Web Technologies and System Dynamics for Community Sustainability

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Web Technologies and System Dynamics for
Community Sustainability

• Gordon Keating, Donatella Pasqualini, Gary
  Geernaert
• Los Alamos National Laboratory
• Larry Barnett
• Epiphanet, Inc.
• February 6, 2009 Applied Solutions Workshop,
  Rohnert Park, CA

Funding SCWA and IGPP
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The Challenge
In order to meet the goals of carbon footprint
reduction outlined in AB32 and Sonoma Countys
GHG reduction targets

• Develop a web portal that will
• build community among sustainability-minded
  communities in the U.S.
• interest, inform, enlist, and retain input from
  Sonoma regional citizens
• Map out a course towards energy sustainability
  and resilience, carbon neutrality, and economic
  vitality, given projections of future climate
  change
• Define solutions to serve as an example for the
  state of California, the U.S., and international
  organizations

Change in energy use and GHG emissions must
begin with local efforts.
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Approach

• Develop an understanding of the
  interrelationships among important natural,
  built, and social systems, and ways to enhance
  their collective resilience,
• Engage public and build community through social
  networking features
• Collect and analyze public ideas to inform
  decision making

Stakeholders Sonoma County public, Business
community, Environmental community, Municipal and
County governments, External counties and regions
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Content Management System (CMS)

• Example Drupal
• Information
• Interactivity
• News feeds
• Presence Social networking
• Content awareness
• Surveys
• Interactive models
• Data animation
• Consensus building

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Gathering User Input Survey
Example from a study of potential new directions
for a scientific organization What are core
capabilities of the organization that have been
important in your work?
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Gathering User Input - Blogs
Tagclouds are useful for providing a gestalt of
blogs, discussions, comments, tags
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User Input Analysis
Goal provide actionable understanding of
changing attitudes and priorities of site users
(citizens)
Mindmap (undirected graph)
Statistics
User comments, blogs, and survey responses can be
analyzed and visualized in a variety of ways
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System Dynamics Model
Investigate non-intuitive interrelationships
among important systems that affect energy-water
sustainability and resilience

• Policy selection
• Scenario comparison
• Nonlinear feedbacks

Expect complex interrelationships among component
systems
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Mental model
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