Highlights of the numerous collaborations between IIASA and US researchers in 2015 included global model comparisons in agriculture, governance of transboundary water resources, and identifying feasible pathways to achieving the sustainable development goals.
Map of USA
Multiple research collaborations between IIASA and US researchers continued in 2015. Highlights included:
A new research project, The World in 2050, is deriving viable pathways for achieving all 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs);
Researchers in the Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA) Program contribute to the understanding of sustainability by applying the experiences of their particular studies, each of which deals with the concept in its own way. This allows for development of diverse, system-analytic approaches to quantifying sustainability. more
Researchers in the Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA) Program make advances in contemporary control theory related to control under incomplete information, control of distributed systems, and construction of the attainability domains. more
The Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program’s Agro-Ecological Systems (AES) group worked to advance global and regional gridded crop modeling, investigating the impacts of future climate change and nutrient depletion. The vulnerability of crop production to climate change was a key focus for the group. more
In the past, integrated assessment models have typically relied on average “per-capita characteristics” of consumers and have, therefore, fallen short in representing behavioral factors in a detailed way. The Energy Program’s MESSAGE modeling team has enhanced its treatment of these factors, focusing in particular on modeling decisions to purchase light-duty vehicles. more
The Methods for Economic Decision-Making under Uncertainty (MEDU) group has identified promising approaches to emissions offsetting in the energy sector under Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) mechanism. These include increasing risk-aversion of energy producers, exposing risk-averse behavior, and activating a benefit-sharing mechanism. more
The Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program’s Environmental Resources and Development (ERD) group has used the GLOBIOM model to analyze the consequences of climate change for the agricultural sector, with a focus on food availability consequences in developing countries. more
Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA) Program researchers apply contemporary approaches to analyze newly available “big data” from social media datasets to find new insights. more
In collaboration with the Risk, Policy and Vulnerability (RPV) Program the Water (WAT) Program has continued to contribute to methods to enhance flood resilience. To this end, WAT has led development of the Flood Resilience System Framework (FLORES) to integrate disaster risk management and development perspectives. more
The Water (WAT) Program has extended work begun by the Global Water Systems Project, which focuses on human and ecosystem water security and assessing the investments required to enhance the resilience of the global water system over a 100-year time period. more
The Water (WAT) Program has developed comparative approaches for improving environmental governance of transboundary water resources along the Rio Grande/Río Bravo Basin and the Colorado River Basin, along the border between the US and Mexico. more
The Mitigation of Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases (MAG) Program takes a unique systems perspective that integrates physical, social, economic, and policy aspects of air quality management. In 2015, the program introduced these aspects into numerous new policy and scientific initiatives that address the role of air quality management for improving human wellbeing and contribute to multiple UN Sustainable Development Goals. more
The Transitions to New Technologies (TNT) Program played a key role in the proposal for a large-scale, multi-year research project to analyze the synergies and trade-offs between different natural resource systems: Integrated Solutions for Water, Energy, and Land (IS-WEL). more
Advanced System Analysis (ASA) Program researchers develop game-theoretic methods to better understand the strategic interactions between multiple agents and model the behavior of countries involved in international environmental agreements to find ways of inducing cooperation. more
Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program researchers are building a deforestation map with the help of players in their new Geo-Wiki game, Picture Pile. An innovative method to allow players to learn about the accuracy of their choices will also improve the quality of the data. more
The World Urban Database and Access Portal Tools (WUDAPT) initiative, for which Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program researchers play a crucial role, has started to gain momentum in the urban climate modeling community. WUDAPT is an attempt to classify all cities in the world using a standardized classification scheme based on local climate zones [1]. more
In view of the global climate targets that were agreed in Paris in 2015, the Mitigation of Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases (MAG) Program revisited the feasibility and economics of achieving deep cuts in non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions. This analysis revealed much higher emissions from global oil production and extended shale gas extraction than previously thought. more
The Energy Program (ENE) continued to lead the field of socioeconomic scenarios for the integrated assessment of climate change. In 2015, a series of papers were submitted to a special issue of the journal Global Environmental Change, providing a detailed account of the main characteristics of five Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) and related integrated assessment scenarios. more
The World in 2050 (TWI2050) is an international collaboration launched by IIASA with international partners that will involve almost all research programs at IIASA with a focus on deriving viable pathways for achieving all 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). more
Questions of fiscal, social, and ecological resilience have become fundamental to addressing the global issues of risk management, climate change adaptation, and transitions to a sustainable future. However, operationalization of the concept has remained elusive; this is where Risk, Policy and Vulnerability (RPV) Program made substantial progress in 2015. more
The Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program’s Earth Observation Systems (EOS) group has continued their work on boreal forests. In 2015, improvements were made to the Terrestrial Ecosystem Full Verified Carbon Budget (FCA), including updating its ecological and economic aspects, and applying it to the ecosystems of Northern Eurasia. more
