General objectives
SIMARIS project aims at developing a long-term macro-economic growth model integrated with water-land-energy systems. This model allows for analyzing strategic investments to improve water, land and energy use efficiency and strengthen resilience of the infrastructural systems to deal with resource scarcities and natural catastrophes. The model will be implemented to the case of Central Asia where water and energy scarcity and degradation of lands are major issues that threaten livelihoods and prevent sustainable economic growth. In addition to numerous contributions to water-economic modeling field, this project therefore effectively contributes to improve environmental protection and investment policy making in the study region and beyond. 

CMCC role
SIMARIS is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship Project. CMCC co-hosts the project together with Ca’Foscari University and offers scientific supervision to the Fellow, Dr. Maksud Bekchanov.

Activities
Developing integrated assessment model to analyze Water-Energy-Food nexus and intertemporal allocation of investments in adaptation, mitigation and resource recovery strategies in multiple sectors; writing journal articles and conference papers; improving research management, teaching/supervising and model coding skills of the fellow; organize workshops to students and seminars to stakeholders.

Expected results
Research contributions to integrated water-energy-economic modeling field; research dissemination outcomes to improve the awareness of researchers, stakeholders and policy makers in Central Asia; improved competence of the fellow in Integrated Assessment Modeling, Research Management, Teaching/Supervising;  enhanced visibility in Environmental (Water, Energy, Food) Economics and Policy field.

Funded by 
European Commission, Horizon Europe Programme, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships