Given scenarios describing future climates and socio-techno-economics, this study estimates the consequences for agricultural land use, combining models of crop growth and farm decision making to predict profitability over the whole of Europe, driven solely by soil and climate at each location. Each location is then classified by its profitability as intensive or extensive agriculture or not suitable for agriculture.The main effects of both climate and socio-economics were in the agriculturally marginal areas of Europe. The results showed the effect of different climates is relatively small, whereas there are large variations when economic scenarios are included. Only Finland's agricultural area significantly responds to climate by increasing at the expense of forests in several scenarios. Several locations show more difference due to climate model (PCM vs HADCM3) than emission scenario, because of large differences in predicted precipitation, notably the Ardennes switching to arable in HADCM3. . Scenario modelling has identified several such regions where there is a need to be watchful, but few where all of the scenario results agree, suggesting great uncertainty in future projections. Thus it has not been able to predict any futures, though all results agree that in central Europe, changes are likely to be relatively small.
This paper provides an overview of the development of the 'Regional Impact Simulator' -a user friendly software tool designed to allow stakeholders to perform integrated assessments of the effects of climate and/or socio-economic change on the important sectors and resources of two contrasting UK regions. This
A multi-scale approach has linked farm level decisions with regional water availability assessments that allow for environmental water needs and the competing demands for water. This is incorporated within a user-interactive software tool, enabling the impact of a range of variables to be easily examined. Climate change leads to increased potential irrigation demand in East Anglia and North West England. Under baseline socio-economic conditions, results suggest that such increased future water demands can be met in the North West, but in the drier East Anglian region are counter to the decreasing water availability under all climate scenarios. The decreasing availability is moderated or exacerbated according to the environmental priorities of the future socio-economic scenarios. Under economically focussed regional futures, water supply availability increases at the expense of the environment, despite high water demands. Under environmentally focussed futures, demand restrictions are needed due to the further decreased water availability as a consequence of the high environmental priority. Results show that the effectiveness of water pricing for reducing irrigation demand is also scenario-dependent. Where regional food production is important, irrigation demand is relatively priceinsensitive and abstraction controls will be most effective, whereas in a global market-drive future, irrigation demand is shown to be price-sensitive.
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