FEW: Conference on Environmental Change, Migration, and the Resilience of Regional Food, Water, and Energy Systems

Ohio State University, The, Columbus OH

Investigators

Abstract

The interdependence among regional-scale food, energy, and water (FEW) systems has gained increasing attention, especially in light of recent natural disasters that have revealed hidden vulnerabilities in the infrastructures and resources supporting basic community needs. Much scientific effort has been focused on understanding and improving the resilience of FEW systems in particularly vulnerable regions, such as arid regions or areas of extreme poverty. Significantly less work has been done to understand the resilience of FEW systems in areas of water abundance, such as the U.S. Midwest, a highly productive agricultural region. As extreme weather events, coastal flooding, and droughts occur more frequently, less vulnerable regions like the U.S. Midwest will likely experience increases in population driven in part by the in-migration of environmentally displaced people. Such migration will increase stresses on regional FEW systems by altering the socio-economic distribution of residents and the industrial mix of the region, increasing competition among various land uses, and exacerbating impacts on water quality and other ecosystem services. Given the importance of FEW systems in water-abundant regions, understanding the interactions between direct (local climate variability) and indirect (in-migration) effects of climate change on such regions is critical. Ohio State University will host a two-day conference to investigate the implications of the direct and indirect effects of climate and environmental change on the resilience of regional FEW systems in non-coastal, water-abundant regions such as the U.S. Midwest. The conference will focus on identifying the basic science and theory that are needed to further understanding of regional FEW systems with an emphasis on the dynamic coupling among biophysical, economic, and social systems. The objective of the conference is to identify priorities for interdisciplinary research that will help to enhance the resilience and adaptive capacity of regions where existing FEW system infrastructures and resources may experience significant pressures due to such migrations coupled with the direct effects of increasing temperature and climate variability. Sessions are planned to examine (a) migration as an adaptive response to climate change; (b) natural and built capital for ecosystem services and resilience; (c) technology and innovation for resource resilience; (d) social and cultural aspects of community resilience; and (e) models and data for regional sustainability and resilience assessment. The conference will engage approximately 50 prominent researchers and representatives of local, state, and federal government agencies, in a series of facilitated, interactive sessions to discuss the current state of knowledge and the needs of decision-makers who are grappling with the challenges of capacity-building under increasing constraints. The results of the conference will be synthesized into a roadmap for the research needed to develop resilient and sustainable FEW systems in regions that may become critically important to a growing and shifting human population.