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young scientists
30 options + winter 2014/2015 www.iiasa.ac.at
people at iiasa
On 7 August 2014 participants in IIASAâs Young Scientists
Summer Program (YSSP) invited Institute scientists and staff
to a workshop addressing five major questions regarding
the future of humanity: adaptation to changing environments;
planetary boundaries and resource constraints; quality of life;
conflict management; and the morality and ethics of science
and technology.
The impetus for the workshop came from a lecture at IIASA
byÂ
Ernst Ulrich von WeizsĂ€cker, author of the 2009 book, FactorÂ
5:
Transforming the Global Economy through 80% Increase in
Resource Productivity. WeizsÀcker spoke about how increasing
efficiency improvements by a factor of five in some economic
sectors, while maintaining the quality of service and wellbeing,
can help achieve sustainability.
When the YSSP participants later discussed the lecture, they
felt compelled to initiate a larger discussion on the subject of
global challenges. âWe realized that there is a need for more radical rethinking
of existing paradigms,â said Fabian Schipfer, who organized the
workshop along with fellow 2014 YSSP participants Mikko Dufva,
Lukas Figge, Edoardo Borgomeo, and Thomas Schinko.
The organizers started by surveying YSSP participants to identify
questions for discussion. The workshop included small group
discussions, followed by a larger group discussion to share insights
among the full group.
Co-organizer Edordo Borgomeo said, âThe workshop provided an
opportunity to leave our own jargon-laden scientific âsilosâ and discuss
challenges faced by humanity and how we might address them.â KL
www.iiasa.ac.at/yssp
During the 2013/14 Southern African
Young Scientists Summer Program
(SA-YSSP), Delin Fang explored the
effectiveness of a water conservation
scheme in an arid region of Northwest
China. In April she published a paper on her
results in conjunction with her two SA-YSSP
supervisors and her PhD advisor from Beijing
Normal University.
The water conservation scheme in question
was in the Ganzhou District in the Heihe River
Basin. The river, which flows about 821
km from the Qilian Mountains to the Gobi
Desert, has abundant water resources. But
rapid socioeconomic development and
increasing population density in the upper
and middle reaches of the Heihe result in
uneven water distribution downstream. As
the main water consumption in Ganzou is
from farming, livestock, and agriculture, the
government wished to reduce agricultural water consumption here to allow more water
to flow through to the lower reaches.
Most models developed for water system
analysis ignore cycling and the indirect flows
associated with importing and exporting
products that contain water or have
consumed water during the production
process. This so-called embodied or hidden
water is vital for an integrated view of water
utilization efficiency.
In their study Fang and co-authors used
Network Environ Analysis (NEA), a formal,
quantitative methodology to account for
cycling and indirect flows. This approach can
show the efficiency of water utilization from
a holistic perspective and investigate how
various components of the system are linked
to each other and to the overall system.
From their NEA analysis, the researchers
concluded that the current water
conservation scheme is neither rational nor effective and that, in a next step,
water resource donation and extraction
relationships need to be studied.
Fang says, âI was lucky to have been
selected to attend the SA-YSSP. The research
that I did during this exciting program
helped further my PhD studies.â KP
Further info Fang D, Fath BD, Chen B, Scharler UM
(2014). Network environ analysis for socio-economic
water system. Ecological Indicators 47:80â88
[doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.04.046].
Challenges for humanity
âand for researchers
A workshop organized by IIASA Young Scientists
Summer Program participants brings a new
perspective to global challenges
Rational water use
A 2013/14 SA-YSSP participant from China finds hidden water
in her countryâs agricultural system Workshop participants (left to right) Margaret Garcia,
Miho Kamei, ThomasÂ
Schinko, Farid Karimi
Delin Fang in Cape Town,
South Africa, during the 2013/14 SA-YSSP
zurĂŒck zum
Buch options, Band winter 2014/2015"
options
Band winter 2014/2015
- Titel
- options
- Band
- winter 2014/2015
- Ort
- Laxenburg
- Datum
- 2014
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY-NC 4.0
- Abmessungen
- 21.0 x 29.7 cm
- Seiten
- 32
- Kategorien
- Zeitschriften Options Magazine