SRS RN: Regional Transition to Sustainability Beginning with Food and Water

这个可持续区域系统研究网络规划资助项目的重点是发展一个由学术、工业、政府和非政府组织组成的面向行动的网络，这些组织具有范围和专业知识，可以定义和参数化向可持续未来的过渡，并为该网络配备衡量和管理过渡所需的工具。从关注食物和水子系统（FWSS）开始——最终扩展到其他基本需求——研究议程包括三个主要步骤：(1)建立对FWSS需求和众多区域利益相关者面临的挑战的共同理解，(2)建立一个共同的未来愿景，在这个愿景中，这些FWSS基本需求以更可持续和公平的方式得到满足，(3)设计实现未来愿景所需的工具和过程。为了创造更好、更可持续的粮食和水系统，任何改进都需要在不同的司法管辖区之间开展区域合作，并跨越州界和城乡统一体进行合作。任何建立更可持续系统的持久改进都需要就区域议程达成一致。考虑到华盛顿特区在切萨皮克湾流域内的规模、复杂性和位置，它为研究网络提供了一个理想的案例研究，以研究以食物和水为重点的可持续区域系统方法的复杂性和前景。该项目通过提供可操作的研究，以公平的方式促进国家健康和繁荣，满足了国家科学基金会的使命。该规划资助项目侧重于了解多个利益相关者如何实现公平的区域可持续性，以及实体如何从多个利益相关者的角度衡量和管理区域尺度上复杂系统的粮食和水可持续性。该项目利用现有的伙伴关系，通过以下方式为创建这种适应性干预措施组合奠定基础：(1)从多个利益相关者的角度绘制问题图；(2)设想解决方案并获得利益相关者的支持；(3)扩大网络以弥补代表性方面的差距，并确保最终开发和部署这种组合的能力。该项目将使从这些规划阶段产生的方法可扩展到其他基本需求子系统，并可转移到其他区域。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 Sustainable Regional Systems Research Network Planning Grant project focuses on developing an action-oriented network of academic, industrial, governmental, and non-governmental organizations with the reach and expertise to define and parameterize a transition to a sustainable future and to outfit that network with the tools it needs to measure and manage that transition. Beginning with a focus on food and water subsystems (FWSS)—but eventually expanding to other basic needs—the research agenda involves three major steps: (1) Creating a shared understanding of the FWSS needs and challenges facing the multitude of regional stakeholders, (2) creating a shared vision of a future where these FWSS basic needs are met in a more sustainable and equitable way, and (3) engineering the tools and processes needed to make that future vision a reality. Any improvements to create better, more sustainable food and water systems requires working regionally among different jurisdictions and collaborating across state lines and all along the urban-rural continuum. Any lasting improvements to create more sustainable systems will require agreement on a regional agenda. The Washington, DC, region, given its size and complexity and position within the Chesapeake Bay watershed, provides the ideal case study for a research network to examine the complexities and promise of a sustainable regional systems approach focused on food and water. This project meets the mission of the National Science Foundation by providing actionable research to enhance the national health and prosperity in an equitable fashion.This planning grant project focuses on understanding how multiple stakeholders can achieve equitable regional sustainability and how entities can measure and manage food and water sustainability across complex systems at regional scales from a multiple stakeholder perspective. The project leverages existing partnerships to lay the groundwork for the creation of such an ensemble of adaptive interventions by (1) mapping the problems from multiple stakeholder perspectives, (2) envisioning the solutions and getting buy-in from those stakeholders, and (3) enlarging the network to account for gaps in representation and to ensure the capacity to eventually develop and deploy such an ensemble. The project will make the methodology that emerges from these planning phases extensible to additional basic needs subsystems and is transferable to other regions.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.