ABSTRACT
To the best of our knowledge, this IDSS is a first attempt to cover the FWE nexus in one decision support tool for urban areas. The aim of this tool is to combine knowledge and innovations from different ULLs around the world, so that they can be shared amongst different countries. The IDSS has been built in such a way that it is easy to implement changes. New insights into climate scenarios, local parameters or improved models may lead to changes in parameter values in the database. The IDSS is easy to transfer to new locations: new ULLs can be added in a simple way when enough data is available on all input parameters for the model.
This IDSS has focused on the environmental system around food, water, and energy. A topic for further research may be the inclusion of economic aspects of the innovations to improve decision-making processes. Of course, this tool also comes with its own limitations. Due to data being unavailable for some of the parameters, assumptions had to be made. The tool uses annual average values to calculate daily parameters; for example, for temperature, precipitation, solar energy production, and crop yield. In reality, these are affected by seasonal variability. For the UK, where the climate scenario data showed no change in annual average precipitation, it is likely that winters will get wetter and summers drier. Besides this, climate scenarios naturally come with inherent uncertainty. Therefore, this tool is not meant to be used to calculate absolute changes, but rather to create insight into, for example, the impact of climate change on the FWE nexus, the amount of land needed to grow enough crops for the ULL population and new innovations to reduce this. In this way, we provide another step towards cities that are sustainable and resilient to climate change.
