Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems: the Nexus between Water, Energy and Food

About this course: In this course you will become familiar with the ideas of the water-energy-food nexus and transdisciplinary thinking. You will learn to see your community or country as a complex social-ecological system and to describe its water, energy and food metabolism in the form of a pattern, as well as to map the categories of social actors. We will provide you with the tools to measure the nexus elements and to analyze them in a coherent way across scales and dimensions of analysis. In this way, your quantitative analysis will become useful for informed decision-making. You will be able to detect and quantify dependence on non-renewable resources and externalization of environmental problems to other societies and ecosystems (a popular ‘solution’ in the western world). Practical case studies, from both developed and developing countries, will help you evaluate the state-of-play of a given community or country and to evaluate possible solutions. Last but not least, you will learn to see pressing social-ecological issues, such as energy poverty, water scarcity and inequity, from a radically different perspective, and to question everything you’ve been told so far. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Part of the results and case studies presented have been developed within two projects: MAGIC and PARTICIPIA. However, the course does not reflect the views of the funding institutions or of the project partners as a whole, and the case studies were presented purely with an educational and illustrative purpose.

Who is this class for: The course is directed toward upper-division undergraduate and graduate students from a wide variety of disciplines (environmental sciences, engineering, agricultural sciences, social sciences) as well as professionals (NGOs, think tanks) and policy makers concerned with sustainable development in both developed and developing countries.

Created by:  Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

• Taught by:  Mario Giampietro, ICREA Research Professor

  Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA)

• Taught by:  Andrea Saltelli, Guest researcher

  Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA)

• Taught by:  Tarik Serrano, Post-Doc Researcher

  Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA)

Level Intermediate Commitment 4-6 hours/week Language English Hardware Req No extra hardware would be required. How To Pass Pass all graded assignments to complete the course. 课程作业

每门课程都像是一本互动的教科书，具有预先录制的视频、测验和项目。

来自同学的帮助

与其他成千上万的学生相联系，对想法进行辩论，讨论课程材料，并寻求帮助来掌握概念。

证书

获得正式认证的作业，并与朋友、同事和雇主分享您的成功。

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona The Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) is a public university located in the metropolitan area of Barcelona. International in its outlook, it is fully consolidated within its local surroundings, and offers quality education in close association with research activity, the transfer of scientific, technological, cultural and educational knowledge, the promotion of its human potential and the responsible management of available resources. The UAB currently offers 81 degrees, 130 official Master Programmes and 183 UAB-specific Masters Degrees. In addition, it offers 174 lifelong learning programmes and 65 PhD Programmes, 27 of which have been distinguished through Quality Awards. The UAB has a total of over 3,500 teaching and research staff, over 2,000 administrative staff and over 40,000 students.

Syllabus


WEEK 1


Introduction
Welcome to our course about Sustainability!<br>Do you want to start discovering the course? Great! <br> However, we suggest you to take some minutes to carefully read the information about the course and the platform before you access the content.


1 video, 7 readings expand

1. Video: Welcome to our course on Sustainability
2. 阅读: Welcome learners!
3. 阅读: Course organization
4. 阅读: Grading and logistics
5. 阅读: FAQ - General topics
6. 阅读: FAQ- Time management
7. 阅读: FAQ - Quizzes and assignment
8. 阅读: FAQ - Certificate

MODULE 1. Introducing the basic concepts



In this first week we will look at the nexus from a different perspective: What is the nexus? Why is it getting all this attention right now? Is it just a buzzword, or something more? We will start by explaining what the nexus means in terms of complexity and propose the basic concepts needed for a metabolic analysis of the nexus. It might take a while to get your head around these concepts, but they are essential to understand what comes next. Finally, we will give examples of “elephants in the room” in the sustainability discourse – to show you that mainstream narratives are not always right.


9 videos expand

1. Video: Why “business as usual” no longer works
2. Video: It is possible to use numbers in a different way – Andalusia and Desalination
3. Video: It is possible to use numbers in a different way – the case study of Mauritius
4. Video: Basic concepts of metabolic analysis
5. Video: The bio-phsyical roots of metabolic patterns
6. Video: Too rich to be green
7. Video: The “intolerable” dependence on fossil fuel imports
8. Video: Circular economy, Bioeconomy and Zero-emissions
9. Video: Jevon’s paradox and the myth of resource efficiency as a solution for sustainability

Graded: Quiz 1

WEEK 2


MODULE 2. ACKNOWLEDGING THE POOR QUALITY OF EXISTING QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS



This week is all about narratives, framing and complexity. You will see how different narratives affect quantitative assessments, and why numbers aren’t always right. We will delve deeper into the theoretical basis of complex systems, and propose alternative ways of doing sustainability analysis, through the use of grammars.


9 videos expand

1. Video: Examples of bad indicators
2. Video: The fragility of numbers
3. Video: Handling the issue of scale
4. Video: Narratives vs. Storytelling
5. Video: The identity in Complex Systems
6. Video: The Concept of Holon
7. Video: Grammars: how to keep quantitative analysis semantically open
8. Video: Mosaic Effect: integrating quantitative analysis across different hierarchical levels
9. Video: The Sudoku Effect – how to handle impredicativity in quantitative analysis

Graded: Quiz 2

WEEK 3


module 3. THE CHALLENGE OF FOOD ACCOUNTING



Having introduced the basis of metabolic analysis and complex systems, we will now focus on the different elements of the nexus, starting with food. We will start by answering some seemingly basic questions: what do we mean by food, and how can it be accounted? Which qualities of food can and cannot be accounted for in terms of numbers? Practical examples will guide you along the way, and by the end of the week you will see why the current agricultural system is unsustainable to its core.


