The objective of this project is to develop land-use models, vulnerability indices and an interactive visualisation platform to analyse the linkages between land-use changes, greenhouse gas emissions, resource use and adaptive capacity in the Nordic countries. The fundamental research question it asks is: What are the linkages between land-use change, climate change mitigation and adaptive capacity, and how can modelling and visualisation tools support decision-making? This question is addressed through four sub-projects.
Sub-project 1.1: Land-use change for mitigation and adaptation
Research questions and rationale
Climate change impact studies have consistently predicted significant losses in agriculture (Pearce et al., 1996; Tol, 2002a, b). Understanding adaptation is important both for quantification of impacts and for the anticipation of which sectors and communities may be under most threat from climate change. If the capacity of farmers to adapt is over-predicted, the damage costs from climate change are under-predicted, and vice-versa. In addition, land use plays a central role in mitigation, e.g. through fertiliser and tillage practices, forestry, wetland restoration and land reclamation. These mitigation practices interact heavily with other land use; agricultural uses as well as recreational use and amenity.
This research adds to the literature by developing land-use adaptation models incorporating both environmental (including climatic) and socio-economic conditions. We evaluate the consequential changes in greenhouse gas emissions from changes in land use and livestock numbers in order to assess the direct impacts of mitigating land-use practices as well as impacts of the adaptation responses on emissions and mitigation. The specific questions to be addressed are:
How can land-use adaptation models be best developed to incorporate both environmental and socioeconomic conditions?
What are the consequential changes in GHG emissions from changes in land use as well as from mitigation and adaptation actions?
What regional and global lessons can be learned, given the anticipated changes in Nordic agriculture and land use?
How can Nordic and European policy-makers best facilitate effective agricultural adaptation?
Theory and methods
The impacts of climate change have been studied extensively over the past 30 years. These studies indicate major impacts of climate change on agriculture (Tol, 2002a; Tol, 2002b). However, the effects of climate change on agriculture are expected to be very different in different parts of the world (Parry et al., 1999). Effects depend on a great many variables, including climate and soil conditions, the type of farming system, the direction of expected change, and the ability to cope with change given the infrastructure and resources available to individuals (Olesen & Bindi, 2002).
In Europe specifically, most studies find that agricultural productivity is expected to increase in northern Europe but decrease in southern Europe as a result of climate change (Parry et al., 1999;
Iglesias et al., 2012; Olesen, et al., 2007). Northern Europe may experience positive effects from climate change, such as the introduction of new crop species and varieties, higher crop production, and the expansion of suitable cropping areas (Olesen & Bindi, 2002). Yield increases tend to lead to production increases in northern Europe, a trend which is enhanced by the greater
adaptive capacity of the countries in this area. However, the beneficial relationship between climate change and increased yields in the higher latitudes of Europe is finely balanced; the beneficial effects occur within a certain climate range. If exceeded, adverse effects of climate change on agriculture will begin to dominate (Parry et al., 1999). In southern Europe, disadvantages from climate change are expected to dominate. Expected water shortages and increased occurrence of extreme weather events may cause lower harvestable yields, higher yield variability, and a reduction of suitable cropping areas (Olesen & Bindi, 2002; Olesen, et al., 2007).
A number of different methods have been applied to study adaptation to climate change, such as the use of agro-ecological zone analysis, the use of agronomic-economic models, and testing adaptation options as specified in those models (Mendelsohn & Dinar, 1999). However, the most pivotal approach was introduced in 1994 by Robert Mendelsohn, William Nordhaus and Diagee Shaw. These authors introduced a Ricardian economics approach to climate and agriculture, arguing that other approaches tend to overestimate damages because they fail to account for farmers’ adaptation actions. The Ricardian approach examined the effect of climate on the net rent or the value of farmland, an approach which could account for both the direct impact of climate on crop yields as well as the ‘indirect substitution of different inputs, introduction of different activities, and other potential adaptations’ (Mendelsohn, Nordhaus, & Shaw, 1994, p.
