The National Science Foundation awarded a new Northern Arizona University professor $3 million to map food, energy and water supplies and show how they relate. The research is intended to help communities deal with water scarcity issues.
Benjamin Ruddell will use the grant to create what he calls “mesoscale data fusion.” It will be the first detailed map showing how food and energy production and the water supply affect one another. Ruddell will build on research that shows how vulnerable and resilient each community in the U.S. is to drought.
Ruddell plans to map out regional trade, river basins, aquifers, crop belts, states, tribes, counties, cities, power grids, climate gradients and show how they are all interconnected.
He expects the map will be used to inform future policies and spur new technology. Ruddell said, if we can look at how past droughts, wars or economic crises have affected food, energy and water we can anticipate the impact of future events.
