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Author Christen, B.; Kjeldsen, C.; Dalgaard, T.; Martin-Ortega, J. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Can fuzzy cognitive mapping help in agricultural policy design and communication? Type Journal Article
  Year 2015 Publication Land Use Policy Abbreviated Journal Land Use Policy  
  Volume 45 Issue Pages 64-75  
  Keywords Agricultural policy; Agro-environmental measures; Fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM); General Binding Rules; Stakeholder communication; Scottish agriculture  
  Abstract Highlights •Fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM)can help to improve agricultural policy design. •We analyse the views on regulation between farmers and non-farmers. •We demonstrate the utility of FCM in disentangling reasons for non-compliance. •Non-compliance is a result of dis-alignment of views rather than unwillingness. •FCM offers a critical, reflexive approach to how a regulatory process is conceived. Agricultural environmental regulation often fails to deliver the desired effects because of farmers adopting the related measures incorrectly or not at all. This is due to several barriers to the uptake of the prescribed environmentally beneficial farm management practices, most of which have been well established by social science research. Yet it is unclear why these barriers remain so difficult to overcome despite numerous and persistent attempts at the design, communication and enforcement of related agricultural policies. This paper examines the potential of fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM) as a tool to disentangle the underlying reasons of this persistent problem. We present the FCM methodology as adapted to the application in a Scottish case study on how environmental regulation affects farmers and farming practice and what factors are important for compliance or non-compliance with this regulation. The study compares the views of two different stakeholder groups on this matter using FCM network visualizations that were validated by interviews and a workshop session. There was a farmers group representing a typical mix of Scottish farming systems and a non-farmers group, the latter comprising professionals from the fields of design, implementation, administration, consulting on and enforcement of agricultural policies. Between the two groups, the FCM process reveals a very different perception of importance and interaction of factors and strongly suggests that the problem lies in an institutional failure rather than in a simple unwillingness of farmers to obey the rules. FCM allows for a structured process of identifying areas of conflicting perceptions, but also areas where strongly differing groups of stakeholders might be able to gain common ground. In this way, FCM can help to identify anchoring points for targeted policy development and has the potential of becoming a useful tool in agricultural policy design and communication. Our results show the utility of FCM by pointing out how Scottish environmental regulation could be altered to increase compliance with the rules and where the reasons for the identified institutional failure might be sought.  
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  Notes LiveM, ftnotmacsur Approved no  
  Call Number MA @ admin @ Serial 4620  
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Author Lehtonen, H.S.; Irz, X. url  openurl
  Title Impacts of reducing red meat consumption on agricultural production in Finland Type Journal Article
  Year 2013 Publication Agriculture and Food Science Abbreviated Journal Agriculture and Food Science  
  Volume 22 Issue 3 Pages 356-370  
  Keywords agricultural sector modelling; food demand; greenhouse gas mitigation; agricultural policy; agricultural economics  
  Abstract This paper summarises the simulated effects on Finnish agrcultural production and trade of a 20% decrease in Finnish demand for red meat (beef, pork, lamb). According to our results, reduced red meat consumption would be offset by increased consumption of poultry meat, eggs, dairy products and fish, as well as small increases in consumption of fruits and vegetables, peas, nuts, cereal products and sweets. By including the derived demand changes in an agricultural sector model, we show that livestock production in Finland, incentivised by national production-linked payments for milk and bovine animals, would decrease by much less than 20% due to the complex nature of agricultural production and trade. Overall, assuming unchanged consumer preferences and agricultural policy, a 20% reduction in red meat consumption is not likely to lead to a substantial decrease in livestock production or changed land use, or greenhouse gas emissions, from Finnish agriculture.  
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  Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title  
  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 1795-1895 ISBN Medium Article  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes TradeM, ftnotmacsur Approved no  
  Call Number MA @ admin @ Serial 4607  
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Author Helming, K.; Diehl, K.; Geneletti, D.; Wiggering, H. doi  openurl
  Title Mainstreaming ecosystem services in European policy impact assessment Type Journal Article
  Year 2013 Publication Environmental Impact Assessment Review Abbreviated Journal Environmental Impact Assessment Review  
  Volume 40 Issue Pages 82-87  
  Keywords Ex-ante policy impact assessment; Ecosystem services; Science policy interface; DPSIR; EIA; seasonal forecasts  
  Abstract The concept of ecosystem services as developed for the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) is currently the most extensive, international, scientific concept dealing with the interaction between the world’s ecosystems and human well-being. The fundamental asset is seen in the relevancy of the concept at the science–policy interface. Albeit, the mainstreaming of ecosystem services into policy making requires a framework that allows the transition of the scientific concept into the rationale of policy making. We hypothesize that the procedure of policy impact assessment is a suitable venue for this transition. This brings up two questions: 1) where in the process of policy impact assessment can ecosystem services be mainstreamed? 2) How can the impact on ecosystem services properly be accounted for? In this paper we distinguish two groups of policy cases: explicit cases directly addressing ecosystem services, and implicit cases of policies that follow other purposes but may have unintended impacts on ecosystem services as a side effect. The second group covers a wide range of policies for which we set out a framework for mainstreaming of ecosystem services. The framework is exemplary designed for the instrument of ex-ante impact assessment at European policy making level. We reveal that the two concepts of the MA and of the European policy impact assessment are indeed compatible, which makes the integration of the ecosystem service concept possible. We conclude that the linkage of the scientifically validated concept of ecosystem services with the policy concept of impact assessment has the potential of improving the credibility of the latter.  
