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In our globalised world, food security and water security are inextricably intertwined. Food production accounts for approximately 70 % of global freshwater use, with variability in agricultural production impacting water resources and vice versa. Trade is central to determining water resource use, because when we trade food, we also trade the water embedded in the production of that food. As the world becomes more globalised and more urbanised, our dependence on trade for food and water security increases. Managing food and water security under globalisation is a complex challenge owing to the increased interdependency among regions and sectors. Given the unprecedented pressure on water resources in the 21st century, there is an urgent need for new models to assist in developing water management policies that capture these complexities. We present a new framework for modelling the complexities of food and water security under globalisation. The framework sets out a method to capture agency, cross-scale socioenvironmental feedbacks and interdependency brought about by globalisation and urbanisation. The approach unifies and extends the existing fields of hydrology, Integrated Assessment Modelling and agent-based modelling. The core of our framework is a multi-agent network of city nodes and infrastructural trade links. This network captures the important role of cities as centres of food and water demand. In addition, it captures the infrastructural networks that constrain our ability to extract water resources from the environment and redistribute them to meet demand. We believe that this framework can form the basis for a new wave of models that capture cross-scale socioenvironmental feedbacks within our globalised world.

In his dissertation Brian Dermody sought explanations for how the climate has changed in the last 10,000 years. Specifically, he used statistical methods to obtain a composite spatial and temporal image of climate change. He was also interested in how these climate changes have influenced past societies. He therefore developed a virtual water network of the Roman world based on grain production and transportation during the Roman period. In this way he could begin to unravel how Roman trade and agriculture influenced their resilience to climate change.

In his dissertation Brian Dermody sought explanations for how the climate has changed in the last 10,000 years. Specifically, he used statistical methods to obtain a composite spatial and temporal image of climate change. He was also interested in how these climate changes have influenced past societies. He therefore developed a virtual water network of the Roman world based on grain production and transportation during the Roman period. In this way he could begin to unravel how Roman trade and agriculture influenced their resilience to climate change.