United States of America

Highlights of the numerous collaborations between IIASA and US researchers in 2014 included global model comparisons in the areas of energy and agriculture, governance of transboundary water resources, and the implications of increasing use of unconventional natural gas.

Map of USA

Map of USA

Multiple research collaborations between IIASA and US researchers continued in 2014. Highlights included:

  1. New research on the impact of unconventional natural gas on greenhouse gas emissions, the results of which were published in Nature;
  2. The collaboration with the Pew Research Center on population projections of religious denominations around the world; and
  3. How to improve disaster risk management by embedding disaster policy within a holistic approach to development.

In addition, twelve young scientists from the US or studying in the US took part in IIASA's program's for young scientists in 2014.

USA


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Abundant gas

Energy Program (ENE) researchers, IIASA partners, and international collaborators contributed to new research on unconventional natural gas, the results of which were published in Nature. more

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Adaptation response of agriculture to climate change

Scientists from the Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program applied the GLOBIOM model to analyze a large number of climate change scenarios in order to investigate the extent to which producers facing climate change favored irreversible adaptation measures over low-cost field-scale adjustments. more

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Age and cohort change

Age and cohort change (ACC) researchers within the World Population Program (POP), continued working, in collaboration with Pew Research Center, on population projections of religious denominations around the world. more

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Agro-Ecological Systems

The Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program’s Agro-Ecological Systems (AES) research group advanced global and regional crop modeling in 2014, implementing and calibrating additional crops in the global EPIC model and also studying the phosphorus cycle. more

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Community flood resilience

To operationalize the concept of social and ecological resilience, the Risk, Policy and Vulnerability (RPV) Program and partners in the Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance are developing a comprehensive conceptual model for operationalizing disaster resilience thinking, which is being rolled out in several countries globally. more

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Energy Primer online textbook

The original Energy Primer, released in conjunction with the Report of the Global Energy Assessment (GEA), has been expanded and updated and made available both online and as a downloadable textbook, along with with support material for educators. more

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Evolutionarily sustainable consumption

Research by the Evolution and Ecology Program (EEP) on exploitation-induced evolution is assembling evidence and insights with respect to how human exploitation alters the heritable traits of targeted populations. Options are being developed on this basis for reducing unwanted alterations. more

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Flood resilience management

In 2014 the Water (WAT) program collaborated with the Risk, Policy and Vulnerability (RPV) Program, and the Zurich Flood Resilience Program on a project to enhance community flood resilience. more

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IIASA researchers win GEO Appathon

Growers’ Nation, a mobile app developed by Ecosystems Services and Management researchers, won the 2014 Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Appathon, a global app development competition. more

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Moving livestock toward a more sustainable future

The Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Environmental Resources and Developments (ERD) research group upgraded the livestock module of the IIASA model GLOBIOM to make it the state-of-the-art global economic model in terms of livestock sector representation. more

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Negative emissions research

The negative emissions research of the Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Policy and Science Interface (PSI) group was further developed building on several past collaborations and previous biomass and carbon capture and storage (BECCS) workshops at IIASA, in Indonesia, Brazil, and Tokyo. more

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New book on energy technology innovation

Scientists, alumni, and collaborators from the Transitions to New Technologies Program (TNT) contributed to 25 chapters of the book, Energy Technology Innovation: Learning from Historical Successes and Failures, published by Cambridge University Press in 2014. more

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New cross-cutting research on unconventional gas

In 2014 the Transitions to New Technologies (TNT) Program in collaboration with IIASA’s Energy (ENE) and Mitigation of Air Pollution & Greenhouse Gas (MAG) Programs worked on scoping a new cross-cutting research project on unconventional gas resources—which are potentially vast—and also on identifying a potential unique niche for IIASA in this rapidly crowding research field. more

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Population dynamics and human capital

A new book, World Population and Human Capital in the 21st Century, presented the results of the latest population projections from the World Population Program (POP) and the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Human Capital. more

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Primary, Final, and Useful Energy Database (PFUDB)

Researchers from the Transition to New Technologies (TNT) Program have developed a new database of historical energy balances—Primary, Final, and Useful Energy Database (PFUDB)—to explore the impacts of input versus output measures of technological change that shed a new light on the possible speed of major technological transitions. more

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REDD options hedge carbon price risk in energy sector

An Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) study on carbon price risks in the energy sector quantified the benefits and the role of financial instruments (options on REDD+ emission offsets) within available strategies to cope with the potential carbon price increase. more

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Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs)

The Energy (ENE) Program coordinated a number of major research community activities, in particular the further development of quantitative scenarios for the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), which form part of the new framework adopted by the climate change research community to facilitate the integrated analysis of climate impacts, vulnerabilities, adaptation, and mitigation. more

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Sustainable forest management: Certification of boreal forests

With the Ecosystems Services and Management’s (ESM) Earth Observation Systems research group, the Policy and Science Interface (PSI) research group developed a methodology to support assessment of forest management certification and policymaking. In 2014, this methodology was refined and applied to a case study in the boreal forest area. more

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Threats to freshwater resources and human water security

In 2014 the Water (WAT) Program worked on a project to improve the current understanding of the geography of water-related ecosystem services, while accounting for both biophysical and economic controls on services; it will also assess how new management strategies can enhance the resilience of the global water system over a 100-year time frame. more

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Energy and Human Development

The Energy (ENE) Program made important strides in advancing the state of knowledge on energy poverty, the policy costs of expanding universal access to modern energy worldwide, and the synergies and tradeoffs between achieving universal access and other sustainable development goals. more

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Abundant gas

Energy Program (ENE) researchers, IIASA partners, and international collaborators contributed to new research on unconventional natural gas, the results of which were published in Nature. more

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New cross-cutting research on unconventional gas

In 2014 the Transitions to New Technologies (TNT) Program in collaboration with IIASA’s Energy (ENE) and Mitigation of Air Pollution & Greenhouse Gas (MAG) Programs worked on scoping a new cross-cutting research project on unconventional gas resources—which are potentially vast—and also on identifying a potential unique niche for IIASA in this rapidly crowding research field. more

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Sustainable forest management: Certification of boreal forests

With the Ecosystems Services and Management’s (ESM) Earth Observation Systems research group, the Policy and Science Interface (PSI) research group developed a methodology to support assessment of forest management certification and policymaking. In 2014, this methodology was refined and applied to a case study in the boreal forest area. more

USA


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Abstract algebraic tools for systems analysis

Daniel Jessie of the Advanced Systems Analysis Program is working to introduce a different mathematical approach to understanding the nature of dynamical network processes where standard mathematical tools can only provide analytical solutions in simplest cases. more

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Comparative approaches to the environmental governance of transboundary water resources between the United States and Mexico: The cases of the Rio Grande/Río Bravo Basin and the Colorado River Basin

Luzma Fabiola Nava Jiménez is working with the Water Program, researching the transboundary governance regime in the binational US/Mexico Rio Grande/Rio Bravo Basin to assess the institutional and organizational arrangements for water management and conservation, and thereby define a broader framework to compare different scenarios of transboundary water governance. more

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Could fertility patterns act as a driver of global migration?

Adriana Reyes of the Pennsylvania State University, USA, used a harmonized global database of international migration flows to investigate the determinants of migration with a special focus on the relationship of fertility in sending and receiving countries. more

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Global agricultural monitoring and mobile data collection

Jon Nordling of the University of Maryland, College Park, USA, explored ways to utilize F-VGI (Facilitated-Volunteered Geographic Information) ground observation information, remote sensing, and GIS to gain a month-to-month understanding of production crops on a global scale. more

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Improving the efficiency of citizen science for land-cover mapping applications

Carl Salk is working with the Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program assessing the quality of the work of volunteers—as opposed to the “gold standard” of experts—who are carrying out image classification for IIASA’s “Cropland Capture,” when they are faced with tasks of non-uniform difficulty and, in particular, of extreme difficulty. He is already applying insights to a new game under development. more

North America


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Comparative approaches to the environmental governance of transboundary water resources between the United States and Mexico: The cases of the Rio Grande/Río Bravo Basin and the Colorado River Basin

Luzma Fabiola Nava Jiménez is working with the Water Program, researching the transboundary governance regime in the binational US/Mexico Rio Grande/Rio Bravo Basin to assess the institutional and organizational arrangements for water management and conservation, and thereby define a broader framework to compare different scenarios of transboundary water governance. more


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Last edited: 21 April 2015

INFO SHEET ON IIASA ACTIVITIES WITH THE US

National Member Organization

NMO DETAILS

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS)

Michael Clegg

Professor Emeritus, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of California, Irvine

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS)

Ester Sztein

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