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  Notes TradeM, ftnotmacsur Approved no  
  Call Number MA @ admin @ Serial 4602  
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Author Zhen, L.; Deng, X.; Wei, Y.; Jiang, Q.; Lin, Y.; Helming, K.; Wang, C.; König, H.J.; Hu, J. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Future land use and food security scenarios for the Guyuan district of remote western China Type Journal Article
  Year 2014 Publication iForest Abbreviated Journal iForest  
  Volume 7 Issue 6 Pages 372-384  
  Keywords land-use patterns; scenario analysis; dynamics of land systems modeling; food security; guyuan district; north-central china; cultivated land; dynamics; conversion; policy  
  Abstract Government policy is a major human factor that causes changes in land use. Decisions on land management and land-use planning, as well as the analysis and quantification of policy consequences, may greatly benefit from the simulation of the dynamics of land-use systems. In the present study, we predicted land-use changes and their potential impacts on food security in the environmentally fragile Guyuan District, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (north-central China), under the influence of a program to convert sloping agricultural land to conservation uses. Baseline and conservation policy scenarios (2005 to 2020) were developed based on input from local stakeholders and expert knowledge. For the baseline and conservation policies, we formulated high-, moderate-, and low-growth scenarios, analyzed the driving mechanisms responsible for the land-use dynamics, and then applied a previously developed “dynamics of land systems” model to simulate changes in land uses based on the driving mechanisms. We found that spatially explicit policies can promote the conversion of land to more sustainable uses; however, decreasing the amount of agricultural and urban land and increasing grassland and forest cover will increase the risk of grain shortages, and the effect will be more severe under the conservation and high- growth scenarios than under the baseline and low-growth scenarios. The Guyuan case study suggests that, during the next decade, important trade-offs between environmental conservation and food security will inevitably occur. Future land-use decisions should carefully consider the balance between land resource conservation, agricultural production, and urban expansion.  
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  ISSN 1971-7458 ISBN Medium Article  
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  Notes CropM Approved no  
  Call Number MA @ admin @ Serial 4547  
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Author Piontek, F.; Müller, C.; Pugh, T.A.; Clark, D.B.; Deryng, D.; Elliott, J.; Colón González, F.J.; Flörke, M.; Folberth, C.; Franssen, W.; Frieler, K.; Friend, A.D.; Gosling, S.N.; Hemming, D.; Khabarov, N.; Kim, H.; Lomas, M.R.; Masaki, Y.; Mengel, M.; Morse, A.; Neumann, K.; Nishina, K.; Ostberg, S.; Pavlick, R.; Ruane, A.C.; Schewe, J.; Schmid, E.; Stacke, T.; Tang, Q.; Tessler, Z.D.; Tompkins, A.M.; Warszawski, L.; Wisser, D.; Schellnhuber, H.J. doi  openurl
  Title Multisectoral climate impact hotspots in a warming world Type Journal Article
  Year 2014 Publication Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Abbreviated Journal Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A.  
  Volume 111 Issue 9 Pages 3233-3238  
  Keywords Agriculture/statistics & numerical data; Computer Simulation; Conservation of Natural Resources/*methods; Ecosystem; *Environment; Geography; Global Warming/economics/*statistics & numerical data; Humans; Malaria/epidemiology; *Models, Theoretical; *Public Policy; Temperature; Water Supply/statistics & numerical data; Isi-mip; coinciding pressures; differential climate impacts  
  Abstract The impacts of global climate change on different aspects of humanity’s diverse life-support systems are complex and often difficult to predict. To facilitate policy decisions on mitigation and adaptation strategies, it is necessary to understand, quantify, and synthesize these climate-change impacts, taking into account their uncertainties. Crucial to these decisions is an understanding of how impacts in different sectors overlap, as overlapping impacts increase exposure, lead to interactions of impacts, and are likely to raise adaptation pressure. As a first step we develop herein a framework to study coinciding impacts and identify regional exposure hotspots. This framework can then be used as a starting point for regional case studies on vulnerability and multifaceted adaptation strategies. We consider impacts related to water, agriculture, ecosystems, and malaria at different levels of global warming. Multisectoral overlap starts to be seen robustly at a mean global warming of 3 °C above the 1980-2010 mean, with 11% of the world population subject to severe impacts in at least two of the four impact sectors at 4 °C. Despite these general conclusions, we find that uncertainty arising from the impact models is considerable, and larger than that from the climate models. In a low probability-high impact worst-case assessment, almost the whole inhabited world is at risk for multisectoral pressures. Hence, there is a pressing need for an increased research effort to develop a more comprehensive understanding of impacts, as well as for the development of policy measures under existing uncertainty.  
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  ISSN 0027-8424 ISBN Medium Article  
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  Notes CropM Approved no  
  Call Number MA @ admin @ Serial 4538  
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