DISES: Conservation incentives and the socio-spatial dynamics of water sustainability

该奖项全部或部分由《2021年美国救援计划法案》（公法117-2）资助。关于水资源的争端在世界范围内很常见。作为回应，社会在水资源保护和分配方面进行了大量投资，以支持人类水安全和淡水生态系统服务。人们对自愿奖励（例如向用水者提供付款/补贴）日益感兴趣，认为这是减少节水内外冲突的一种战略。以激励为基础的项目有希望，但关于国家和非国家环保组织如何有效和高效地实施这些项目，仍存在不确定性。有效实施以奖励为基础的保护需要跨空间和时间战略性地分配财政奖励。该项目将研究社会、水文和生物空间动态之间的相互作用如何影响基于激励的保护下人类-淡水系统的可持续性。这些动态决定了世界各地以激励为基础的流域水资源保护计划的可行性和有效性。本项目的重点是农业广泛使用地区的水系统，但研究结果将有助于了解基于奖励的多种资源（如海洋渔业、能源、废物、林业）保护方案的动态。因此，研究结果有可能改变人们对保护激励可能增强广泛的人类-自然综合系统的可持续性的方式的理解。该项目重点关注美国中南部第二大盆地红河。将通过访谈和调查收集有关保护行为者和用水者的信息，以填充关于提供/接受保护激励意愿的效用理论决策行为模型。战略社会互动的博弈论模型将通过检查用水者合作或竞争行为的可能性来扩展行为模型。对地下水、河流流量和淡水生态系统之间关系的回顾性、基于经验的建模将预测不同气候和水利用情景下的生态系统服务结果。这些模型的综合结果将用于参数化和校准综合社会环境模拟。模拟将模拟整个综合系统，从保护激励措施的设计，到用水者和水资源管理者作出的决定，再到相互联系的地表水和地下水系统以及随后影响人类保护决定的生态系统服务结果。基于不同的保护激励预算、优先级和气候不确定性的动态系统情景将在20年的时间范围内进行模拟。这种综合建模将用于开发中心项目产出：一个适应性强的综合框架，可用于解决全球水资源有限的河流流域的典型可持续性困境，从而产生一套理解和管理这些系统的关键见解。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).Disputes over water resources are common worldwide. In response, societies make massive investments in water conservation and allocation to support human water security and freshwater ecosystem services. There is a growing interest in voluntary incentives (e.g., payments/subsidies offered to water users) as a strategy for reducing conflicts in and beyond water conservation. Incentive-based programs hold promise, but uncertainties remain regarding how state and non-state environmental organizations may implement them effectively and efficiently. Effective implementation of incentive-based conservation requires strategic allocation of financial incentives across space and time. This project will investigate how interactions among social, hydrological, and biological spatial dynamics affect the sustainability of human-freshwater systems under incentive-based conservation. These dynamics shape the viability and effectiveness of incentive-based water conservation programs in river basins around the world. The focus of this project is on water systems in areas with extensive agricultural use, but the findings will be relevant for understanding the dynamics of incentive-based conservation programs for many types of resources (e.g., marine fisheries, energy, waste, forestry). Thus, results have the potential to transform understanding of the ways in which conservation incentives might enhance the sustainability of a wide range of integrated human-natural systems. The project focuses on the Red River, the second-largest basin in the south-central United States. Information on conservation actors and water users will be gathered via interviews and surveys to populate utility-theoretic behavioral models of decision-making regarding willingness to offer/accept conservation incentives. Game theoretic models of strategic social interactions will extend the behavioral models by examining water users’ likelihood of cooperative or competitive behavior. Retrospective, empirically-based modeling of relationships among groundwater, stream flows, and freshwater ecosystems will predict ecosystem service outcomes under varying climate and water use scenarios. Combined results from these models will be used to parameterize and calibrate an integrative socio-environmental simulation. The simulation will model the entire integrated system, from the design of conservation incentives, through decisions made by water users and water resource managers, to the linked surface and groundwater system and subsequent ecosystem service outcomes which influence human conservation decisions. Dynamic system scenarios based on varying conservation incentive budgets, priorities and climatic uncertainties will be simulated over 20-year time horizons. This integrated modeling will be used to develop the central project outputs: an adaptable, integrated framework that can be used to navigate sustainability dilemmas typical of water-limited river basins worldwide, leading to a set of key insights for understanding and managing these systems.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.