View article

Integrated assessment models have become a key scientific tool to understand the connections across coupled human-natural systems. We discuss the design and initial development of a systems model with a focus on important feedbacks between sectors and resources. The model design incorporates an innovative co-creation approach in which stakeholders are engaged via sustainable living labs and the challenges they help identify are translated into model components. The model connects watershed and crop water use process modules with detailed multi-agent representations of urban, agricultural, and institutional economic decisions. The assessment takes place in Pune, one of the fastest growing metropolitan regions in India. Pune has a population exceeding 7 million, a 3.5 percent annual population growth rate, and a changing socio-economic, cultural, agricultural and climate situation. The model …