2015 — 2016 |
Felkner, John Holtgrieve, Gordon |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
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
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.
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0.915 |
2019 — 2024 |
Hossain, Faisal (co-PI) [⬀] Balazinska, Magdalena (co-PI) [⬀] Butman, David Holtgrieve, Gordon Wood, Chelsea |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Nrt: Future Rivers: Training a Scientifically Innovative, Communication Savvy Stem Workforce For Sustaining Food-Energy-Water Services in Large and Transboundary River Ecosystems @ University of Washington
Large freshwater ecosystems are lifelines for a majority of the world's population, providing ecosystem goods and services critical to economies and livelihoods. Despite the important societal and economic benefits of these freshwater systems, the ability to predict impacts from ecosystem change and to evaluate tradeoffs is limited. A better understanding of conceptual and quantitative frameworks for evaluating the physical, biological, and social dynamics that sustain freshwater ecosystem services would allow for better management of these critical resources. This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award to the University of Washington will develop an innovative, culturally-aware STEM workforce fluent in state-of-the-art approaches for sustaining food-energy-water services in large river ecosystems and who are prepared to effectively safeguard ecosystem services for a growing world population. The project is driven by an urgent need for interdisciplinary scientists who can address current and future environmental problems by employing the quantitative tools required to integrate, model, and visualize complex datasets and often conflicting outcomes. The Future Rivers NRT training will include coursework and group activities that emphasize quantitative and interdisciplinary literacy. Students will engage in research that integrates transboundary rivers across the world, spanning a range of human disturbance and regional economic development regimes. The project anticipates training sixty (60) MS and PhD students, including eighteen (18) funded trainees, from disciplines across natural resource science, engineering, social science, health science, and policy.
The overall goals of the Future Rivers NRT project are to develop a trained workforce in 21st century quantitative and data science approaches to sustain and safeguard food-energy-water services in large river ecosystems, while researching new ways to better predict impacts and safeguard these resources. The project will use numerical modeling and data science to catalyze new approaches for addressing the grand challenge of achieving sustainability in large Food, Energy, and Water Systems (FEWS). To integrate the research and learning, the Future Rivers project follows an active learning model that starts with the presentation of new information, followed by directed practice and exercises, and ends with the application of knowledge gained in a new context. Project training activities are centered around five primary educational objectives: 1) develop new technical and data science skills; 2) foster innovative interdisciplinary and international science integration; 3) improve trainee communication skills; 4) increase cultural awareness and inclusivity among faculty, trainees, and participants; and 5) create networks and opportunities for student career development. Specific project components focus on data science training and careers (courses, hackathon events, research summits, career fairs); communication and outreach skillsets (workshops, science communication film contests); equity and inclusivity training; and interdisciplinary river FEWS issues (courses, seminar series, and summer institutes that include some international locations).
The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new potentially transformative models for STEM graduate education training. The program is dedicated to effective training of STEM graduate students in high priority interdisciplinary or convergent research areas through comprehensive traineeship models that are innovative, evidence-based, and aligned with changing workforce and research needs.
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.
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0.915 |