Managing Multiple Mandates: A System of Systems Model to Analyze Strategies for Producing Cellulosic Ethanol and Reducing Riverine Nitrate Loads in the Upper Mississippi River Basin.

Implementing public policies often involves navigating an array of choices that have economic and environmental consequences that are difficult to quantify due to the complexity of multiple system interactions. Implementing the mandate for cellulosic biofuel production in the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) and reducing hypoxia in the northern Gulf of Mexico by reducing riverine nitrate-N loads represent two such cases that overlap in the Mississippi River Basin. To quantify the consequences of these interactions, a system of systems (SoS) model was developed that incorporates interdependencies among the various subsystems, including biofuel refineries, transportation, agriculture, water resources and crop/ethanol markets.