Energy-Climate-Food-Water Nexus

IIASA's research is interdisciplinary, integrated and cross cutting, therefore many of our activities focus on more than one of the areas as identified in the Strategic Plan. The below details research that addresses both Energy and Climate, and Food and Water issues.


Africa


Asia


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Integrated modeling and qualitative analysis

As environmental problems do not respect disciplinary boundaries, integrated assessment modeling, pioneered by IIASA, is a useful adjunct to environmental policy analysis, integrating knowledge from more than one domain into a single framework. more

Europe


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Advanced techniques for extreme event risk

Risk, Policy and Vulnerability (RPV) staff introduced a new method to up-scale dependent loss distributions from natural hazards to higher spatial levels, explicitly incorporating their dependency structure over the aggregation process. more

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Climate change will raise electricity prices

Changes in water availability and water temperature under climate change are likely to lead to higher electricity prices for most of Europe, according to a new study by IIASA's Water Futures and Solutions Initiative (WFaS). more

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Ecosystem services and bio-energy potential in the Alpine Space

In 2013 the Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program's Policy Science Interface (PSI) group together with ESM Forest Ecosystems Management (FEM) continued their involvement in the recharge.green project that aims to analyze bio-energy potential and impacts in the Alps from biomass, solar, wind, and hydro. more

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Integrated modeling and qualitative analysis

As environmental problems do not respect disciplinary boundaries, integrated assessment modeling, pioneered by IIASA, is a useful adjunct to environmental policy analysis, integrating knowledge from more than one domain into a single framework. more

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Resilience of social systems

Similarly to ecosystems, social systems – from firms to countries – are becoming more and more subject to various stressors whose effects penetrate throughout the system by means of social ties and economic links. The external disturbances here may be of political, economic, financial and even environmental nature. more

Global


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A wider perspective on potential co-benefits

In a review paper, developed in cooperation with colleagues from the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies of Japan, scientists of the Mitigation of Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases (MAG) Program argued that a multidisciplinary approach, involving the interplay with other policy objectives beyond air quality and climate, is needed to bring policies into line with current research on co-benefits. more

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Advances in solving optimal control problems

In 2013 the Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA) Program made several new contributions to the development of optimal control theory for managing socio-environmental systems within a modeling framework. more

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Agro-Ecological Systems (AES)

In 2013 substantive progress was made in extending and validating the IIASA EPIC model for major crops in Europe and for assessing the biophysical impacts of a mean 2°C temperature rise. more

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Climate mitigation, negative emissions technology, and BECCS

The Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program's Policy and Science Interface (PSI) team has been considering how to mitigate climate change through the use of carbon-neutral bio-energy (BE), combined with carbon capture and storage (CCS), to produce negative-emissions conditions. more

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Environmental resources and development (ERD)

The Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program group on environmental resources and development (ERD) tackles the multiple interrelationships that exist between the natural environment and the human systems that actually or potentially affect it - population, land use, soil, water, chemicals, climate, crop management systems, and global trade. more

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Forest Ecosystem Management (FEM): Biomass studies

In 2013 the Forest Ecosystem Management (FEM) research group studied how to manage forests for maximization of forest stock and forest increment, as well as the availability of woody biomass for the energy sector. more

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Model performance

The Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA) Program reviewed techniques available across various fields for characterizing the performance of environmental models with a focus on numerical, graphical, and qualitative methods. more

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Modeling flood risk

A major focus of risk modeling work in Risk, Policy and Vulnerability (RPV) has been on flood risk, which is often considered the dominant extreme event hazard. more

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New studies map future climate impacts across sectors

The Methods for Economic Decision making under Uncertainty (MEDU) group contributed to the first results of the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISI-MIP), a pioneering collaboration within the international scientific community. more

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Nitrogen management offers potential for win-win solutions

The Mitigation of Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases (MAG) Program contributed to papers that highlight how the global nitrogen cycle could change in the 21st century and the extent to which this is reflected in the current set of global emission scenarios. more

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Optimal economic growth

The Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA) researchers in 2013 worked on developing new economic growth models capable of generating “green growth” and sustainable development solutions. more

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Policy and science interface (PSI)

The Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program’s Policy and Science Interface (PSI) group aims to strengthen various aspects of the role played by the ESM research program in the climate and land use change-relevant community. more

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Risk modeling

Comprehensive modeling of the effects of climate change, including extreme events, by RPV  involves advanced techniques and takes into account stakeholder requests and needs.  more

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Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs)

Through its integrated assessment work, the Energy (ENE) Program has played a central role in shaping community-wide climate research activities, including the so-called Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). more

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Simulations and agent-based modeling

In 2013 the Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA) Program carried out simulations of the actions and interactions of autonomous agents in order to assess their effects on systems as a whole. more

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Sustainable Forest Management - Certification

The Policy Science Interface (PSI) group of the Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program worked with ESM's Earth Observation Systems (EOS) to develop a new methodology to support assessment of, and decision making for, future forest management certification. more

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Systemic risks and networks

The Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA) Program in 2013 looked at systems marked by interlinkages and interdependencies, where failure of one entity or a cluster of entities can cause a cascading failure capable of bringing down an entire system. more

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The importance of governance

New global emission scenarios enable a fresh perspective on air pollution trends in different world regions, and in particular on the importance of proper governance for future air quality. more

North America


Africa


Asia


Europe


North America


South America



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Last edited: 10 April 2014

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
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