管理有关的人类活动的干扰。这种相互作用在一定程度上形成了新的自然-人类水系统的混合体。快速的社会经济增长以及气候和环境条件的变化增加了对国家卫生和水资源系统的压力，并在加拿大和全球范围内提出了新的水资源安全挑战。面对这些挑战，管理决策应告知严格的系统建模和评估工具，可以代表在NHWS的动态相互作用，揭示NHWS在当前和未来条件下的行为，并支持适用的适应战略的发展，在短期和长期的业务视野。在这种情况下，地表水分配在确定水量和水质以及将各部门的水需求与现有的供水来源联系起来方面发挥着关键作用;因此，水分配是本研究计划的短期重点。尽管近年来取得了重大进展，仍然没有一个通用的框架，代表反馈水分配过程中的一系列规模。此外，目前的脆弱性评估不具备充分了解系统利弊的能力，也无法在各个管理层面上统一了解系统脆弱性。最后，管理决策应得到社区的大力支持，以保持相关性和适用性。然而，目前的利益相关者参与往往仅限于某些利益相关者群体，这阻碍了对接受程度的真正理解，因此难以预测和确保社区对拟议管理计划的支持。尽管如此，即使考虑到包容性的利益攸关方群体，在知识和期望方面容纳固有的差异也会给决策者带来重大挑战。最重要的是，从建模和影响评估工具的结果中获得的水资源分配的定量知识与利益相关者通过叙述表现出来的定性知识之间存在不匹配。拟议的研究计划认识到这些差距，并旨在开发改进的工具，（一）代表水分配，考虑到水供应和需求的组成部分内部和之间的反馈过程;（二）评估未来的脆弱性，在不断变化的条件下，新出现的行为和权衡;以及（iii）考虑到利益攸关方的知识、利益和世界观的多样性，通过利益攸关方的参与来管理水资源分配。这些目标将通过加拿大三个重要的案例研究来实现，并通过加拿大社区支持的管理计划来提高我们查明脆弱性和减轻未来风险的能力。

Ecosystem services and human livelihoods are historically dependent on the natural hydrological cycle, which is now perturbed by human activities related to land and water management. Such interactions are to the extent that have formed new hybrids of Natural-Human Water Systems (NHWSs). Rapid socio-economic growth and changes in climatic and environmental conditions have increased stresses on NHWSs and introduced emerging water security challenges in Canada and globally. To face these challenges, management decisions should be informed by rigorous system modeling and assessment tools that can represent the dynamic interactions in NHWSs, reveal the behaviors of NHWSs under current and future conditions, and support the development of applicable adaptation strategies under both short- and long-term operational horizons. In this context, surface water allocation plays a key role in determining water quantity and quality and in linking various sectors of water demand to available sources of water supply; and therefore, water allocation lays down the short-term focus of this research program. Despite significant progresses made in recent years, still a generic framework for representing feedbacks in water allocation processes across a range of scales is not available. In addition, current vulnerability assessments are not equipped to portray a full insight into system trade-offs and to provide an unified understanding of the system vulnerability across various management dimensions. Finally, management decisions should receive strong community support in order to remain relevant and applicable. Current stakeholder engagements however are often limited to certain groups of stakeholders which obstruct a true understanding of the level of acceptance, and therefore, make it difficult to predict and secure community support of the proposed management plans. Having said that, even if inclusive groups of stakeholders are considered, accommodating inherent diversities in knowledge and expectations can create major challenges for decision-makers. Most importantly, there is a mismatch between quantitative knowledge of water allocation obtained from the results of modeling and impact assessment tools and qualitative knowledge of stakeholder manifested through narratives. The proposed research program recognizes these gaps and aims at developing improved tools for (i) representing water allocation, given feedback processes within and between components of water supply and demand; (ii) assessing future vulnerabilities in water allocation, given emerging behaviors and trade-offs under changing conditions; and (iii) managing water allocation through stakeholder inclusion, given the diversify in their knowledge, interests and worldviews. These objectives will be carried out in three important Canadian case studies and increase our ability to identify vulnerabilities and mitigate future risks through management plans that are supported by Canadian communities.