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Modeling the Water-Energy Nexus at the Community Scale: A Case Study for New York City
Citation:
Kaplan, O. AND M. Isik. Modeling the Water-Energy Nexus at the Community Scale: A Case Study for New York City. INFORMS Annual Meeting, Phoenix, AZ, November 04 - 07, 2018.
Impact/Purpose:
Across the globe, urban planners and city agencies are developing strategies to shape their environmental futures. Strategies to protect cities include targeted emission reductions of pollutants that contribute indirectly to extreme weather events and sea level rise. While urban entities contribute to the collective global action around this challenge, well designed plans can radically transform cities, changing the way we use energy, move people and goods, design public spaces and engage the populace to create healthier, safer, more equitable and sustainable urban environments. Cities emphasize mechanisms that not only reduce energy consumption and air emissions, but also can promote sustainable and resilient practices across multiple environmental media. This research includes a background review on how New York City (NYC) is approaching these problems, and how using this as a baseline, researchers at US Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development (USEPA/ORD) are advancing analytical tools and create guidances for other cities to future pathways achieving Growth, Equity, Sustainability, and Resiliency goals. USEPA/ORD has completed a working community-scale database/tool that explores water and energy consumption and management scenarios under different policy options in NYC. The database is also designed to help decision makers to establish resilience to extreme weather events, improve built environment and infrastructure, to manage limited natural resources, meet environmental goals, and sustain economic growth. The database is implemented on the MARKAL (MARKet ALlocation) energy-environmental-economic bottom-up modeling framework. The focus has been on the buildings, transportation and electric and water utilities, and the existing stock of infrastructure (e.g., individual electric generating units, distributed energy resources), energy consumptions and emissions are calibrated to existing inventories. The tool can facilitate scenarios analysis where marginal abatement curves, future trends in technology and emissions growth can be analyzed. A case study is being designed to achieve 80% carbon reduction by 2050 through alternative pathways where we looked at combinations of technology change in utilities, buildings and transportation sectors. In this talk, the results of the study will presented at INFORMS Annual Meeting 2018.
Description:
Across the globe, urban planners and city agencies are developing strategies to shape their environmental futures. Strategies to protect cities include targeted emission reductions of pollutants that contribute indirectly to extreme weather events and sea level rise. While urban entities contribute to the collective global action around this challenge, well designed plans can radically transform cities, changing the way we use energy, move people and goods, design public spaces and engage the populace to create healthier, safer, more equitable and sustainable urban environments. Cities emphasize mechanisms that not only reduce energy consumption and air emissions, but also can promote sustainable and resilient practices across multiple environmental media. This research includes a background review on how New York City (NYC) is approaching these problems, and how using this as a baseline, researchers at US Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development (USEPA/ORD) are advancing analytical tools and create guidances for other cities to future pathways achieving Growth, Equity, Sustainability, and Resiliency goals. USEPA/ORD has completed a working community-scale database/tool that explores water and energy consumption and management scenarios under different policy options in NYC. The database is also designed to help decision makers to establish resilience to extreme weather events, improve built environment and infrastructure, to manage limited natural resources, meet environmental goals, and sustain economic growth. The database is implemented on the MARKAL (MARKet ALlocation) energy-environmental-economic bottom-up modeling framework. The focus has been on the buildings, transportation and electric and water utilities, and the existing stock of infrastructure (e.g., individual electric generating units, distributed energy resources), energy consumptions and emissions are calibrated to existing inventories. The tool can facilitate scenarios analysis where marginal abatement curves, future trends in technology and emissions growth can be analyzed. A case study is being designed to achieve 80% carbon reduction by 2050 through alternative pathways where we looked at combinations of technology change in utilities, buildings and transportation sectors. In this talk, the results of the study will presented at INFORMS Annual Meeting 2018, Phoenix AZ.