Coupled Production-Consumption Systems for Climate Change Mitigation: Designing Equitable Food, Energy, and Water Conservation Strategies

1541816 (Watkins). This workshop will bring together experts from a broad range of disciplines to identify climate change mitigation strategies based on improved understanding and management of coupled food, energy and water (FEW) production-consumption systems. The focus is on climate change mitigation based on FEW conservation strategies, with the following overarching research question: How can we best design FEW conservation strategies that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, avoid unintended consequences to individual FEW sectors and the environment, be financially viable for FEW producers, and be acceptable to FEW consumers? On the FEW production side, data and models are needed to quantify and predict resource use, greenhouse gas emissions, and costs associated with alternatives for meeting FEW security goals. However, there is also a need to recognize that these goals are not defined ex ante, but rather are based on human goals and behaviors which are complex, heterogeneous, and continuously evolve as new information and alternatives become available. While the state of the art in analyzing sustainability of socio-ecological systems continues to advance (e.g., resiliency), these concepts have not been brought to bear on the FEW nexus. To add this important dimension to the FEW nexus dialogue, this workshop will focus on reducing consumption and developing integrated climate change mitigation-adaptation strategies accounting for endogenous socio-economic feedbacks. An integrated mitigation-adaptation approach is needed because land, energy, and water management strategies for climate change mitigation must account for changes that will already occur given current greenhouse gas levels. Furthermore, moving towards sustainable consumption will require understanding of how FEW production systems may be affected. Workshop outcomes will be widely disseminated through a white paper and Eos article identifying critical research frontiers for FEW conservation strategies based on a coupled production-consumption systems approach.