INFEWS/T1: Decision-Driven Advances in Integrated Assessment Modeling of the Food-Energy-Water Nexus

对粮食、能源和水系统（FEWS）之间的相互依赖性的科学理解越来越重要，因为全球变化既带来了新的风险，也带来了综合FEWS关系的潜在利益。影响饥荒预警系统关系问题的许多重要决定是由区域决策者作出的。然而，区域FEWS规划也受到国家和全球动态的影响，包括社会经济和技术变化、国际贸易动态、气候变化以及国家为解决经济增长和可持续发展目标等社会优先事项所做的努力。各国实现这些更广泛的社会目标的能力反过来又受到区域决定的强烈影响。该项目开发了一种新的综合分析方法，考虑到粮食、能源和水系统之间的相互联系，以改善区域FEWS规划。这项研究确保区域规划设想与国家和全球趋势保持一致，同时也考虑到综合规划的体制障碍。该项目的重点是阿根廷和乌拉圭河流流域的FEWS综合规划。这些地区是开发这种新方法的理想试验平台，因为它们通过农业贸易实现了强大的区域与全球连通性，机构结构的多样性以及从可持续发展目标到气候适应等影响深远的政策组合。这项研究将直接有利于美国的国家利益，因为拉丁美洲的可持续发展促进了农业和能源产品国际市场的稳定。三个主要的科学问题指导研究：（1）什么样的分析方法可以在区域范围内应用，不仅耦合少数系统，而且更广泛的国家和全球动态的方式，是计算效率，数据效率，决策相关？(2)哪些体制障碍限制了在区域范围内采用FEW系统规划，如何设计分析工具并将其纳入体制进程以克服这些障碍？(3)如何最有效地描述和可视化影响区域FEW系统决策过程的不确定性，以提高FEW系统规划的鲁棒性？为回答这些问题而开发的可推广的见解和分析工具包将促进国际和美国更强劲和可持续的经济增长，并将转移到包括美国在内的其他地方。这项研究的总体目标是设计和使用模型来打破体制障碍，促进食品，能源和水部门的联合机构决策。该项目将推动三项科学进展，促进采用协调跨规模和跨部门发展活动所需的综合区域规划方法。(1)该项目将提供一个建模平台，可以在区域层面有效地将次区域FEW系统耦合在一起，并以内部一致、计算效率高和决策相关的方式将其与国家和全球社会经济和气候力量联系起来，以进行全面的情景探索和不确定性分析。(2)该项目将通过应用创新的机构映射和利益相关者参与技术，共同开发与决策相关的建模进展，确定在区域FEW系统规划中注入联系思维的体制障碍。(3)该项目将通过描述关键的不确定性，帮助利益相关者识别和可视化对未来各种不确定性具有鲁棒性的规划策略，来增强区域FEW系统建模和规划场景的决策相关性。（2）中的机构映射将为（1）中的关系模型构建提供信息，（1）中的高效关系模型将用于识别（3）中的关键动态和稳健性挑战，并将通过高效的可视化分析传达给（2）中的国内利益相关者。乌拉圭和阿根廷将作为学习实验室，从经验上探索这三个方面的进步，因为尽管两国面临共同的FEW系统挑战，但两国在关键的制度、经济、气候和政策因素方面存在差异。这些差异将使替代假设得到测试，关于如何最好地设计和使用模型，以打破体制障碍，并促进在现实世界中的联合机构决策，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的评估来支持。影响审查标准。

Scientific understanding of the interdependencies between food, energy, and water systems (FEWS) is of growing importance, as global change creates new risks as well as potential benefits from the integrated FEWS nexus. Many important decisions that influence FEWS nexus issues are made by regional decision makers. However, regional FEWS planning is also shaped by national and global dynamics, including socioeconomic and technological changes, international trade dynamics, climate change, and national efforts to address societal priorities such as economic growth and sustainable development goals (SDGs). The ability of nations to achieve these broader societal goals is, in turn, strongly influenced by regional decisions. This project develops a new, integrated analytical approach that considers the interconnections among food, energy, and water systems to improve regional FEWS planning. The research ensures consistency of regional planning scenarios with national and global trends, while also considering institutional barriers to integrated planning. This project focuses on integrated FEWS planning in river basins in Argentina and Uruguay. These locations are ideal testbeds for developing this new approach due to their strong regional-to-global connectivity through agricultural trade, diversity in institutional structures, and mix of far-reaching policies, from SDGs to climate adaptation. This research will directly benefit U.S. national interests, as sustainable development in Latin America promotes stability in international markets for agricultural and energy goods. Three primary science questions guide the research: (1) What analytical methods can be applied at regional scale to not only couple among FEW systems but also to broader national and global dynamics in a manner that is computationally efficient, data efficient, and decision-relevant? (2) What institutional barriers limit the adoption of FEW systems planning at a regional scale and how can analytical tools be designed and integrated into institutional processes to overcome those barriers? (3) How can uncertainties affecting regional the FEW systems decision-making processes be most effectively characterized and visualized to improve the robustness of FEW systems planning? Generalizable insights and analytical toolkits developed in answering these questions will promote more robust and sustainable economic growth internationally and in the United States, and will be transferable to other locations, including the United States. The overarching goal of this research is to design and use models to break down institutional barriers and facilitate joint institutional decision making across the food, energy, and water sectors. The project will contribute three science advances that facilitate adoption of the integrated regional planning approaches required to coordinate development activities across scales and sectors. (1) The project will contribute a modeling platform that can effectively couple sub-regional FEW systems together at the regional level and connect them to national and global socioeconomic and climatic forces in an internally consistent, computationally efficient, and decision-relevant manner to allow for comprehensive scenario exploration and uncertainty analysis. (2) The project will identify the institutional barriers to infusing nexus thinking in regional FEW systems planning by applying innovative institutional mapping and stakeholder engagement techniques to co-develop decision-relevant modeling advances. (3) The project will enhance the decision relevance of regional FEW systems modeling and planning scenarios by characterizing key uncertainties and aiding stakeholders in identifying and visualizing planning strategies that are robust to a wide array of future uncertainties. The institutional mapping in (2) will inform the nexus model construction in (1), and the efficient nexus model from (1) will be used to identify key dynamics and challenges to robustness in (3), which will be communicated via efficient visual analytics to in-country stakeholders in (2). Uruguay and Argentina will serve as learning laboratories to empirically explore these three advances because, despite their shared FEW systems challenges, the two countries differ with respect to key institutional, economic, climatic, and policy factors. These differences will allow alternative hypotheses to be tested regarding how best to design and use models to break down institutional barriers and facilitate joint institutional decision making in real-world contexts, as well as to demonstrate the transferability and generalizability of methodological advances.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.