The successful completion of the fast-track analysis under the global Water Futures and Solutions (WFaS) initiative, is a major achievement of the Water (WAT) Program. The analysis has yielded the first set of multi-model, quantified scenarios of water demand with a focus on the domestic, industrial, and energy sectors. more
The Water (WAT) Program has developed comparative approaches for improving environmental governance of transboundary water resources along the Rio Grande/Río Bravo Basin and the Colorado River Basin, along the border between the US and Mexico. more
The Mitigation of Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases (MAG) Program has developed a new method that assigns particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) to emission sources at the different scales of origin. This work allowed the implications of the recent emission scandal on local air quality to be quantified. more
The project Linking Climate and Development Policies – Leveraging International Networks and Knowledge Sharing (CD-LINKS) kicked off in September 2015. CD-LINKS aims to study the links between climate policies and multiple sustainable development objectives. more
Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA) Program researchers develop dynamic network models of ecological, economic, and social systems; in particular, financial systemic risk and cascading failures in the inter-bank lending network are studied. more
Modeling by the Mitigation of Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases (MAG) Program has shown that efforts to reduce the fine particulate matter (PM2.5) precursor emissions will not deliver the expected drop in air pollution unless a reduction of agricultural ammonia (NH3) emissions is achieved. more
Miguel Poblete Cazenave, of Stony Brook University, USA, estimated optimal retirement ages based on income, health status, and life expectancy in the context of increasing life expectancies. more
Arda Aktaş, of Stony Brook University, USA, investigated how “subjective age”—how long people think they have left to live—changes with characteristics such as gender and education. more
Daniel Jessie of the Advanced Systems Analysis Program is working to introduce a new mathematical approach to understanding the nature of dynamical network processes where standard mathematical tools can only provide analytical solutions in the simplest cases. more
Adam French, of the Advanced Systems Analysis and Risk, Policy and Vulnerability programs, is examining the potential for watersheds in the water-stressed Global South to switch to Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM), an integrated, multi-sectoral form of water governance. more
Lucas Henneman of the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, used the Greenhouse Gas Interactions and Synergies (GAINS) model emissions and control costs associated with eight energy and air pollution scenarios. more
Zhimin Mao of the Pardee RAND Graduate School, USA, analyzed a proposed action plan to cut air pollution in China, showing that enable rapid reduction of air pollution can be achieved. more
Luzma Fabiola Nava Jiménez, of the Water Program, is examining the water governance regime in river basins which cross the USA/Mexico border. The results show that in order to improve water resources sustainability and management both countries need to agree to adapt the water resource regimes. more
The Water (WAT) Program has developed comparative approaches for improving environmental governance of transboundary water resources along the Rio Grande/Río Bravo Basin and the Colorado River Basin, along the border between the US and Mexico. more
Gillian Foster, of the Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria, estimated the future demand for ethylene in the US and the impact of gas prices. more
Zhaomiao Guo, of the University of California, USA, used a stochastic game-theoretic model to study energy security and energy capacity issues in the USA, China, and Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). more
Anne-Perrine Avrin, of the University of California, USA, investigated how electricity transmission can facilitate integration of renewable energy by better matching generation with demand. more
Carl Salk, of the Ecosystem Services and Management Program, assessed the accuracy of volunteers responses used for land-cover identification, finding that the majority vote does not always give the correct classification. Citizen science games that include an element of training may improve the situation. more
Franziska Gaupp, of the University of Oxford, UK, used the copula methodology to model drought events and subsequent yield losses in regions that produce large proportions of the world’s food. more
Julio Enrique Herrera Estrada, of Princeton University, USA, used different models and climate scenarios to investigate the impacts of droughts and heatwaves on water resources, energy production, and food security, as well as the interactions between them. more
Rui Hu, of Imperial College London, UK, conducted an international comparative study to examine China’s wind energy knowledge and technology accumulation, showing that China is making rapid progress. more
Daniel Sanchez, of the University of California, USA, investigated the optimal deployment of renewable energy in the Alps, while balancing the twin concerns of climate change and ecosystem protection. more
Maria Rivera, of the University of Maryland, USA, used a comprehensive review to examine whether REDD+ is the best policy instrument for the Virunga Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. more
Alexandra Karambelas, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, explored how urban and rural air pollution combines to influence regional air quality in India, and how this might change under different policy conditions. more
Luzma Fabiola Nava Jiménez, of the Water Program, is examining the water governance regime in river basins which cross the USA/Mexico border. The results show that in order to improve water resources sustainability and management both countries need to agree to adapt the water resource regimes. more
The Water (WAT) Program has developed comparative approaches for improving environmental governance of transboundary water resources along the Rio Grande/Río Bravo Basin and the Colorado River Basin, along the border between the US and Mexico. more
Gillian Foster, of the Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria, estimated the future demand for ethylene in the US and the impact of gas prices. more
Zhaomiao Guo, of the University of California, USA, used a stochastic game-theoretic model to study energy security and energy capacity issues in the USA, China, and Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). more
