Award Abstract # 1739909
INFEWS/T1: Impacts of Deglobalization on the Sustainability of Regional Food, Energy, Water Systems

NSF Org: SES
Division of Social and Economic Sciences
Recipient: OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY, THE
Initial Amendment Date: August 24, 2017
Latest Amendment Date: June 14, 2022
Award Number: 1739909
Award Instrument: Continuing Grant
Program Manager: Robert O'Connor
roconnor@nsf.gov
 (703)292-7263
SES
 Division of Social and Economic Sciences
SBE
 Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences
Start Date: September 1, 2017
End Date: May 31, 2023 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $2,431,141.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $2,431,141.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2017 = $1,769,794.00
FY 2018 = $661,347.00
History of Investigator:
  • Elena Irwin (Principal Investigator)
    irwin.78@osu.edu
  • Jay Martin (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Robyn Wilson (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Jeffrey Bielicki (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Yongyang Cai (Co-Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: Ohio State University
1960 KENNY RD
COLUMBUS
OH  US  43210-1016
(614)688-8735
Sponsor Congressional District: 03
Primary Place of Performance: Ohio State University
OH  US  43210-1010
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
03
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): DLWBSLWAJWR1
Parent UEI: MN4MDDMN8529
NSF Program(s): Track 1 INFEWS
Primary Program Source: 01001718DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
01001819DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s): 004Z
Program Element Code(s): 020Y00
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.075

ABSTRACT

Increased globalization through international trade, migration, and technological innovation has generated substantial wealth in the U.S. economy over the past 50 years. These gains , however, have been accompanied by job losses in the manufacturing sector, growing wealth inequality in society and environmental impacts abroad. Counter social and political trends reveal a potential for deglobalization, i.e., diminished integration of the U.S. with global markets. The goal of this project is to examine the potential effects of deglobalization on the sustainability of regional food-energy-water systems (FEWS) and well-being of FEW producers and consumers. We develop a new integrated modeling framework that accounts for individual land use and management decisions, regional demands for land, energy and water resources, and water quality and greenhouse gas emissions impacts. We apply the model to a five-state Great Lakes region: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin and evaluate the implications of varying future deglobalization scenarios and policies for regional FEWS sustainability and societal well-being. Local and regional stakeholders are engaged throughout the research process via a participatory modeling approach to guide model specification, develop future scenarios, and identify sustainability metrics. The research results are used to guide discussion of potential Great Lakes regional futures with policymakers and other stakeholders.

The modeling framework builds from a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium model that accounts for both the time evolution of key resource stocks and the behavioral dynamics of individuals. The model quantifies the effects of uncertain future changes in environmental, economic, or policy conditions at national and global scales on the regional production of food and energy services that use land, water, and energy resources and that depend on farmer, land use, and watershed heterogeneity. We account for these local heterogeneities using individual farmer behavioral and spatially explicit land data from the Maumee River basin. By creating a dynamic stochastic integrated modeling framework that also accounts for individual decision making and spatial land use-watershed heterogeneity, this research advances the integrated modeling of regional FEWS. The research team also devises a novel approach to sustainability assessment that builds on the unique features of the Dynamic Regional Food, Energy, Water Systems modeling framework to identify policies that are robust in achieving desirable outcomes under a range of uncertainty conditions. The participatory modeling approach with stakeholders improves model validity and generates innovations in how scientific knowledge is created, disseminated, and applied to the management of regional FEWS with specific application to the Great Lakes region.

PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH

Note:  When clicking on a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) number, you will be taken to an external site maintained by the publisher. Some full text articles may not yet be available without a charge during the embargo (administrative interval).

Some links on this page may take you to non-federal websites. Their policies may differ from this site.

(Showing: 1 - 10 of 28)
Adams, Benjamin M. and Vogler, Daniel and Kuehn, Thomas H. and Bielicki, Jeffrey M. and Garapati, Nagasree and Saar, Martin O. "Heat depletion in sedimentary basins and its effect on the design and electric power output of CO2 Plume Geothermal (CPG) systems" Renewable Energy , v.172 , 2021 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2020.11.145 Citation Details
Bielicki, J. and Beetstra, M. and Kast, J. and Wang, Y. and Tang, S. "Stakeholder Perspectives on Sustainability in the Food-Energy-Water Nexus" Frontiers in environmental science , v.7 , 2019 Citation Details
Bielicki, Jeffrey M. and DeLuca, Maria and Middleton, Richard S. and Langenfeld, Julie S. "Dependence of CO2 Capture, Transport, and Storage on Reservoir Leakage Risk" Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies, GHGT-15 , 2021 Citation Details
Bielicki, Jeffrey M. and Miranda, Marcos W. "Probabilistic Estimation of Levelized Cost of Electricity from Using Geologically Stored CO2 for Geothermal Energy Production" Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies, GHGT-15 , 2021 Citation Details
Cai, Yongyang "Computational methods in environmental and resource economics" Annual review of resource economics , v.11 , 2019 Citation Details
Cai, Yongyang and Judd, Kenneth "A simple but powerful simulated certainty equivalent approximation method for dynamic stochastic problems" Quantitative economics , v.14 , 2023 Citation Details
Chen, Yong and Irwin, Elena and Jayaprakash, Ciriyam and Park, Kyoung Jin "An Agent Based Model of a Thinly Traded Land Market in an Urbanizing Region" Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation , v.24 , 2021 https://doi.org/10.18564/jasss.4518 Citation Details
Cultice, Brian and Irwin, Elena and Jones, Mackenzie "Accounting for spatial economic interactions at local and meso scales in integrated assessment model (IAM) frameworks: challenges and recent progress" Environmental Research Letters , v.18 , 2023 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acbce6 Citation Details
Duc, Kien Nguyen and Ancev, Tiho and Randall, Alan "Farmers' choices of climate-resilient strategies: Evidence from Vietnam" Journal of Cleaner Production , v.317 , 2021 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.128399 Citation Details
Fleming, Mark R. and Adams, Benjamin M. and Kuehn, Thomas H. and Bielicki, Jeffrey M. and Saar, Martin O. "Increased Power Generation due to Exothermic Water Exsolution in CO2 Plume Geothermal (CPG) Power Plants" Geothermics , v.88 , 2020 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geothermics.2020.101865 Citation Details
Fleming, Mark R. and Adams, Benjamin M. and Ogland-Hand, Jonathan D. and Bielicki, Jeffrey M. and Kuehn, Thomas H. and Saar, Martin O. "Flexible CO2-plume geothermal (CPG-F): Using geologically stored CO2 to provide dispatchable power and energy storage" Energy Conversion and Management , v.253 , 2022 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2021.115082 Citation Details
(Showing: 1 - 10 of 28)

