On April 30, 2024, the MSD Working Group on Connecting Research to Operations and Planning (‘R2O2R’) hosted a webinar on applied science for decision-making at the climate-water-energy nexus. The webinar was co-moderated by David McCollum (ORNL) and Gokul Iyer (PNNL) and featured Curt Jawdy (Tennessee Valley Authority), Nathalie Voisin (PNNL), and Andy Jones (LBNL) as speakers.

The experts, each of whom possesses a blend of scientific and practitioner knowledge, reflected on lessons learned to increase the readiness of water-energy research for direct application in decision-making (long-term planning and near-term operations). They also shared their unique perspectives on a wide range of topics related to, among others, the need for expanding computational resources to accommodate increasingly complex models, for developing scientifically grounded but action-oriented products, and for effectively communicating novel outcomes in formats most useful for decision-makers. Key takeaways centered around the critical role of co-production in model-building, the persistent trade-off between model fidelity and utility, and the inherent role of good governance when developing and applying models.

A recording of this webinar is now available on the MSD Community of Practice YouTube channel.  To catch up on past webinars, hit “Subscribe” to follow MSD on YouTube.  

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