Water, energy and food systems are increasingly interconnected. To meet sustainability targets transitions in those systems are needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, provide sufficient clean fresh water, and nutritious food. A transition of the physical infrastructure will require changes in behavior, norms and regulations, but the dynamics of the physical infrastructure and human behavior are not synced. We are developing models combining insights from the social science and engineering to explore transition pathways that are socially just and enable robustness of water, energy and food systems in the long term. Current focus is on the governance of decentralized energy systems, especially on the role of solar energy. Previous work included two NSF projects: One on water governance of Mexico city (PI Eakin) and one on resilience of water-energy-road networks (PI Seager).

There have been anecdotes that field experiments on commons dilemmas in communities have led to behavioral changes. In a project led by International Food Policy Research Institute we are testing whether performing field experiments on crop choice and groundwater together with a community wide debriefing lead to a measurable change in ground water use. The experiments are done in India and Colombia. The potential outcome is a practical tool for NGOs to stimulate behavioral change.

Watch related PBS documentary here.

There is an increase in the use of computational models, such as agent-based models, in the social and life sciences, but typically only results are shared in publications. Model code is not provided with publications, which hinders the cumulative nature of scientific discovery. The website comses.net is an ongoing attempt to build cyber-infrastructure where scholars can archive their models using best practices. In this way we preserve well documented model code on which other scholars can build on.