Assessing spatial uncertainties of land allocation using the scenario approach and sensitivity analysis

The paper assess uncertainty of future spatial allocation of agricultural land in Europe. To assess the possible future development of agricultural production and land for the period 2000 – 2030, two contrasting scenarios are constructed. The scenarios storylines lead to different measurable assumptions concerning scenario specific drivers (variables) and parameters. Many of them are estimations and thus include a certain level of uncertainty regarding their true values. This leads to uncertainty of the scenario outcomes. In this study we use sensitivity analysis to estimate the uncertainty of agricultural land use.spatial uncertainty, scenario approach, sensitivity analysis., Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Labor and Human Capital,

Extending the Lee Carter Model: a Three-way Decomposition

In this paper, we focus on a Multidimensional Data Analysis approach to the Lee-Carter (LC) model of mortality trends . In particular, we extend the bilinear LC model and specify a new model based on a three-way structure, which incorporates a further component in the decomposition of the log-mortality rates. A multi-way component analysis is performed using the Tucker 3 model. The suggested methodology allows us to obtain combined estimates for the three modes: i) time, ii) agegroups and iii) different populations. From the results obtained by the Tucker 3 decomposition, we can jointly compare, in both a numerical and graphical way, the relationships among all three modes and obtain a time series component as a leading indicator of the mortality trend for a group of populations. Further, we carry out a correlation analysis of the estimated trends in order to assess the reliability of the results of the three-way decomposition. The model’s goodness of fit is assessed using an analysis of the residuals. Finally, we discuss how the synthesised mortality index can be used to build concise projected life tables for a group of populations. An application which compares ten European countries is used to illustrate the approach and provide a deeper insight into the model and its implementation

Estimating the costs of reducing CO2 emission via avoided deforestation with integrated assessment modelling

Estimates for deforestation and forest degradation were shown to account for about 17% of greenhouse gas emissions. The implementation of REDD is suggested to provide substantial emission reductions at low costs. Proper calculation of such a costs requires integrated modeling approach involving biophysical impact calculations and estimation economic effects of these.However, only few global modeling studies concerning this issue exist, and the actual implementation can take many forms. This study uses the approach of assuming that non Annex-I countries protect carbon rich areas from deforestation, and therefore loose the opportunity to use it as agricultural area. The opportunity costs of reducing deforestation within the framework of REDD are assessed with the global economic model LEITAP and the biophysical model IMAGE. A key methodological challenge is the representation of land use and the possibility to convert forestry land into agricultural land as REDD policies might prevent the use of forest for agriculture. We endogenize availability of agricultural land by introducing a flexible land supply curve and proxy the implementation of the REDD policies as a shift in the asymptote of this curve representing maximal agricultural land availability in various regions in the world. In a series of experiments, increasingly more carbon rich areas are protected from deforestation, the associated costs in terms of GDP reduction are calculated with the economic model. The associated reduction in CO2 emissions from land use change are calculated by the IMAGE model. From this series of experiments, abatement cost curves, relating CO2 emission reduction to costs of this reduction, are constructed. The results show that globally a maximum CO2 reduction of around 2.5 Gt could be achieved. However, regional differences are large, ranging from about 0 to 3.2 USD per ton CO2 in Africa, 2 to 9 USD in South and Central America, and 20 to 60 USD in Southeast Asi

Correction: What are the perspectives of patients with hand and wrist conditions, chronic pain, and patients recovering from stroke on the use of patient and outcome information in everyday care?:A Mixed-Methods study

In the original published article, the bottom part of Fig. 2 was missing. Also in the supplementary tables, the last sentence is “A negative standardized odds ratio (SOR) indicates worse understanding and positive SOR indicates better understanding.” and “A negative standardized odds ratio (SOR) indicates less perceived value and positive SOR indicates more perceived value.” However, this should be: - Odds ratios smaller than 1.0 indicate patients have a worse understanding of the outcome information and odds ratios larger than 1.0 indicate patients have a better understanding of the outcome information. (Supplementary Table 1A) Odds ratios smaller than 1.0 indicate patients find outcome information less valuable and odds ratios larger than 1.0 indicate patients find outcome information more valuable (Supplementary Table 1B) - Odds ratios smaller than 1.0 indicate patients have a worse understanding of the outcome information and odds ratios larger than 1.0 indicate patients have a better understanding of the outcome information. (Supplementary Table 1A) Odds ratios smaller than 1.0 indicate patients find outcome information less valuable and odds ratios larger than 1.0 indicate patients find outcome information more valuable (Supplementary Table 1B) The correct version of Fig. 2 and the Supplementary information file are provided in this correction. </p

