This project will develop an integrated platform including urbanization, electricity and water demand, and hydrology/crop models to examine the impact of urbanization on electricity use, water demand, and crop yields in the context of climate change. By taking a nexus approach to addressing these challenges, this work should lead to new and unanticipated solutions to improve sustainable use of water in this century of urbanization and climate change. A set of socioeconomic, urbanization, and climate change scenarios will be designed to explore challenges of growing water demand under urbanization and climate change. The modeling platform is designed to be transferrable to watersheds across the world - especially those facing the challenges of fast urbanization and potential climate change - for a systematic and integrative evaluation of the food-energy-water system to develop adaptation and mitigation strategies for water sustainability.
A modeling platform integrating three key components will be built to allow an improved understanding of water demand and sustainability under urbanization and climate change. The first component is an urban growth model, supported by satellite remote sensing and socioeconomic data, to project future urbanization and predict the consequent urban heat island intensity. The second component is a multi-sector water demand model to evaluate the impact of urbanization and climate change on water demand from public supply, and electricity use and resulting thermoelectric cooling water demand. The third component will examine the impact of urbanization on runoff and crop land loss, along with resulting complex changes in crop yields and irrigation water demand. This integrated modeling platform will serve as a prototype in coupling often independent research areas (e.g., urbanization, energy, and water) together with scenario analyses to explore complex problems and create a means to address growing water demand challenges under urbanization and climate change. This project will offer the opportunity for stakeholders to participate in the dialogue. The plan is to develop an interactive training program for land use planners and water managers with specific outreach to planning agencies that will encourage people to engage in the training. Through this, the aim is to help decision-makers improve their understanding of how urbanization and climate change influence water demand and sustainability for more informed decision making and planning, with potential to help global communities achieve their 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
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.
