| Records |
| Author |
Sieber, S.; Amjath-Babu, T.S.; McIntosh, B.S.; Tscherning, K.; Müller, K.; Helming, K.; Pohle, D.; Fricke, K.; Verweij, P.; Pacini, C.; Jansson, T.; Gomez y Paloma, S. |
| Title |
Evaluating the characteristics of a non-standardised Model Requirements Analysis (MRA) for the development of policy impact assessment tools |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2013 |
Publication |
Environmental Modelling & Software |
Abbreviated Journal |
Env. Model. Softw. |
| Volume |
49 |
Issue |
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Pages |
53-63 |
| Keywords |
impact assessment tools; iat; siat; sustainability; model requirements analysis; user requirement analysis; support; systems; design; methodology; management; decision; science |
| Abstract |
The aim of this paper is to provide a critical analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of a non-standardised Model Requirements Analysis (MRA) used for the purpose of developing the Sustainability Impact Assessment Tool (SIAT). By ‘non-standardised’ we mean not strictly following a published MRA method. The underlying question we are interested in addressing is how non-standardised methods, often employed in research driven projects, compare to defined methods with more standardised structure, with regards their ability to capture model requirements effectively, and with regards their overall usability. Through describing and critically assessing the specific features of the non-standardised MRA employed, the ambition of this paper is to provide insights useful for impact assessment tool (IAT) development. Specifically, the paper will (i) characterise kinds of user requirements relevant to the functionality and design of IATs; (ii) highlight the strengths and weaknesses of non-standardised MRA for user requirements capture, analysis and reflection in the context of IAT; (iii) critically reflect on the process and outcomes of having used a non-standardised MRA in comparison with other more standardised approaches. To accomplish these aims, we first review methods available for IAT development before describing the SIAT development process, including the MRA employed. Major strengths and weaknesses of the MRA method are then discussed in terms of user identification and characterisation, organisational characterisation and embedding, and ability to capture design options for ensuring usability and usefulness. A detailed assessment on the structural differences of MRA with two advanced approaches (Integrated DSS design and goal directed design) and their role in performance of the MRA tool is used to critique the approach employed. The results show that MRA is able to bring thematic integration, establish system performance and technical thresholds as well as detailing quality and transparency guidelines. Nevertheless the discussion points out to a number of deficiencies in application – (i) a need to more effectively characterise potential users, and; (ii) a need to better foster communication among the distinguished roles in the development process. If addressed these deficiencies, SIAT non-standardised MRA could have brought out better outcomes in terms of tool usability and usefulness, and improved embedding of the tool into conditions of targeted end-users. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. |
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English |
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1364-8152 |
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Article |
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| Notes |
TradeM, ft_macsur |
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no |
| Call Number |
MA @ admin @ |
Serial |
4506 |
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| Author |
Schaap, B.F.; Reidsma, P.; Verhagen, J.; Wolf, J.; van Ittersum, M.K. |
| Title |
Participatory design of farm level adaptation to climate risks in an arable region in The Netherlands |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2013 |
Publication |
European Journal of Agronomy |
Abbreviated Journal |
European Journal of Agronomy |
| Volume |
48 |
Issue |
|
Pages |
30-42 |
| Keywords |
adaptation; climate change; impact; crop production; wheat; onion; potato; sugar beet; crop production; change impacts; agriculture; variability; events; europe; model |
| Abstract |
In the arable farming region Flevoland in The Netherlands climate change, including extreme events and pests and diseases, will likely pose risks to a variety of crops including high value crops such as seed potato, ware potato and seed onion. A well designed adaptation strategy at the farm level can reduce risks for farmers in Flevoland. Currently, most of the impact assessments rely heavily on (modelling) techniques that cannot take into account extreme events and pests and diseases and cannot address all crops, and are thus not suited as input for a comprehensive adaptation strategy at the farm level. To identify major climate risks and impacts and develop an adaptation measure portfolio for the most relevant risks we complemented crop growth modelling with a semi-quantitative and participatory approach, the Agro Climatic Calendar (ACC), A cost-benefit analysis and stakeholder workshops were used to identify robust adaptation measures and design an adaptation strategy