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

Recent trends indicate an overall slowdown in globalization, including fewer trade reforms and weakening support for open trade. To help understand the implications of this and other potential shifts in globalization for regional economies and ecosystems, our team modeled the ways in which changing global conditions can impact the Food, Energy, and Water Systems (FEWS) of the Great Lakes region (Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin).

Our project focused specifically on understanding the potential impacts of changing global agricultural markets and environmental stewardship on the Great Lakes regional FEWS and quantifying the trade-offs among regional economic and environmental indicators of well-being. The work was guided by an external team of advisors from across the Great Lakes region who added their regional expertise in agriculture, energy, land use, economics, and environmental policy.

We developed a novel integrated dynamic regional economic-land-use-ecosystem services model that accounts for spatial and behavioral heterogeneity. We used this model to simulate future worlds based on different scenarios (Figure 1). These scenarios varied from current conditions and trajectories (referred to as the BAU) by having (a) higher or lower global conditions of environmental stewardship and (b) higher or lower openness to international trade. The BAU and four alternative combinations of High/Low Trade/Stewardship (HSHT, HSLT, LSHT, LSLT) resulted in five distinct scenarios (Figure 2).

The model produced a set of outcomes that we compared across scenarios to examine key trade-offs and variations in economic and environmental sustainability indicators. Main findings include:

  • Despite differences in population and regional economic growth across the scenarios, total and per capita electricity consumption rose in all scenarios. Growth in solar- and wind-generated electricity was the highest in the HT scenarios. Fossil fuel use declined in all scenarios (Figure 3).  
  • Soybean production outpaced corn production in all scenarios due to its higher projected profitability and lesser reliance on fertilizer. Total cropland remained roughly constant under the BAU, declined in the HS scenarios, and increased under LSLT (Figure 4), reflecting favorable conditions including high productivity growth, higher export prices, and smaller increases in fertilizer cost.
  • Land enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program was diverted from cropland and increased markedly under the HS scenarios. Total forest acres increased marginally under the BAU and declined the most under LSHT due to higher population growth. Larger declines in wetlands occurred under the LT scenarios due to higher agricultural commodity prices and greater conversion of wetlands to agricultural use.
  • The highest production-based GHG emissions occurred under LSHT, which has the highest population growth and least emissions restrictions. Net emissions decline rapidly in the BAU and two HS scenarios due to CO2 capture and storage. In the HS scenarios, higher oil and gas prices resulted in lower emissions from transportation and gas heating. GHG emissions from agriculture increased in all scenarios (Figure 5).
  • Under the BAU, the 40% reduction target for spring phosphorus (P) loads in spring was reached by 2025 for dissolved P and by 2035 for total P. These declined more rapidly under the HS scenarios due to higher adoption rates and fewer cropland acres. Under the LS scenarios projected spring total P loads only reached the 40% reduction target by the mid-2040s.
  • Per capita produced capital declined in all scenarios and were greater in the HT scenarios due to higher population growth that outpaced increases in built structures. Per capita natural capital, which reflects the value of agricultural land, forests, and wetlands, declined in most scenarios. Overall, the wealth from these combined capitals declined in all but the LSLT scenario (Figure 6), which had the lowest population growth and highest growth in cropland and forest land and per capital produced capital. These results underscore the importance of investing in manmade and natural capitals at a rate that matches or exceeds population growth.

The project generated substantial broader impacts, including:

  • We found a high level of satisfaction and impact from participatory process. Results indicated that 82-94% of stakeholder advisors felt the scenarios and models were reliable/legitimate, credible/trustworthy, and relevant/realistic. Nearly all stakeholders reported that we generated improved understanding of the impacts of deglobalization on the regional FEWS system, effectively incorporated stakeholder input in final models, and produced useable information.
  • The project provided tremendous interdisciplinary training opportunities for graduate students who were immersed in the development of the integrated model and collaborated deeply with each other and faculty researchers. This training has directly benefited their professional careers. Multiple PhD students have graduated and started positions that are a result of the training they received through this project.
  • The project resulted in a set of eight lesson plans for high school science teachers in Ohio that can be inserted as a module into any course or used independently as a module on FEW systems.

Last Modified: 09/28/2023
Modified by: Elena G Irwin

Please report errors in award information by writing to: awardsearch@nsf.gov.

Print this page

Back to Top of page