The Climate, Land-use, Energy and Water Systems (CLEWs) is a tool for simultaneous consideration of issues pertaining to food, energy and water security. It is a methodology for integrated assessment of resource systems that provides a means to analyze and assess the interlinkages that exist among energy, water, and agricultural systems as well as their impacts on – and vulnerability to – climate change.
Designed to help identify and quantify the trade-offs and synergies that may exist in the pursuit of policy goals in each area, this tool can provide an analytic basis for a coherent and cohesive process for strategy and policy formulation.
Because it includes a representation of strategic resource systems, the CLEWS is highly suitable to analyze policy decisions on issues such as the greenhouse gas emission reductions, energy planning, competing water demands considering available hydrological resources, climate resilience, land-use change and agricultural modernization. The model is structured so that each component of the system (natural or human) is described by its economic, technical, environmental, and bio-physical characteristics. This is often referred to as a bottom-up approach, as it allows the user to study the impact of choices made at the “bottom” level (i.e. decisions taken by households, investors, and businesses) and see how they affect the overall resource use, the environmental impacts, and the costs incurred. It allows for the exploration of the impacts of technology choice and technological change.
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