for contrasting scenarios in 2050. For Flevoland, potential yields of main crops were projected to increase, but five main climate risks were identified, and these are likely to offset the positive impacts. Optimized adaptation strategies differ per scenario (frequency of occurrence of climate risks) and per farm (difference in economic loss). When impacts are high (in the +2 degrees C and A1 SRES scenario) drip irrigation was identified as the best adaptation measure against the main climate risk heat wave that causes second-growth in seed and ware potato. When impacts are smaller (the +1 degrees C and B2 SRES scenario), other options including no adaptation are more cost-effective. Our study shows that with relatively simple techniques such as the ACC combined with a stakeholder process, adaptation strategies can be designed for whole farming systems. Important benefits of this approach compared to modelling techniques are that all crops can be included, all climate factors can be addressed, and a large range of adaptation measures can be explored. This enhances that the identified adaptation strategies are recognizable and relevant for stakeholders. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. |
| Address |
2016-10-31 |
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1161-0301 |
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| Notes |
CropM |
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no |
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MA @ admin @ |
Serial |
4809 |
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| Author |
Angulo, C.; Rötter, R.; Trnka, M.; Pirttioja, N.; Gaiser, T.; Hlavinka, P.; Ewert, F. |
| Title |
Characteristic ‘fingerprints’ of crop model responses to weather input data at different spatial resolutions |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2013 |
Publication |
European Journal of Agronomy |
Abbreviated Journal |
European Journal of Agronomy |
| Volume |
49 |
Issue |
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Pages |
104-114 |
| Keywords |
crop model; weather data resolution; aggregation; yield distribution; climate-change scenarios; areal unit problem; simulation-model; winter-wheat; system model; impacts; europe; yield; productivity; precipitation |
| Abstract |
Crop growth simulation models are increasingly used for regionally assessing the effects of climate change and variability on crop yields. These models require spatially and temporally detailed, location-specific, environmental (weather and soil) and management data as inputs, which are often difficult to obtain consistently for larger regions. Aggregating the resolution of input data for crop model applications may increase the uncertainty of simulations to an extent that is not well understood. The present study aims to systematically analyse the effect of changes in the spatial resolution of weather input data on yields simulated by four crop models (LINTUL-SLIM, DSSAT-CSM, EPIC and WOFOST) which were utilized to test possible interactions between weather input data resolution and specific modelling approaches representing different degrees of complexity. The models were applied to simulate grain yield of spring barley in Finland for 12 years between 1994 and 2005 considering five spatial resolutions of daily weather data: weather station (point) and grid-based interpolated data at resolutions of 10 km x 10 km; 20 km x 20 km; 50 km x 50 km and 100 km x 100 km. Our results show that the differences between models were larger than the effect of the chosen spatial resolution of weather data for the considered years and region. When displaying model results graphically, each model exhibits a characteristic ‘fingerprint’ of simulated yield frequency distributions. These characteristic distributions in response to the inter-annual weather variability were independent of the spatial resolution of weather input data. Using one model (LINTUL-SLIM), we analysed how the aggregation strategy, i.e. aggregating model input versus model output data, influences the simulated yield frequency distribution. Results show that aggregating weather data has a smaller effect on the yield distribution than aggregating simulated yields which causes a deformation of the model fingerprint. We conclude that changes in the spatial resolution of weather input data introduce less uncertainty to the simulations than the use of different crop models but that more evaluation is required for other regions with a higher spatial heterogeneity in weather conditions, and for other input data related to soil and crop management to substantiate our findings. Our results provide further evidence to support other studies stressing the importance of using not just one, but different crop models in climate assessment studies. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. |
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1161-0301 |
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CropM, ftnotmacsur |
Approved |
no |
| Call Number |
MA @ admin @ |
Serial |
4598 |
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| Author |
Waha, K.; Müller, C.; Bondeau, A.; Dietrich, J.P.; Kurukulasuriya, P.; Heinke, J.; Lotze-Campen, H. |
| Title |
Adaptation to climate change through the choice of cropping system and sowing date in sub-Saharan Africa |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2013 |
