INFEWS: U.S.- CHINA: Modeling Interdependent FEW systems in the US and China: Nexus for Sustainability, Markets and Trade of Energy and Agricultural Commodities

本项目通过“国家自然科学基金（NSF）/国家自然科学基金（NSFC）环境可持续性挑战联合研究”的机会获得资助。从全球角度来看，粮食-能源-水（FEW）关系包含了粮食、能源和水的密切相互关联的资源系统。随着世界人口到2050年预计将达到90亿，迫切需要在这三个系统中平衡不同的资源，如碳氢化合物燃料、农产品和淡水，以实现不同的目标，而不会对提供这些资源的生态系统造成过度的压力。水力压裂和水平钻井的创新使美国非常规油气藏的碳氢燃料开采量大幅增长。这一增长对能源价格、粮食生产、国际贸易和水资源管理产生了重大影响。预测表明，美国强劲的天然气生产将持续到可预见的未来，从而拉低化肥和能源价格，并导致农业生产方式的变化。虽然灌溉水短缺和/或过量的营养污染的水从农田径流已经威胁到水资源在美国，中国和其他国家的大多数农业地区，在农业系统中的非常规资源开采的增长对水资源的影响还没有在FEW系统框架内进行研究。化肥和能源价格是农业地区作物种植选择、面积分配决定、化肥施用率、灌溉用水和水资源可持续性的关键决定因素。该项目的目标是研究能源政策、天然气供应、农业生产、国际贸易和水资源可持续性之间的相互依赖关系。西弗吉尼亚大学的这个项目与中国浙江理工大学的研究人员合作，将天然气、氮肥和农业商品的经济模型与生物物理土壤生产力和流域水文模型相结合，以反映人类决策和自然系统的相互依赖性。此外，与该项目有关的一些研究、教育和推广工作将通过与切萨皮克湾项目科学技术委员会和西弗吉尼亚州SPoT计划的合作来完成。该项目中独特的建模框架通过整合局部平衡经济模型，包括空间上明确的土地使用组件和国际贸易，土壤生产力和流域水文生物物理模型。该项目扩大了先前关于灌溉用水和农田养分径流的研究范围，包括能源市场和美国与中国这两个最大贸易国之间的国际贸易的影响。计量经济学商品市场模型和价格内生部分均衡模型被用来研究供给、需求、环境管制和贸易政策的变化对生产决策和市场结果的影响。商品市场和国际贸易的经济模型与水的数量和质量模型通过空间上明确的土地利用表示。土地利用对流域水文制度和养分负荷的影响，分别采用环境政策综合气候模型（EPIC）和农业政策/环境影响模型（APEX）。 综合建模框架将产生解决方案，以了解涉及能源市场，农业系统和水资源在密西西比河和切萨皮克湾流域的FEW系统组件之间的权衡。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

This project was awarded through the "National Science Foundation (NSF) / National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Joint Research on Environmental Sustainability Challenges" opportunity. The Food-Energy-Water (FEW) Nexus, from a global perspective, contains closely interconnected resource systems of food, energy, and water. As the world's population expands to an expected 9 billion by 2050, there will be an urgent demand to balance different resources, such as hydrocarbon fuels, agricultural products, and fresh water, across these three systems to achieve different goals without putting undue strain on the ecosystems that provide these resources. Innovations in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling have enabled tremendous growth in hydrocarbon fuel extraction from unconventional reservoirs in the US. This growth has significant implications for energy prices, food production, international trade, and management of water resources. Projections indicate that robust natural gas production in the US will continue into the foreseeable future, pulling fertilizer and energy prices down and leading to changes in agricultural production practices. Although irrigation water shortages and/or excess nutrient-contaminated water runoff from agricultural fields have threatened water sources in most agricultural regions in the US, China, and other countries, the impacts of growth in unconventional resource extraction on water resources in agricultural systems have not been studied within the FEW system frameworks. Fertilizer and energy prices are key determinants of crop planting choices, acreage allocation decisions, fertilizer application rates, irrigation water use, and sustainability of water resources in agricultural regions. The goal of this project is to examine the interdependencies between energy policies, natural gas supply, agricultural production, international trade, and sustainability of water resources. This project at West Virginia University, in collaboration with researchers at Zhejiang Sci-tech University in China, combines economic models for natural gas, nitrogen fertilizer, and agricultural commodities with biophysical soil productivity and watershed hydrology models to reflect the interdependent nature of human decisions and natural systems. Additionally, some of the research, education, and outreach efforts pertaining to this project will be accomplished through collaboration with the Chesapeake Bay Project Science and Technology Committee and the West Virginia SPoT program.The unique modeling framework in this project reflects interdependencies between human and natural systems by integrating partial equilibrium economic models, including spatially explicit land use components and international trade, with biophysical models for soil productivity and watershed hydrology. The project expands the scope of prior studies pertaining to the consumptive water use in irrigation and nutrient runoff from agricultural fields to include the impacts of the energy markets and international trade between the US and China, two of the largest trading nations. Econometric commodity market models and price endogenous partial equilibrium models are used to examine the effects of changes in supply, demand, environmental regulation, and trade policy on production decisions and market outcomes. The economic models for commodity markets and international trade are integrated with water quantity and quality models via spatially explicit land use representation. The effects of land use on watershed hydrologic regimes and nutrient loading are formulated using the Environmental Policy Integrated Climate model (EPIC) and the Agricultural Policy/Environmental eXtender model (APEX), respectively. The integrated modeling framework will generate solutions for understanding tradeoffs between FEW system components involving energy markets, agricultural systems, and water resources in the Mississippi River and Chesapeake Bay watersheds.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.