food

This RCN UBE project will build a biosciences research and student training network related to: Food Security, Af

Climate-change driven shifts in precipitation and water storage in the Sierra Nevada, a mountain range that provides over 50% of California's water supply, are stressing one of the nation's main food-producing regions. CA produces over a third of the nation's vegetables and two-thirds of the country's fruits and nuts. The region's water resources and energy infrastructure, developed to supply water and energy during a more-stable climate, is now facing alarming and unprecedented deficiencies in meeting the demands of agriculture, cities and the environment.

We ask the question: How does renewable energy improve life in remote communities in Alaska and the Arctic? We are developing a modeling process (MicroFEWS) by which researchers and community members together characterize the impacts of potential renewable energy infrastructure upon the Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus in isolated Arctic and Subarctic communities, which are ideally suited as model systems for the FEW nexus, as they are geographically isolated, often inaccessible by road, and dependent on islanded microgrids for distribution of local power.