WSC-Category 1: Advancing Infrastructure and Institutional Resilience to Climate Change for Coupled Water-Energy Systems

美国西部地区由于水资源稀缺和严重依赖热电发电，特别容易受到未来气候引起的环境变化的影响。随着与气候相关的环境事件变得越来越普遍，水电管理人员在处理相互依存的水电系统中的脆弱性时将面临挑战。这些漏洞可能会出现，因为现有的基础设施是为需求配置而设计的，与未来几十年的预期有很大不同，而且因为管理系统的机构还没有能够使他们主动应对未来的预期治理结构。该项目将制定一个框架，用于评估水电基础设施和机构对未来气候事件的脆弱性。有必要更好地了解如何协调从地方到区域范围的水电服务管理，以主动减少未来的脆弱性。该项目将开发(1)西南地区水电系统的跨尺度模型，(2)对基础设施管理者、决策者和控制或影响水电基础设施各组成部分的政策进行制度评估，以及(3)将物理基础设施特征与管理它们的制度过程结合起来的极端气候脆弱性评估。通过这种耦合的基础设施-机构脆弱性评估(4)，将为基础设施管理人员开发一个学习游戏，既教他们了解脆弱性，又帮助他们了解如何主动改变其机构结构，以提高全系统的弹性。通过与基础设施管理人员的一系列研讨会(5)，游戏将通过设想和场景分析练习进行测试。将为评估水电系统创造新的知识和方法，这些知识和方法承认故障可以在复杂系统中传播，并且可以从物理和机构基础设施的脆弱性开始。该项目将探索基于游戏的学习方法如何为研究人员和管理人员提供复杂系统的知识，并了解为受气候影响的未来创建预期治理的策略。

Western US regions are particularly vulnerable to future climate-induced environmental changes, given their scarce water resources and heavy reliance on thermoelectric power generation. As climate-related environmental events become more common, water and electricity managers will face challenges when handling vulnerabilities in the interdependent water-electricity systems. These vulnerabilities may arise because existing infrastructures were designed for a demand profile that was significantly different from what is expected in coming decades, and because the institutions that manage the systems do not yet have anticipatory governance structures that would enable them to proactively address the future. This project will develop a framework for assessing coupled water and electricity infrastructure-institution vulnerability to future climate events.There is a need to better understand how the governing of water and electricity services from local to regional scales can be coordinated to proactively reduce future vulnerability. This project will develop (1) a cross-scale model of the water and electricity systems in the Southwest, (2) an institutional assessment of infrastructure managers, decision makers, and policies that control or impact each component of the water and electricity infrastructure, and (3) an extreme climate vulnerability assessment that joins physical infrastructure characteristics with the institutional processes that govern them. With this coupled infrastructure-institutional vulnerability assessment (4) a learning game will be developed for infrastructure managers to both teach them about the vulnerabilities and help them understand how their institutional structures can be proactively changed to improve system-wide resilience. Through a series of workshops with infrastructure managers (5) the game will be tested through visioning and scenario analysis exercises. New knowledge and methods will be created for assessing water and electricity systems that acknowledges that failure can propagate through complex systems and can start with vulnerabilities in both physical and institutional infrastructure. The project will explore how game-based learning approaches can provide researchers and managers with knowledge of the complex system and an understanding of the strategies for creating anticipatory governance for a climate-impacted future.