Publication |
Global Environmental Change |
Abbreviated Journal |
Glob. Environ. Change |
| Volume |
23 |
Issue |
1 |
Pages |
130-143 |
| Keywords |
multiple cropping; sequential cropping systems; crop modelling; agricultural management; adaptation options; global vegetation model; future food-production; rainy-season; west-africa; agriculture; yield; maize; soil; variability; heat |
| Abstract |
Multiple cropping systems provide more harvest security for farmers, allow for crop intensification and furthermore influence ground cover, soil erosion, albedo, soil chemical properties, pest infestation and the carbon sequestration potential. We identify the traditional sequential cropping systems in ten sub-Saharan African countries from a survey dataset of more than 8600 households. We find that at least one sequential cropping system is traditionally used in 35% of all administrative units in the dataset, mainly including maize or groundnuts. We compare six different management scenarios and test their susceptibility as adaptation measure to climate change using the dynamic global vegetation model for managed land LPJmL. Aggregated mean crop yields in sub-Saharan Africa decrease by 6-24% due to climate change depending on the climate scenario and the management strategy. As an exception, some traditional sequential cropping systems in Kenya and South Africa gain by at least 25%. The crop yield decrease is typically weakest in sequential cropping systems and if farmers adapt the sowing date to changing climatic conditions. Crop calorific yields in single cropping systems only reach 40-55% of crop calorific yields obtained in sequential cropping systems at the end of the 21st century. The farmers’ choice of adequate crops, cropping systems and sowing dates can be an important adaptation strategy to climate change and these management options should be considered in climate change impact studies on agriculture. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. |
| Address |
2016-10-31 |
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English |
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0959-3780 |
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CropM |
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no |
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MA @ admin @ |
Serial |
4823 |
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| Author |
Semenov, M.A.; Pilkington-Bennett, S.; Calanca, P. |
| Title |
Validation of ELPIS 1980-2010 baseline scenarios using the observed European Climate Assessment data set |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2013 |
Publication |
Climate Research |
Abbreviated Journal |
Clim. Res. |
| Volume |
57 |
Issue |
1 |
Pages |
1-9 |
| Keywords |
climate change; impact assessment; downscaling; lars-wg; stochastic weather generators; diverse canadian climates; lars-wg; aafc-wg; radiation; impacts |
| Abstract |
Local-scale daily climate scenarios are required for assessment of climate change impacts. ELPIS is a repository of local-scale climate scenarios for Europe, which are based on the LARS-WG weather generator and future projections from 2 multi-model ensembles, CMIP3 and EU-ENSEMBLES. In ELPIS, the site parameters for the 1980-2010 baseline scenarios were estimated by LARS-WG using daily weather from the European Crop Growth Monitoring System (CGMS) used in many European agricultural assessment studies. The objective of this paper was to compare ELPIS baseline scenarios with observed daily weather obtained independently from the European Climate Assessment (ECA) data set. Several statistical tests were used to compare distributions of climatic variables derived from ECA-observed daily weather and ELPIS-generated baseline scenarios. About 30% of selected sites have a difference in altitude of > 50 m compared with the CGMS grid-cell altitude that was selected to represent agricultural land within a grid-cell. Differences in altitude can explain significant Kolmogorov-Smirnov test (KS-test) results for distribution of daily temperature and in t-tests for temperature monthly means, because of the well-known negative correlation between temperature and elevation. For daily precipitation, the KS-test showed little difference between generated and observed data; however, the more sensitive t-test showed significant results for the sites where altitude differences were large. Approximately 11% of sites showed small positive or negative bias in monthly solar radiation, although 86% sites showed > 3 significant t-test results for monthly means. These results can be explained by differences in conversion of sunshine hours to solar radiation used in CGMS and LARS-WG. We conclude that, considering the limitations above, ELPIS baseline scenarios are suitable for agricultural impact assessments in Europe. |
| Address |
2016-10-31 |
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English |
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Edition |
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0936-577x 1616-1572 |
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Article |
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| Notes |
CropM, ft_macsur |
Approved |
no |
| Call Number |
MA @ admin @ |
Serial |
4812 |
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