FEW: River FEWs: Workshop to explore the nexus between food, energy and water in a large international river system ; University of Washington; September, 2015

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

This project will convene a three-day workshop to explore natural and social science linkages between food, energy, and water (FEW) systems in large river ecosystems. This workshop will bring together 30-50 persons with scientific and/or policy expertise within one or more elements of the FEWS nexus with the goal of identifying key drivers and linkages, emergent properties, and critical research needs within the context of ecological sustainability. The participants will focus on the Mekong River Basin as an archetypal FEW coupled social-ecological system. More than 60 million people living in the Mekong are highly dependent on the river for food and livelihoods. Wild-caught fish and rice are the primary sources of nutrition, with the productivity of both fisheries and rice agriculture dependent on the natural flood-pulse hydrologic regime. The river is facing potentially large changes to the flood-pulse from mainstream and tributary hydropower development, rapid land use change and climate change. The economic benefits of new energy are expected to be substantial, but the social and environmental impacts are at present poorly understood. Fisheries/agriculture, hydrologic dynamics, and hydropower therefore form the food, water, and energy trilemma in the Mekong and are linked in both space and time. The results of this workshop will create a foundation for understanding the interconnected and interdependent nature of FEW dynamics in the Mekong and other river ecosystems. The project will support both education and diversity by enhancing the scientific capacity of Mekong scientists and underrepresented groups. Large river ecosystems provide numerous and dynamic ecosystem goods and services to people. Despite a general understanding of the types of goods and services derived from rivers and a widespread recognition of their social and economic benefit, there is a distinct lack of conceptual and quantitative frameworks for evaluating the physical, biological, and social dynamics that create ecosystem services and livelihoods. As such, there is limited ability to understand impacts from ecosystem change and to evaluate tradeoffs. This workshop will begin to address these limitations by: 1) developing a conceptual model of how multiple physical, social, and ecological processes connect and structure FEW systems in large rivers; 2) within this framework identify key linkages and flows for maintaining sustainability; 3) evaluate currently available data and capacity for quantifying these processes; and 4) identify key future research needs for addressing research conceptual and data gaps. The principal investigators have identified an initial set of 60 potential invitees, including international representation from a range of institutions active in the Mekong region. These include academic, governmental (US and Mekong), intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations. The investigators intend to invite 50-70 participants expecting 30-35 to attend with greater than 40% participation by women and underrepresented minorities. Specific products will include a white paper and journal article describing the current status and frontier of Food Water Energy research in rivers, as well as digital archiving. Development of new collaborations to address critical research questions is a specific goal of the workshop and is strongly anticipated. The broader impacts will include direct engagement of Mekong scientists and policy stakeholders from governmental and non-governmental institutions in all aspect of the workshop to ensure that outcomes are relevant to stakeholder needs and available for uptake in the decision making process. All products from the workshop will be made feely available via the project website, the Mekong portal at the University of Washington, mekong.uw.edu, and through the Florida State University Mekong portal at coss.fsu.edu/mekong. This research will contribute to improved scientific capacity in the region through participation of Mekong scientists in the workshop planning, execution, and publication of workshop outputs.