The Integrated Multisector Multiscale Modeling (IM3) project couples open-source, process-based, human and natural system models at multiple scales to project vulnerability and resilience under both short- and long-term influences. We are currently studying the responses of interacting energy, water, land, and urban systems to the following compounding influences over the course of the 21st century:
- Climate, including more severe heat waves and drought
- Population and urbanization
- Socioeconomics
- Technology change
Key research gaps we are trying to close:
- Vulnerabilities to heat waves: future urban populations; future regional electric grids
- Propagation of drought adaptation responses across energy-water-land-urban systems
- Compound effects of heat waves and drought on the future electric grid
- Formal uncertainty characterization methods for computationally-intensive coupled models
IM3 is pursuing these research gaps with different degrees of spatial, temporal, and process resolution and at the following scales: CONUS, electricity grid interconnection, watershed, and urban.