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Impacts of Deglobalization on the
Sustainability of Regional Food, Energy, Water Systems

Handy List of Acronyms

letters

Feel like you’re drowning in a sea of alphabet soup? Here’s a list of common acronyms and abbreviations used in our DRFEWS project and related disciplines.


AEO – Annual Energy Outlook - report from the US Energy Information Administration that presents an outlook for energy markets through 2050 including consumption, emissions, and production broken down into categories (e.g., consumption through transportation, industrial use, etc.). 

BAU – Business As Usual – one of our model’s 5 future scenarios. The BAU scenario represents the status quo continuing.

BMP – Best Management Practices – Agricultural conservation practices recommended for good land and resource stewardship

CDL – Cropland Data Layer - A data resources created annually by the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) which shows crop-specific land cover data in the continental United States. 

CGE – Computable equilibrium models – a class of economic models that use actual economic data to estimate future changes under changing factors (changes in policy, technology, etc)

CMIP – Coupled Model Intercomparison project - a collaborative framework designed to improve knowledge of climate changes.

DRFEWS – Dynamic Regional Food, Energy, Water Systems - Our integrated model which predicts sustainability outcomes for the Great Lakes region, based on probable changes to our current food, energy, and water systems. DRFEWS 1.0 referes to our basic integrated stochastic modeling framework. DRFEWS 2.0 referes to an enhanced version of DRFEWS 1.0 with regional-specific data added.

EIA – Energy Information Administration – federal agency responsible for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating energy information for policy, marketing, and public information. Part of US Department of Energy and the US federal statistical system.

FEWS – Food, Agriculture, Water Systems - systems that examine the integration and complex relationships between these three systems in an area.

GHG (or GhG) – greenhouse gas - a guess that contributes to the greenhouse of fact by absorbing infrared radiation, chiefly carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide.

GL – Great Lakes - a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the upper mid east of North America. Includes superior, Michigan, Koran, eerie, and Ontario. The largest group of freshwater lakes on earth by total area.

GLCB – Great Lakes Corn Belt - The major corn growing region in the Great Lakes watershed.

IWI – Inclusive Wealth Index - created by the United nations to measure the wealth of nations through a comprehensive analysis of a country's productive base, including manufactured, human, and natural capital.

LCA – Life Cycle Assessment - a way to assess the environmental impact of a commercial product, process, or service, by assessing all stages of its life, including raw material extraction, manufacturing, distribution, use, and disposal.

NLCD – National Land Cover Database - an ongoing effort to provide expertise and resources in research and development, modeling, and land cover mapping, led by the Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics consortium, a group of U.S. federal agencies.

PB – Planetary Boundaries - a concept proposed in 2009 involving earth system processes that contain environmental boundaries, including climate, biosphere integrity, freshwater use, atmospheric aerosol pollution, ocean acidification, etc.

PMAT – Participatory Modeling Advisory Teams – smaller advisory teams with a specific focus.

RAC – Regional Advisory Council – a group composed of stakeholder group members and regional governance agencies that meets annually with our research team to advise on the scope, structure, utility, and presentation of our project. The RAC has been especially helpful on scenario development, model specification and data sources, and sustainability assessment.

RCP – Representative Concentration Pathway – a greenhouse gas concentration trajectory adopted by The United Nationa’s Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change.

ROW – Rest of World - everywhere but here. For instance, when we speak of the Great Lakes region, ROW means everything outside of it  -- US and beyond

SSP – Shared Socioeconomic Pathways - scenarios of projected socio economic global changes up to 2100. Includes predictions for greenhouse gas emissions scenarios with different climate policies. Different scenarios are numbered SSP1 sustainability, S SP2 middle of the road, S SP3 regional rivalry, SSP for inequality, S SP5 fossil fuel development.

SWAT – Soil and Water Assessment tool - a tool to simulate the quality and quantity of surface and groundwater in a small watershed, factoring in Land Management practices land uses an climate change. Often used to assess soil erosion prevention and control, nonpoint source pollution control, and regional management in watersheds.

USDA – United States Department of Agriculture

USFS – United States Forestry Service

WCB – Western Corn Belt - (ND, ND, SD, KS, MN, IA, and MO)