755). Today, it is generally accepted that studies of the effects of climate change on agriculture ought to take adaptation actions into account, unless one’s goal is to control for a specific climatic variable on a specific crop. The Ricardian method, though certainly not undisputed, fundamentally influenced all studies of a similar nature which followed.
This research will build upon the Ricardian approach by including farmer decision-making and adaptation in the models under analysis. In addition, this research will add to the existing literature by developing land use adaptation models which incorporate both environmental and socio-economic conditions. The consequential changes in greenhouse gas emissions from changes in land use will be evaluated, to assess the direct impacts of mitigating land use practices as well as the impacts of adaptation responses on both emissions and mitigation options.
The research will be based on existing data. High-resolution spatial data sets are available from AU to carry out this research. In addition, some data may have to be collected on the selected cases from existing sources, such as farm account databanks and meteorological data.
Case studies and stakeholder engagement
The research in project 1.1 will be based on case study areas, preferably several of the Nordic countries. The aim is to choose a diverse set of areas in terms of land use types and vulnerability to climate change. In accordance with sub-projects 1.2, 1.4 and 2.1, stakeholders will initially be selected among farmers, extension officers, county officers, regional planners and policy-makers.
Later rounds can be expanded to national- and Nordic-level policy-makers and governmental agencies dealing with land use and land-use change.
Deliverables
The planned deliverables of project 1.1 are scientific publications. The articles will outline the expected changes in GHG emissions from climate change and from various changes in land use, including the impacts of mitigation and adaptation actions, and will present the results of these analyses for the two selected Nordic case studies. Further, the plan is to address important extrapolations that may be made from the NORD-STAR research, including any important differences which arose between the case studies, how the results may or may not be of
importance for other nations, and the implications of the results for climate policy within the Nordic nations and within Europe. The results from project 1.1 will further serve as input into other NORD-STAR research.
The results will be of particular use both to farmers who wish to make the best adaptation choices for themselves and the environment, and to the Nordic governments, which wish to craft smart, successful policy. Stakeholder workshops are planned in 2014 and 2015 to disseminate the results to these groups.
Sub-project 1.2: Interactive visualisation for analysis of linkages between adaptation and mitigation strategies
The objective of sub-project 1.2 is to develop software that provides a novel compilation of scientific and information visualisation tools for data analysis, communication and decision-making support. These will be designed as interactive scenario tools in which decision-makers themselves can create scenarios and discuss the variation of social, economic, policy and environmental parameters. Based on this platform, a methodological framework for visualisation-assisted decision-making will be developed.
Climate visualisation provides interactive computer graphics-based tools that enable scientists and decision-makers to jointly evaluate which strategies are best pursued at the local, national and international levels. Here, climate visualisation is used to assess linkages between adaptation and mitigation strategies. One specific aspect that will be investigated is land-use change and bioenergy.
Research questions and rationale
The research questions in this sub-project are:
What linkages can be assessed between adaptation and mitigation strategies using climate visualisation?
What are the criteria for an interactive visualisation platform to provide a compilation of scientific and information visualisation tools for data analysis, communication and decision-making in the form of interactive scenarios?
What framework is needed to facilitate an efficient and interactive visualisation-supported decision process?
Theory and methods
Facilitating communication amongst user groups from various professional backgrounds demands advanced techniques for creating visualisation stories (Jern et al., 2008). These enable an individual user to create a narrative –scenarios – for a specific set of geographically and contextual data to follow a set of several parameters and share them with other regional stakeholders and planners. This requires that the visualisation platform be highly interactive and able to support data fusion of large and heterogeneous data that include both spatial and dynamic features to match the nature of the data for Nordic adaptation (Neset et al., 2009, Johansson et al., 2010).
Climate data is often both time-dependent and multivariate, making it one of the major challenges in visualisation (Chen, 2005). Such data expands with time, frequently becoming large and hard to manage, but more importantly, is very difficult to represent in an understandable way. The developed visualisation platform will use a focus + context approach based on multiple coordinated and linked views, where an overview of a potentially large number of significant
patterns and linkages is shown together with several focus views, displaying detailed data selected by users. Enabling visual representations of such complex data will require using state-of-the-art acceleration methods based on computer graphics hardware.
