Water Energy Food: Vaccinating the Nexus

随着人口的增长和越来越多的人过着高度依赖碳氢化合物的生活方式，对水、能源和食物（WEF）的需求正在增加。这给世界经济论坛的全球资源带来了前所未有的压力，这种情况将随着气候变化而加剧。为了满足这一需求并确保世界经济论坛的长期安全，需要对各个部门进行综合、高效和可持续的资源管理。这对提高和维持生活质量至关重要，并要求整个系统在适当的时间尺度上进行适应。与人类免疫系统类似，可以通过从世界经济论坛联系的冲击中学习，通过改善系统的长期记忆来恢复和适应，从而增强复原力。通过对系统的冲击（在这个比喻中是接种疫苗），社会有机会提高世界经济论坛部门的弹性和可持续管理。在这种情况下，冲击由以下几个方面来表示：1)历史事件，2)受控的实验操作，以及3)模型的定义输入。该项目将通过开发一个综合框架来确定水、能源和粮食（WEF）之间的相互联系，并将揭示该系统的脆弱性以及这三个方面之间的不同联系。该项目包括三个工作包（WPs），涵盖水生和陆地系统的各种情景，并结合了社会科学和经济模型。在WP1中，水生食物生物对提供水和能源基础设施计划的冲击的反应将被调查，最终开发基于综合水动力学和基于agent的模型的规划决策支持工具。WP2将采用实验、实地和建模的方法，根据历史数据，在不同的气候变化情景下调查农业（重点是土壤和作物）对洪水的反应。改变农业制度的社会方面，例如在易受洪水影响的地区更多地使用生物能源作物，将被调查和量化。WP3将提供社会和经济模型，收集和分析从案例研究中获得的数据，并提供反馈以改进模型。此外，第三阶段工作将调查在机构内部和最终用户传播和吸收成果方面可能存在的障碍，以期制定改善这一状况的方法。该工作包还致力于通过与包括工业界在内的几个非学术伙伴的密切合作，确保产生影响。该项目的交付将由来自南安普顿大学、巴斯大学、伦敦大学、诺丁汉大学、阿伯里斯特威斯大学、拉夫堡大学、伦敦大学学院、HR沃灵福德大学的跨学科专业人员（包括工程师、生态学家、农学家、数学家和社会科学家）组成的团队管理，并得到科学技术设施委员会的支持。该团队在项目管理方面有着良好的记录，并且与工业合作伙伴和其他最终用户有着紧密的联系。该项目将使行业、监管机构、政府、学术界和公众受益。研究结果将通过发表高影响力的研究文章向学术界传播；通过国家和地方媒体、互联网和社交网络平台，以及由学校和地方科学展览参与的有组织的外展计划，让公众参与；政府通过政治外联；通过相关出版物和参与指导小组研讨会，与主要利益攸关方合作。这些成果将使监管机构能够改进指导方针，并简化决策过程，以造福行业和整个国家。

The demand for water, energy, and food (WEF) is increasing with a growing population and a larger proportion of people living high hydrocarbon dependent lifestyles. This is placing unprecedented pressure on global WEF resources, a situation that will be exacerbated with a shifting climate. To meet this demand and to ensure long-term WEF security there is a need for integrated, efficient, and sustainable resources management across the sectors. This is essential to enhance and maintain quality of life, and requires the overall system to adapt over appropriate timescales. Analogous to the human immune system, resilience can be enhanced by learning from shocks to the WEF nexus that lead to recovery and adaptation through improving the systems long-term memory. Through shocks to the system (vaccination in this analogy), society is provided the opportunity to improve resilience and sustainable management of the WEF sectors. In this context, shocks are represented by: 1) historic events, 2) controlled experimental manipulation, and 3) defined inputs to models. This project will identify the interconnections between Water Energy and Food (WEF) through the development of an integrated framework and will reveal the vulnerabilities in the system and the diverse connections between the three facets of the nexus. The project consists of three work packages (WPs) that cover a diverse array of scenarios for both aquatic and terrestrial systems integrated with a social science and economic modelling. In WP1 the response of aquatic food organisms to the shock of delivering the water and energy infrastructure plan will be investigated, culminating in the development of planning decision support tools based on integrated hydrodynamic and agent based models. WP2 will take an experimental, field based, and modelling approach to investigate the response of agriculture (focusing on soils and crops) to flooding under alternative climate change scenarios and based on historic data. The social aspects of shifting agricultural regimes, e.g. greater use of bioenergy crops in areas liable to flooding, will be investigated and quantified. WP3 will provide the social and economic modelling that will gather and analyse data obtained from the case studies and provide feedback to improve the models. Further, WP3 will investigate potential barriers to dissemination and uptake of the results within institutions and by end users that may benefit with the view to develop approaches that ameliorate for this. This work package is also dedicated to ensuring delivery of impact which will be enabled through close collaboration with several non-academic partners including industry. Delivery of the project will be managed by a team with diverse interdisciplinary expertise (including engineers, ecologists, agriculturalists, mathematicians, and social scientists) from the Universities of Southampton, Bath, London, Nottingham, Aberystwyth University, Loughborough University, University College London, HR Wallingford, and supported by the Science and Technology Facilities Council. The team has a proven track record in project management, and strong links to industrial partners and other end users. The project will benefit industry, regulators, government, academia and the general public. The findings will be disseminated to: the academic community through publication of high impact research articles; the public through engagement via national and local media and internet and social networking platforms, and a structured Outreach programme involving schools and local science exhibitions; government through political outreach; and key stakeholders via relevant publications and participation in steering group workshops. The outputs will enable regulators to improve guidelines and to streamline the decision making processes for the benefit of industry and the nation as a whole.