FEW Nexus Conceptual Framework

Food-Energy-water (FEW) nexus is an emerging approach to address complex resource management issues in the face of population growth, economic development, and climate change. Yet, many major conceptual issues are at large. We are working on developing a theoretical framework that identifies main characteristics of FEW systems, its intersectoral connectivity, and drivers of FEW resilience so that we then be able to characterize and anticipate FEW problems. This theoretical framework, implemented into a computational model to run simulations, enables us to develop and evaluate solutions for FEW problems.

 

 

Information-Theoretic Analysis of Dynamics of Environmental Systems

Information theory provides us with a powerful tool to analyze complex systems that involve many interconnected variables. While a mechanistic modeling approach requires detailed, not-always-available data and substantial computational power, an information-theoretic approach, as a statistical approach, enables us to explain and predict such systems while avoiding unavailable or perhaps unnecessary complicated mechanistic models. We are working on developing multivariate autoregressive (MAR) models that capture the main features of complex systems of interest through time series analysis.