(346d) Evaluation of Global Techno-Socio-Economic Policies for the FEW Nexus with an Optimal Control Based Approach.

Inordinate consumption of the natural resources by humans over the past century and unsustainable growth practices have necessitated a need for enforcing global policies to sustain the ecosystem and prevent irreversible changes. A global model has been developed recently with focus on sustainability for the Food-Energy-Water (FEW) Nexus (Nisal et al, 2022; Hanumante et al, 2022). This model is a 15-compartment model with components for the food-web, microeconomic framework, energy, industry and water sectors and, humans. It was validated based on historical data for global sectors and has the capacity to predict population, global and regional water stress, GHG emissions and the gross domestic product (GDP) for the next century. Moreover, the model can consider the production of renewable energy using biofuels (biopower). The analysis of several scenarios to evaluate sustainability with this model showed that indiscriminate human consumption would lead to collapse of several resources in the future. An exponential increase in the human population exacerbates this process with the resources getting exhausted sooner. Such circumstances warrant a study where the sustainability is maximized. Further, global policies need to be developed and evaluated to control several global conditions. An optimal-control theory based approach will be presented here to evaluate sustainability by employing multiple global indicators and controlling them.

The Sustainable Systems Hypothesis proposed by Cabezas requires maintenance of at least six specific conditions that ensure sustainable systems. This hypothesis proposes that sustainability can be achieved by limiting human burden on the environment so as to not exceed the biocapacity, conservation of trophic and functional integrity of the ecosystem, adequate economic production to exceed the consumption, certain quality of human existence, sustainable use of energy resources and finally, and maintenance of system order and self-organization over time. These conditions will be captured through several sustainability indicators such as: fisher information, global net product, ecological footprint analysis and green-house gas concentration and the global water stress (Rodriguez-Gonzalez et al, 2020). Ecological footprint analysis (EFA) measures the equivalent land demand of the population by identifying amount of bio-productive land required to support the annual average consumption and the waste production of an individual. Green Net Product (GNP) is a n measure of sustainability from a macro-economic standpoint. GNP can be defined as the sum of all economic activity (all transactions) minus the loss value in the human-made and natural infrastructure. The economic performance of the society can be evaluated by the GDP, but sustainability needs the GNP. Green House Gases (GHG) concentration will be used to regulate the total CO₂ eq contribution of the human sector activity and the mitigation by the natural sector.

The optimal control model will study the multiple objectives defined here. The purpose of this study is to look at the three crucial areas towards sustainability- ecological, economic, and social wellbeing. Thus, various policy options such as regulatory, economical, or technological parameters will be assessed as control variables and a multivariate optimal control approach for global sustainability aimed at providing policy recommendations will be explored.

References:

Nisal, A., Diwekar, U., Hanumante N., Shastri, Y., Cabezas, H., 2022. Integrated model for food-energy-water (FEW) nexus to study global sustainability: The main generalized
global sustainability model (GGSM), Plos One.

Hanumante N., Shastri, Y., Nisal, A., Diwekar, U., Cabezas, H., 2022. Integrated model for Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus to study global sustainability: The water compartments and water stress analysis., Plos One.

Rodriguez-Gonzalez, P. T., Rico-Martinez, R., and Rico-Ramirez, V.: Effect of feedback loops on the sustainability and resilience of human-ecosystems. Ecological Modelling, 426:109018, 2020.