IM3 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.