Climate Change, Impacts, and Adaptations: Studying Vulnerabilities Across the Food-Energy-Water Nexus

Climate change is already and will continue, to impact resources across sectors from agriculture, to electricity, to water provisioning worldwide. Systems perspectives can help elucidate understandings around complex topics that drive interactions in the water, food, and energy sectors. This research will highlight two different, yet complementary, approaches to systems analytics across the water, food, energy nexus in response to climate change. The first study showcases findings from a global analysis of scientific literature documenting evidence-based climate adaptations. These results showcase that food security related adaptations are much more robustly documented than those relevant to water or energy security. We also articulate significant associations between a variety of natural hazards, exposures, sectors, actors, cross-cutting topics, and geographic locations derived from our analysis. In this presentation we will also highlight an emerging study which investigates how climate change risk and hydropower generation interrelate and the ways that this could impact the entities that balance the supply and demand of electricity for the grid, called Balancing Authorities. We use tools from climate science and network science to undertake a systems-level analysis for the entire U.S., seeking to inform future Balancing Authority planning and collaboration as they respond to climate impacts and integrate renewable energy into the grid. Both studies highlighted in this presentation will touch on themes of climate change, adaptation, and systems science to inform how changes in the Anthropocene influence food, water, energy systems.