9 videos expand

1. Video: Food accounting
2. Video: An example of an integrated quantitative analysis of food metabolism: Ecuador
3. Video: What are qualities of the produced food that cannot be considered in qualitative analysis?
4. Video: Pre-industrial metabolic pattern
5. Video: Technological lock-in of agriculture
6. Video: The post harvest sector
7. Video: Feeding the cities
8. Video: The mission impossible of agriculture in modern times
9. Video: Multifunctional agriculture

Graded: Quiz 3

WEEK 4


module 4. THE CHALLENGE OF ENERGY ACCOUNTING



This week we will look at energy. As we did for food, we will start by looking at the problems of energy accounting, and setting a framework to allow us to carry out energy analyses across levels and scales. You will see why energy accounting is one of the most problematic aspects of sustainability, and through the example of the Energiewende we will explore how this affects policy.


9 videos expand

1. Video: Problems with quantitative accounting
2. Video: Exosomatic Metabolism
3. Video: EROI a critical appraisal
4. Video: Energy grammar
5. Video: Functional and structural components
6. Video: Quality of PES
7. Video: Energy efficiency for policy targets
8. Video: The problem with agro-biofuels
9. Video: Energiewende and the problem of intermittents

Graded: Quiz 4

WEEK 5


module 5. THE CHALLENGE OF WATER ACCOUNTING



This week is all about water. By now you should be familiar with the concept of grammar, and we will see how building one for water can help in dealing with its many dimensions. Through the example of an analysis of the Mauritius Islands, you will become familiar with the many aspects of water accounting, and by the end of the week you will understand the importance of water in nexus analysis, especially when it comes to policymaking.


9 videos, 1 reading expand

1. Video: Water analysis in “nexus thinking”
2. Video: A taxonomy for water analyses
3. Video: Multi-scale grammars for water
4. Video: The case of Mauritius island
5. Video: The societal metabolism of water
6. Video: The ecosystem metabolism of water
7. Video: Incoherent water and food policies
8. Video: Food security vs. water security
9. Video: Water-energy nexus: fracking
10. 阅读: Water metabolism of social-ecological systems

Graded: Quiz 5

WEEK 6


module 6. THE METABOLIC PATTERN OF SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS ACROSS MULTIPLE SCALES AND DIMENSIONS



We talked about scales and dimensions a lot, and this week we will explore and understand these concepts better. You will learn to account for human activity, an essential fund that is often left out from quantitative analysis, and how GIS tools can be incorporated with the methods you have learnt so far. This week is heavy on theory, to prepare you for week 7 which is all about applications.


9 videos, 2 readings expand

1. Video: Time use and demographic structure
2. Video: Time profile and types of society
3. Video: Paid work overhead
4. Video: Metabolic pattern of rural communities
5. Video: Participatory integrated mapping of land uses
6. Video: GIS tools for diagnosis and simulation
7. Video: A general framework of analysis of the metabolic pattern of Social-Ecological Systems
8. Video: Studying viability and desirability using the concept of Bio-Economic Pressure
9. Video: Studying feasibility using the concepts of DPSIR and Environmental Impact Matrix
10. 阅读: Between theory and quantification
11. 阅读: Report of the Catalonia case study

Graded: Quiz 6

WEEK 7


module 7. APPLICATIONS OF MUSIASEM 2.0



How can the theoretical concepts explained so far be applied to practical examples? After introducing the basic building blocks of relational analysis needed for our applications, we will look at two real case examples: a nexus analysis of vegetable production in Almeria, and of a wind-powered desalination plant in the Canary Islands. By the end of this week you should be able to build processors and set up nexus analyses.


9 videos expand

1. Video: Basic Concepts of relational analysis
2. Video: The concept of processor
3. Video: The “tool-kit” to study feasibility, viability and desirability
4. Video: Framing the analysis
5. Video: Procedure for accounting
6. Video: Illustration of results
7. Video: The framing of the problem
8. Video: The procedure of accounting with data
9. Video: Illustration of the results

Graded: Designing a processor for a coal power plant

WEEK 8


module 8. TIME FOR “SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT”: FROM THE CARTESIAN DREAM TO QUANTITATIVE STORY TELLING VIA EVIDENCE BASED POLICY



We are ending the course with something a bit different (thanks to our guest lecturer Andrea Saltelli). This week we leave quantitative assessments behind, and take some time to reflect upon why it is important to do analyses in a different way. We will introduce the concepts of post-normal science and quantitative story-telling – this will allow you to think deeply about how you frame your analyses in the future.


9 videos, 4 readings expand

1. Video: The dream, from Francis Bacon to Vanevar Bush
2. Video: The undoing of the dream
3. Video: Trust in Science and trust in quantification
4. Video: What is PNS? Is it useful? PNS and quantification
5. Video: All models are wrong, some are useful … but when?
6. Video: Sensitivity auditing
7. Video: Why frames matter; social construction of ignorance
8. Video: A field example
9. Video: Quantitative story telling
10. 阅读: What is science’s crisis really about?
11. 阅读: Post-normal institutional identities
12. 阅读: What is wrong with evidence based policy, and how can it be improved
13. 阅读: Further reading

Graded: Quiz 8