Regardless of the visualisation technique used, the issue of visual clutter due to too much data needs to be considered. This is of particular importance when dealing with multivariate, time-dependent data, since the size of the data typically scales linearly with time. To avoid visual clutter, some form of data reduction is often applied. During this step, it is important that the visual appearance of the overall structure of the data is retained so that the analysis result is still valid (Johansson and Cooper, 2008).
The interactive visualisation software will facilitate the integration of data results from land-use and energy modelling as well as GIS files and climate data. A framework for visualisation-assisted dialogues in this project faces the key challenge of strengthening participation during data assessment, data analysis and decision-making processes. A few studies have analysed how scientific visualisation can increase public knowledge on the climate system and climate change (e.g. Sheppard, 2005, Sheppard et al., 2011) or be used to broaden participation by different groups in integrated resource management (e.g. Brown et al., 2006). Studies of participatory processes have discussed the impact of visualisation tools for stakeholder involvement in the form of digital workshops (Salter et al., 2009) or natural resource management and climate change consultations (Lewis and Sheppard, 2006; Shaw et al., 2009).
We will further draw upon a methodology for model-assisted dialogues between decision-makers, stakeholders and experts, previously developed at SMHI and LiU and tested in Sweden (Andersson et al., 2008) as well as in South Africa (Andersson et al., 2010), and adapt to the interactive visualisation platform. Participatory modelling methodology is based on involving stakeholder groups in the modelling process and by that ensuring that all involved stakeholder groups have a high degree of confidence in the data used as well as in the model results.
Case studies and stakeholder engagement
For this sub-project, we aim to select case study areas in several Nordic countries, including areas with potential for bioenergy and food production as well as peri-urban areas. Stakeholders will be selected in accordance with project 1.1, 1.4 and 2.1 and should initially include farmers, extension officers, county officers, regional planners and policy-makers. In a second step, the stakeholder workshops could expand to the national and Nordic level of policy-makers and governmental agencies dealing with land use and energy transition. The visualisation platform will provide a unique decision arena setting, ranging from an interactive web-based environment where stakeholders can interact with researchers and one another from remote workstations, to a decision environment in a physical meeting place of a visualisation theatre.
Deliverables
The main deliverables of project 1.2 are scientific publications and the development and evaluation of an interactive visualisation platform. Furthermore, three stakeholder workshops are planned between the autumn of 2013 and the spring of 2014.
Four peer-reviewed papers are planned to be submitted, (1) on the general criteria for the visualisation platform, in autumn 2013; (2) on a framework for visualisation-assisted decision-making on land-use issues in the Nordic countries, with planned submission in the winter of 2013;
(3) focusing on the prototype of the visualisation platform in the autumn of 2014, and (4) on the evaluation of visualisation-assisted decision-making on land use issues in the Nordic countries, which is planned to be submitted in the winter of 2014.
The interactive visualisation platform that will be developed in sub-project 1.2 will be a novel contribution to analysing linkages and scenarios and to support decision-making. The launch of the prototype of visualisation platform for internal NORD-STAR use is planned for the spring of 2014, and the final launch of the visualisation platform on the NORD-STAR website is planned for the spring of 2015. The visualisation platform will provide a comprehensive tool for the analysis of land use and energy data as well as scenario tools for decision support. This sub-project will further contribute a novel framework for visualisation-supported dialogues.
Sub-project 1.3: Integrated vulnerability mapping
The specific objective of sub-project 1.3 is to perform an integrated vulnerability mapping for the present and the future. This involves assessing both the exposure of places to extreme weather-related events such as flooding, storm surges, and landslides, and local communities’ capacity to prepare for, respond to and recover from any extreme event. Thus, we aim to perform a combined assessment of physical and social vulnerability (Tate et al., 2010). We further aim to follow Næss et al.’s (2006) recommendation to combine such a top-down vulnerability assessment with a bottom-up approach, because the latter will ease the collection of local data, improve the vulnerability assessment by including local knowledge, increase the validity of the assessment, and facilitate decision-making based on the vulnerability assessment.
