1438197 (Xu). The completion of this project will provide an integrated tool to evaluate water scarcity risks for industries with global supply chains. The results will help businesses develop strategies to mitigate water scarcity risk and contribute to global water conservation. Although the results are specific for water scarcity risk, the modeling framework will be generally applicable for studying risks posed by other environmental challenges such as biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation. An interactive web-based visualization tool will be developed to broadly disseminate the research results to raise awareness of water scarcity risk for the global trade network. The results of this research are targeted to help decision-making in trade and environmental policies to mitigate water scarcity risk for industries with significantly globalized supply chains.
The objective of evaluating risks for the global trade network will be achieved by developing and applying a probabilistic network analysis framework. Based on multi-regional input-output models, the world economy will be studied as a trade network in which nodes are industries in each country and links represent exchanges of goods and services between industries. Relative risks of economic losses in those industries due to local water scarcity at either the country level or river basin level will be used to weight the global trade network. The weighted global trade network will be analyzed using complex network analysis metrics and methods to identify "hotspots" vulnerable to water scarcity risks. The probabilistic network analysis framework will be generalized for broader applications to risks posed by other environmental challenges in addition to water scarcity. The project will also develop an interactive web-based visualization tool to present research results and facilitate effective teaching and learning.
