Collaborative Research: WSC-Category 3: Crops, climate, canals, and the cryosphere in Asia - changing water resources around the Earth?s third pole

摘要：该项目旨在综合评估气候和人类驱动的水文变化对中亚、南亚、东亚和东南亚农业生产和土地利用的影响，以及未来几十年对区域粮食安全和经济福利的影响。它将未来气候预测、遥感和水文数据与水文、地球物理、农业生态系统和经济模型相结合，以表征当地降水、径流、地下水开采、流域间调水以及农业和非农业用水对该地区供水供需平衡的相对重要性。该项目的目标是评估气候变化对高海拔冰雪和永久冻土水文的影响将如何影响下游水资源和粮食生产，并通过对大坝建设和其他大型水利工程的情景分析。该项目正在评估从亚洲高山流出的主要河流（主要是印度河、恒河、雅鲁藏布江、萨尔温江、湄公河、长江、黄河、阿姆河、锡尔河和额尔齐斯河）流域目前和预计的水资源，特别关注气候变化和变异对高原径流的影响。灌溉农业在研究区域广泛存在，水资源与粮食供应密切相关。农业经济支撑着区域大多数人口，因此水和粮食资源是区域经济的关键因素。该项目将供水和潜在粮食生产与经济模式联系起来，从而能够评估经济中每个不同作物生产部门的用水、种植强度和产量。该项目描述了下游用水需求和农业生产对人口增加、经济活动扩大和水资源供应受限的反应，并评估了改善灌溉和作物用水效率、拟议的主要流域间调水项目和大坝建设以及深层地下水枯竭对该区域各经济体粮食安全和贸易的影响。模拟的不确定性通过由模式参数和农业和水文数据库的不确定性驱动的敏感性分析来评估。该项目与研究区域内若干国家的研究人员建立了合作关系，这些研究人员正在为获取区域土地和水利用的有关数据作出贡献。面对气候变化和人口增长，亚洲的水和粮食安全是一个具有全球重要性的问题。该研究区域的大部分地区已经经历了物质或经济上的缺水，印度和中国都在规划大型水利工程。这个广泛的跨学科项目（地球科学、农业科学、社会科学）正在量化研究区域的当代水资源、农业用水和粮食生产，以及未来气候变化对水和粮食价格的经济后果。本研究获得的知识将提高综合评估建模的能力，以考虑水资源对未来经济和社会活动的物理限制，以及缓解和适应战略。该项目包括研究生教育和培训以及本科生研究机会。此外，该项目正在为美国国家科学基金会赞助的K-12全球变化教育推广计划开发有关亚洲全球变化的学习模块，重点是水和粮食资源以及可持续性。该项目有助于加强和深化与亚洲研究人员的国际合作。最后，该项目有助于全球变化研究界整合自然科学和社会科学的能力，这对于解决水、气候和可持续性等广泛的跨学科问题至关重要。

Collaborative Research: WSC-Category 3: Crops, climate, canals, and the cryosphere in Asia : changing water resources around the Earth's third poleABSTRACT: This project is generating an integrated assessment of the impacts of climate-, and human-driven changes in hydrology on agricultural production and land use in Central, South, East, and Southeast Asia, and the implications for regional food security and economic welfare in the coming decades. It combines future climate projections, remote sensing and hydrological data together with hydrological, geophysical, agroecosystem and economic modeling to characterize the relative importance of local precipitation, runoff, groundwater mining, interbasin water transfers, and agricultural and non-agricultural water use for the region's water supply-demand balance. The project goal is to estimate how effects of climate change on high-elevation snow, ice, and permafrost hydrology will affect downstream water resources and food production, and through scenario analyses with regard to e.g. dam construction and other large-scale water engineering efforts. The project is assessing current and projected water resources in the watersheds of the major rivers draining from the Asian High Mountains (principally the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Salween, Mekong, Yangtze, Yellow, Amu Darya, Syr Darya, and Irtysh Rivers), with a particular focus on the climatic change and variability impacts on runoff from the highlands. Irrigated agriculture is widespread in the study region, and water resources are tightly linked to food supplies. Agricultural economies support the majority of the regional population, so water and food resources are a key factor in the regional economy. This project is linking water supply and potential food production to an economic model, enabling assessment of water use, cropping intensity and yields in each of the various crop production sectors of the economy. The project is characterizing the response of downstream water demand and agricultural production to increased population, economic activity expansion and constrained water supplies, and assessing the implications of improvements in irrigation and crop water use efficiency, proposed major interbasin water transfer projects and dam construction, and deep groundwater depletion for food security and trade in the region's economies. Simulation uncertainties are assessed by sensitivity analyses driven by uncertainties in both model parameters and agricultural and hydrological databases. The project has collaborative ties with researchers in several countries in the study region, and they are contributing to efforts to obtain relevant data on regional land and water use.Water and food security in Asia in the face of climate change and rising populations is an issue of global importance. Much of the study region is already experiencing physical or economic water scarcity, and major water engineering works are planned in both India and China. This broadly interdisciplinary project (geosciences, agricultural sciences, social sciences) is quantifying contemporary water resources, water use for agriculture, and food production, and the economic consequences of future climate change on water and food prices in the study region. Knowledge gained in this study will improve the capacity of integrated assessment modeling to account for the physical constraints of water resources on future economic and social activity, and mitigation and adaptation strategies. This project includes graduate student education & training and undergraduate research opportunities. In addition, the project is developing learning modules on global change in Asia, with a focus on water and food resources and sustainability, for an NSF-sponsored K-12 global change education outreach program. The project is contributing to stronger and deeper international collaborations with researchers in Asia. Finally, the project is contributing to the global change research community's capacity to integrate physical and social sciences, which is essential to address the broadly interdisciplinary issue of water, climate, and sustainability.