Research questions and rationale
Existing flood hazard maps are not complete regarding geographic coverage, as these mainly have been prepared for larger rivers, bordered by extensive floodplains with settlements. Steep, tributary catchments have not been mapped, but these can cause local flooding due to intense precipitation events, which are likely to happen more often due to climate change (Borga et al., 2010). With this sub-project, we aim to assess flash flood hazards.
How can we validate vulnerability indices? Could we correlate them with annual means of insurance payments as a control for whether we can correctly identify the elements at risk? Could we, in dialogue with local stakeholders and with their local knowledge, verify whether our top-down approach to vulnerability corresponds with a bottom-up assessment?
The Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) (Cutter et al., 2003) is constructed using principal component analysis. The approach can seem like a ‘black-box’ methodology to those who do not have access to the underlying data and/or intimate understanding of statistical methods. Can we make all data publicly available together, with detailed instructions on how to replicate and modify the index? Can we create a highly user-friendly, web-based tool which automates the necessary steps in creating the index, or is it possible to design a simpler but still valid index for social vulnerability?
How should we design a web-based interactive visualisation platform, and what is needed as sufficient guidance to empower local stakeholder to carry out an integrated vulnerability assessment within their areas, if sufficient data is available?
Climate researchers anticipate that climate change will bring about more extreme weather events. For the stakeholders, however, it may not be clear what this means in terms of type of future severe incidents or their probability, and therefore in terms of planning that needs to be done. We will, in collaboration with other NORD-STAR associates, work towards bridging the gap between climate research and stakeholders in the Nordic countries. Integrated vulnerability mapping combined with visualisation tools would
show where adaptation measures concerning environmental hazards would be most needed.
Theory and methods
Vulnerability is a somewhat fuzzy concept that can have several meanings (see, for instance, Cutter, 1996; Adger, 2006). In this sub-project, we follow a tradition from hazard research that separates the vulnerability concept into physical vulnerability (exposure) and social vulnerability (capacity). The impact a disaster may have on humans depends not only on hazard exposure, but also on how well they can anticipate, cope with, resist and recover from the impact (Wisner et al., 2004; Greiving et al., 2006). Social vulnerability refers to differences in how various groups may be affected due to social inequalities – ‘those social factors that influence or shape the susceptibility of various groups to harm and that also govern their ability to respond’ (Cutter et al., 2003, p. 243). The definition of vulnerability we use differs from that used by the IPCC in its Fourth Assessment Report (2007), but matches the one in the Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (IPCC 2012). As this sub-project primarily investigates vulnerability to hazards with frequencies and of intensities that are expected to increase as an effect of climate change, we find the use of this concept to be appropriate.
Our methodology will rely extensively on GIS, multivariate statistical analysis, web-based technologies and modelling of physical/hydrological processes in particular. We will also use, as appropriate, participatory GIS (PGIS), interviews, group discussions and document analysis.
Case studies and stakeholder engagement
The case study area should be exposed to several weather-related hazards. Its population should be large enough to include some social segregation. The stakeholders are municipal planners, county administrators, staff and researchers from national water management directorates, national geological surveys, geotechnical institutes and others who do hazard assessments. We will have workshops not only to show them how to use our research results, but also to explain how their local knowledge could be used to improve the assessment and ease its use for decision support. There should also be some way to provide input on the developed web-based visualisation platform.
Deliverables
A minimum of five articles should be written and submitted to relevant international refereed journals. Other dissemination could include professional journals, papers or periodicals and newspapers, as well as texts and maps on the web-based visualisation platform we will develop.
In collaboration with stakeholders and other NORD-STAR researchers, we will develop guidelines for local-level vulnerability assessment. We will also develop and test a prototype of a web-based visualisation platform that can be used as a tool for local-level climate change
In collaboration with stakeholders and other NORD-STAR researchers, we will develop guidelines for local-level vulnerability assessment. We will also develop and test a prototype of a web-based visualisation platform that can be used as a tool for local-level climate change