Workshop: Addressing the Nexus of Food, Energy and Water in the Context of Societal Challenges, Mar 1-3, 2017, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India

University Of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln NE

Investigators

Abstract

1664375 Ray Food security is civilization's next critical challenge, as the current world population of seven billion is projected to increase to more than nine billion by 2050. The United States (US) will face pressure to produce more food and feed for export, straining its energy and water resources and impacting ecosystem services. This three-day workshop will bring together experts from the fields of agronomy, agricultural economics and trade policy, water resources science/engineering, atmospheric sciences, and natural resource management to further investigate the issues and to develop new recommendations in the context of sustainability and water productivity. The workshop will be held in Bangalore, India (at the campus of the Indian Institute of Science), March 1 - 3, 2017. Intensity of agriculture, excess pumping, and climatic (rainfall) shifts are straining many regional aquifer systems in the US and around the world. This workshop will address the pressing questions of how to better balance demands on these aquifers under the current pumping stresses, and help identify the cropping management systems that will be necessary to cope with future climatic shifts. The collaboration will enable US and Indian researchers to share research and expertise aimed at solving the challenges of producing more food with less water and energy, while protecting the quality of scarce freshwater resources for human consumption and ecosystem services. The researchers will benefit from receiving international science perspectives as well as socio-economics perspectives at the nexus of food-energy-water. The outcomes of the workshop will advance national discussion about innovations at the nexus of food-energy-water, for which NSF has committed significant investments. The main goal of the proposed workshop is to address societal challenges in feeding humanity in the coming century and how the nexus between food, water and energy can be exploited to address sustainability challenges. Although these challenges are different in India and United States because of the scale of mechanization, resources availability, and other factors, the workshop will address differences and similarities in these challenges to develop mutually beneficial solutions. The specific objectives of the workshop include: 1. Identify innovative methods to improve water and energy use efficiency in the context of the nexus in both Indian and US settings, 2. Understand how the nexus concept in the food, energy and water systems can be a driver in economic and social decision making. To address food security issues, researchers have started to estimate current yield gaps, which represent the difference between current yield and the maximum yield that can be obtained under optimum management conditions. Efforts are underway to develop a yield gap analysis on a global scale to delineate areas where there is potential to increase crop yields. In order to analyze the sustainability of enhanced production of food crops (whether in the U.S. or elsewhere in the world) one needs to do the following in a step-wise manner: (1) analyze the yield gap for a given crop or suite of crops through crop modeling with optimal management scenarios and selection of proper crop hybrids; (2) for various scenarios in yield gap, estimate the water and nutrient fluxes leaving the root zone; (3) using appropriate numerical models, estimate the groundwater level changes, stream depletion, and changes in water quality in the aquifer based on the pumping needs and return fluxes of water and nutrients; and, (4) simulate optimal power use for irrigation systems. This workshop will lead to development of realistic and transferable management scenarios, tools and technologies to address societal challenges in food, energy and water security. Graduate students and postdocs as well as researchers that are in early stages of their careers will be encouraged to participate. The proceedings from the workshop will be published in electronic form, and widely shared by the Nebraska Water Center with potential stakeholders through newsletters, press releases and two annual sponsored faculty retreats.