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
Multiple research collaborations between IIASA and US researchers continued in 2014. Highlights included:
New research on the impact of unconventional natural gas on greenhouse gas emissions, the results of which were published in Nature;
The collaboration with the Pew Research Center on population projections of religious denominations around the world; and
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
The Water (WAT) Program helped develop comparative approaches to the environmental governance of transboundary water resources along Rio Grande/Río Bravo Basin and the Colorado River Basin, which forms the national border between the United States and Mexico. more
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
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
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
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
The Water (WAT) Program helped develop comparative approaches to the environmental governance of transboundary water resources along Rio Grande/Río Bravo Basin and the Colorado River Basin, which forms the national border between the United States and Mexico. more
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
Guilherme De Paula of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, USA, conducted a project to explain the significant cost reductions in sugarcane ethanol production in Brazil since 1975. more
Jie Zhang, of the Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, USA, examined the sensitivity of different MODIS-derived indicators for agricultural drought and investigated their effectiveness agricultural drought monitoring during the growing season on the Southern Great Plains of the USA. more
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
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
Danielle Haak of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, USA, assessed how humans aid the movement of an aquatic species and what effects this species has on an ecosystem after introduction. more
Thanicha Ruangmas of the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, investigates if emission reduction in Europe is due to adoption of pollution abatement technology or to a relocation of production to other regions. more
Madeleine McPherson of the University of Toronto incorporated distinct time scales for the variability of renewable energy resources into the MESSAGE model. more
Margaret Garcia of Tufts University, USA, studied how to improve evaluation of water supply reliability alternatives using a case study of Las Vegas, USA. more
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
Etienne Fluet-Chouinard of the Center for Limnology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, presented a classification of wetland ecosystems that are biodiversity hotspots in Africa and South America. more
Jessica Gephart of the University of Virginia, USA, investigated how the global seafood trade network responds to environmental and policy perturbations. more
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
Kgothatso Brucely Shai, University of Limpopo, Turfloop campus, South Africa, found that it would be in the best interests of the USA for African nations to be developed and self-reliant, as this would enhance the capacity of African nations to buy products from the USA. more
Robert Barron of the University of Massachusetts, USA, examined the welfare impact of R&D investment on the supply side across a range of demand, transportation sector, and climate policy scenarios. more
Daniel Suarez of the University of California, Berkeley, USA, examined the spread and uptake of ecosystem services approaches in global environmental governance. more
Jie Zhang, of the Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, USA, examined the sensitivity of different MODIS-derived indicators for agricultural drought and investigated their effectiveness agricultural drought monitoring during the growing season on the Southern Great Plains of the USA. more
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
Danielle Haak of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, USA, assessed how humans aid the movement of an aquatic species and what effects this species has on an ecosystem after introduction. more
Margaret Garcia of Tufts University, USA, studied how to improve evaluation of water supply reliability alternatives using a case study of Las Vegas, USA. more
Kgothatso Brucely Shai, University of Limpopo, Turfloop campus, South Africa, found that it would be in the best interests of the USA for African nations to be developed and self-reliant, as this would enhance the capacity of African nations to buy products from the USA. more
