With ever-increasing pressures on limited water supplies in arid regions, water managers are forced to make critical decisions about the management of water resources - sometimes under considerable uncertainty. Given the large number of stresses on existing water systems, proper management requires the consideration of all different factors that may contribute to water use and consumption. As water management becomes more focused on the issue of sustainability, processes traditionally thought of as non-water-related and irrelevant to water management are now becoming very pertinent. In particular, the consequences of changes in climate, population, land use, and various types of water usage (agricultural, environmental, domestic, and urban) are of considerable interest.With increasing uncertainty about the future, conventional methods of decision-analysis are increasingly unable to suitably quantify the future impacts of policy decisions, and they are also unable to provide a clear contrast between impacts of historical policy decisions and possible future management decisions. An analytical approach that is sensitive to qualitative effects of water-related decision-making will therefore be more useful towards improving management practices. Scenario development is one such tool that can be used to examine future implications of water management, and thereby shed light on the potential consequences of implementing different operational and institutional policies. The objective of this work is to propose a formal scenario development methodology applicable to water resources management issues. This framework is applied and evaluated on a regional scale for the U.S. southwest and on a local scale for the state of Arizona.The research presented here is comprised of several components; (i) a review of existing literature on scenarios, scenario studies, and scenario applications; (ii) a retrospective analysis of water management-related scenario applications that examines the implications of scenario-influenced strategies previously implemented in Arizona, (iii) the adoption of a formal scenario development approach for water resource issues within the arid and semi-arid regions of the U.S., utilizing an example application in the Upper San Pedro Basin in southern Arizona, and (iv) a comprehensive application of the scenario development process to the Verde River Watershed in northern Arizona through a simplified small-scale scenario case study approach.

The aim of this project was to study the leakage of CO2 in a Geological Carbon Sequestration (GCS) system. To define the GCS system, a tool that is known as an FEP database was used. FEPs are the features, processes and events that develop scenarios for the goal of the study. Combinations of these FEPs can produce thousands of scenarios. However, among all of these scenarios, some are more important than others for leakage. The FEPs that were used as scenario developers were the formation of the liquid flow, the salinity of the formation liquid, diffusion as a process for gas bubble transport and the depth of the reservoir layer. In this study, the leakage path is considered as the presence of a fracture in sealed caprock. The fractures can be modeled using various approaches. Here, I represented the influence of fracture modeling by applying the Equivalent Continuum Method (ECM) and the Dual-Porosity and Multi-continuum methods to leakage. This study suggests that considering groundwater in the aquifer would reduce the leakage of CO2 and that a shallower formation leads to higher leakage. This study can be expanded to future studies by including external FEPs that are related to the FEPs that were used in this study.

Road transport is responsible for a significant share of the global GHG emissions. In order to address the increasing trend of road vehicle emissions, due to its heavy reliance on oil, Nordic countries have set ambitious goals and policies for the reduction of road transport GHG emissions. Despite the fact that the latest developments in the passenger car segment are leading towards the progressive electrification of the fleet, the decarbonization of heavy-duty vehicle segment presents significant challenges that are yet to be overcome. This study focuses, on the first part, on the regulatory framework of fuel economy standards of road vehicles, highlighting the absence of a European regulation on fuel efficiency for the heavy-duty sector. Energy efficiency technologies can be grouped mainly in vehicle technologies, driveline and powertrain technologies, and alternative fuels. The fuel efficiency of HDVs can be positively improved at different vehicle levels, but the technology benefit and its economic feasibility are heavily dependent on the vehicle type and the operational cycle considered. The electrification pathway has the potential of reducing the carbon emission to a great extent, but the current battery technologies have proven to be not cost efficient for the heavy vehicles, because of the high purchase price and the low range, related to the battery cost and inferior energy density compared to conventional liquid fuels.   A scenario development model has been created in order to estimate and quantify the impact of future developments and emission reduction measures in Finland, Sweden and Norway for the timeframe 2016-2050, with a focus on 2030 results. Two scenarios concerning the powertrain developments of heavy-duty vehicles and buses have been created, a conservative scenario and electric scenario, as well as vehicle efficiency improvements and fuel consumption scenarios. Additional sets of parameters have been estimated as input for the model, such as national transport need and load assumptions. The results highlight the challenges of achieving the national GHG emission reduction targets with the current measures in all three countries. The slow fleet renewal rates and the high forecasted increase of transport need limit the benefits of alternative and more efficient powertrains introduced in the fleet by new vehicles. The heavy-duty transport is expected to maintain its heavy reliance on diesel fuel and hinder the improvements of the light-duty segments. A holistic approach is needed to reduce the GHG emissions from road transport, including more efficient powertrains, higher biofuel shares and progressive electrification.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. / The Persian Gulf region is, in all likelihood, going to remain crucial to American interests through the next several decades. The world depends on the petroleum reserves of the Gulf region to fuel its economic engine. The recent history of the region has been rife with conflict, and the U.S. has had to intervene militarily on several occasions to ensure its vital interests were protected. This thesis examines the strategic circumstances in the Gulf region and ways in which American political, diplomatic, and military policy can help shape the environment to conform to its interests. Several scenarios are developed which attempt to forecast the results of different environments on regional stability. The thesis reaches the conclusion that the United States must take a proactive role if its short- and long-term interests are to be protected. The short-term goal of U.S. policy must be to maintain a balance of power and regional correlation of forces which serves to deter any would-be aggressor nations. In the long run, the United States must seek a comprehensive regional peace. Various methods of achieving these goals are examined. / http://archive.org/details/strategicplanfor00ward / Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy

A methodology for the conceptual design phase risk assessment of an aerospace system was proposed. The method was designed to examine political, social, and economic risk over a systems lifecycle through the use of future scenarios to bound uncertainty. A decision support framework was developed to allow the user to visualize the differences in performance and economic metrics between design options as well as allowing the user to visualize the effects of mitigating certain risks. A historical proof of concept was developed to test the methodology. The results indicated that the new method will work to examine political, social, and economic risk during conceptual level design, and that this information can be used to aid in design down-selection and decision making. The use of scenario-based analysis as an alternative to traditional probabilistic analysis allowed for better traceability and bounding of uncertainty. Other findings regarding the use of a risk analysis early during concept design and future work are also discussed.

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Learning while studying is an individual process of actively acquiring knowledge through the co-construction of knowledge resources under supervision by teaching mentors. Mentoring activity typically consists of the interaction of two areas, namely the personal relationship between mentor and mentee, as well as individualized guidance on performance at the factual level, i.e. the partial result-based evaluation of the previous and advice on the future learning process. This in-process feedback is considered to be a key impact factor in learning success in international educational research, provided that it is as direct and as accurate as possible (Hattie & Yates, 2014). [... from the Indroduction]