The use of ex-ante modelling tools in European Impact Assessment: What role does land use play?

Methods and tools for integrated assessment of land use policies on sustainable development in developing countries

“…In Europe, ex ante IA studies boosted the scientific literature in recent years (e.g., Helming et al, 2008;Tscherning et al, 2008;Van Ittersum et al, 2008;Thiel, 2009), due to the introduction of the Impact Assessment (IA) Guidelines in the European Union (EC, 2005). Besides other objectives, these were introduced in order to make policy development more transparent and improve the quality of European policies (Bäcklund, 2009).…”

“…At higher scale levels, computer simulation models, performing a comprehensive analysis of the land-use system, appear to be indispensable research tools (Bouma et al, 2007). This was acknowledged by the European Commission, who introduced Impact Assessment Guidelines and promotes the use of modelling tools to make policy development better informed and improve the quality of European policies (EC, 2005;Bäcklund, 2009;Thiel, 2009). This resulted in a large number of studies on impact assessment of land use, policies and sustainable development (e.g., Boulanger and Bréchet, 2005;Rossing et al, 2007;Hacking and Guthrie, 2008;Walter and Stützel, 2009;Binder et al, 2010).…”

Simulating farm level response to crop diversification policy

“…Hence, in this paper only the first step of the impact analysis on biodiversity is investigated, namely whether the crop diversification proposals increase the crop diversity or not. The diversification requirement can be perceived as a public claim on former private property rights (Rodgers, 2009) and requires cautious implementation, which makes the standard ex-ante impact assessment procedures relevant (Thiel, 2009). The methodology suited to perform such an impact assessment is described in the following section.…”

Does research applying the DPSIR framework support decision making?

“…SENSOR research results had to be translated into an information format for policy support. To satisfy the demands of producing policy relevant results, policy makers participated and were consulted during the entire project duration (Thiel, 2009). At an early stage, it became clear to us that decision makers did not want Responses to be dictated suggested by the research; rather they preferred a large number of scenarios for cause-effect chain relationships leading to potential decision options from which they could choose.…”