Simulating and delineating future land change trajectories across Europe

Explorations of future land use change are important to understand potential conflicts between competing land uses, trade-offs associated with particular land change trajectories, and the effectiveness of policies to steer land systems into desirable states. Most model-based explorations and scenario studies focused on conversions in broad land use classes, but disregarded changes in land management or focused on individual sectors only. Using the European Union (EU) as a case study, we developed an approach to identifying typical combinations of land cover and management changes by combining the results of multimodel simulations in the agriculture and forest sectors for four scenarios from 2000 to 2040. We visualized land change trajectories by mapping regional hotspots of change. Land change trajectories differed in extent and spatial pattern across the EU and among scenarios, indicating trajectory-specific option spaces for alternative land system outcomes. In spite of the large variation in the area of change, similar hotspots of land change were observed among the scenarios. All scenarios indicate a stronger polarization of land use in Europe, with a loss of multifunctional landscapes. We analyzed locations subject to change by comparing location characteristics associated with certain land change trajectories. Results indicate differences in the location conditions of different land change trajectories, with diverging impacts on ecosystem service provisioning. Policy and planning for future land use needs to account for the spatial variation of land change trajectories to achieve both overarching and location-specific targets

How much multilateralism do we need? Effectiveness of unilateral agricultural mitigation efforts in the global context

Achieving climate neutrality in the European Union (EU) by 2050 will require substantial efforts across all economic sectors, including agriculture. At the same time, an ambitious unilateral EU agricultural mitigation policy is likely to have adverse effects on the sector and may have limited efficiency at global scale due to emission leakage to non-EU regions. To analyse the competitiveness of the EU's agricultural sector and potential non-CO2 emission leakage conditional on mitigation efforts outside the EU, we apply three economic agricultural sector models. We find that an ambitious unilateral EU mitigation policy in line with efforts needed to achieve the 1.5 °C target globally strongly affects EU ruminant production and trade balance. However, since EU farmers rank among the most greenhouse gas efficient producers worldwide, if the rest of the world were to start pursuing agricultural mitigation efforts too, economic impacts of an ambitious domestic mitigation policy get buffered and EU livestock producers could even start to benefit from a globally coordinated mitigation policy

The shared socioeconomic pathways and their energy, land use, and greenhouse gas emissions implications: An overview

This paper presents the overview of the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) and their energy, land use, and emissions implications. The SSPs are part of a new scenario framework, established by the climate change research community in order to facilitate the integrated analysis of future climate impacts, vulnerabilities, adaptation, and mitigation. The pathways were developed over the last years as a joint community effort and describe plausible major global developments that together would lead in the future to different challenges for mitigation and adaptation to climate change. The SSPs are based on five narratives describing alternative socio-economic developments, including sustainable development, regional rivalry, inequality, fossil-fueled development, and a middle-of-the-road development. The long-term demographic and economic projections of the SSPs depict a wide uncertainty range consistent with the scenario literature. A multi-model approach was used for the elaboration of the energy, land-use and the emissions trajectories of SSP-based scenarios. The baseline scenarios lead to global energy consumption of 500-1100 EJ in 2100, and feature vastly different land-use dynamics, ranging from a possible reduction in cropland area up to a massive expansion by more than 700 million hectares by 2100. The associated annual CO2 emissions of the baseline scenarios range from about 25 GtCO2 to more than 120 GtCO2 per year by 2100. With respect to mitigation, we find that associated costs strongly depend on three factors: 1) the policy assumptions, 2) the socio-economic narrative, and 3) the stringency of the target. The carbon price for reaching the target of 2.6 W/m2 differs in our analysis thus by about a factor of three across the SSP scenarios. Moreover, many models could not reach this target from the SSPs with high mitigation challenges. While the SSPs were designed to represent different mitigation and adaptation challenges, the resulting narratives and quantifications span a wide range of different futures broadly representative of the current literature. This allows their subsequent use and development in new assessments and research projects. Critical next steps for the community scenario process will, among others, involve regional and sectorial extensions, further elaboration of the adaptation and impacts dimension, as well as employing the SSP scenarios with the new generation of earth system models as part of the 6th climate model intercomparison project (CMIP6)

Short- and long-term warming effects of methane may affect the cost-effectiveness of mitigation policies and benefits of low-meat diets

Methane’s short atmospheric life has important implications for the design of global climate change mitigation policies in agriculture. Three different agricultural economic models are used to explore how short- and long-term warming effects of methane can affect the cost-effectiveness of mitigation policies and dietary transitions. Results show that the choice of a particular metric for methane’s warming potential is key to determine optimal mitigation options, with metrics based on shorter-term impacts leading to greater overall emission reduction. Also, the promotion of low-meat diets is more effective at reducing greenhouse gas emissions compared to carbon pricing when mitigation policies are based on metrics that reflect methane’s long-term behaviour. A combination of stringent mitigation measures and dietary changes could achieve substantial emission reduction levels, helping reverse the contribution of agriculture to global warming