Environmental and Agricultural Modelling:, 2010 Integrated Approaches for Policy Impact Assessment

Agriculture increasingly faces the challenge of balancing its multiple functions in a sustainable way. Integrated assessment and modelling (IAM) can provide insight into the potential impacts of policy changes. However, concepts to address the wide range of issues and functions typical for agriculture are still scarce. Environmental and Agricultural Modelling reviews and presents our current understanding of integrated and working tools to assess and compute, ex-ante, alternative agricultural and environmental policy options, allowing:

1. Analysis at the full range of scales (farm to European Union and global) whilst focusing on the most important issues emerging at each scale;

2. Analysis of the environmental, economic and social contributions of agricultural systems towards sustainable rural development and rural viability;

3. Analysis of a broad range of issues and agents of change, such as climate change, environmental policies, rural development options, effects of an enlarging EU, international competition, and effects on developing countries.

Operational and Integrated tools for impact assessment

Understanding of agriculture and sustainable development at a range of spatial scales (farm, regional, European and global)

Based on the input from key scientists in Europe, working together on integrated tools for sustainable impact assessment, and with a background in agronomy, landscape ecology, economy, environment, geography and political science. The work is based on the input from around 150 scientists

Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras