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Helming, J. (2015). Implementation of the GTAP emission database in MAGNET; applications at European and global scales (Vol. 5).
Abstract: World agriculture accounts for approximately 14% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas. The share of agriculture in total greenhouse gas emissions in the EU 28 increased from 8.7% in 2007 to about 10.3% in 2012. This includes methane and nitrous oxide emissions (European Environment Agency; Gugele et al., 2005; Beach et al., 2008). This increase is mainly explained by emission reductions in the rest of the economy. Reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture remained limited in the recent past.Options to reduce emissions in agriculture depends on macro-economic trends, including international trade, agricultural policies, economic growth and consumption patterns. Global trade patterns will affect the regional distribution of agricultural production and the corresponding greenhouse gas emissions. The ability to introduce cost-effective measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are difficult to assess on a global scale. To tackle this problem there is a need for an interdisciplinary model instrument, in which both knowledge from macro and trade economy and natural sciences are included.The global equilibrium model MAGNET (Modular Applied GeNeral Equilibrium Tool) is developed by LEI and is an adaptation to the GTAP model (Woltjer & Kuiper, 2014). The main purpose of MAGNET is to provide a globally applied general equilibrium modelling framework, having the standard GTAP model as the core. MAGNET is complemented with the greenhouse gas emission dataset for the year 2007 that is made available by the GTAP consortium. The database includes emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous dioxide (N2O) and methane (CH4). N2O and CH4 emissions are especially relevant for the agricultural sector. The incorporation of these emissions in MAGNET enables us to analyse current and future greenhouse gas emissions under different policies and mitigation measures on a global scale, simultaneously taking into account interactions between the rest of the economy (by sectors) and across regions in the world.The GTAP emissions dataset estimates the share of European agriculture in total greenhouse gas emissions in the EU 28 to be about 11.5% in 2007. This deviates from total emission figures on Europe as presented by the European Environment Agency (EEA). The presentation will focus on some possible explanations for this difference. We will compare gaps in the dataset in agriculture and the rest of the economy. Next we will report the emission per EU member state in a 2020 baseline scenario. Here we will present percentage differences in changes in greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 vis-a-vis a baseyear in 2012. No Label
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Lotze-Campen, H., Verburg, P. H., Popp, A., Lindner, M., Verkerk, P. J., Moiseyev, A., et al. (2018). A cross-scale impact assessment of European nature protection policies under contrasting future socio-economic pathways. Reg. Environ. Change, 18(3), 751–762.
Abstract: Protection of natural or semi-natural ecosystems is an important part of societal strategies for maintaining biodiversity, ecosystem services, and achieving overall sustainable development. The assessment of multiple emerging land use trade-offs is complicated by the fact that land use changes occur and have consequences at local, regional, and even global scale. Outcomes also depend on the underlying socio-economic trends. We apply a coupled, multi-scale modelling system to assess an increase in nature protection areas as a key policy option in the European Union (EU). The main goal of the analysis is to understand the interactions between policy-induced land use changes across different scales and sectors under two contrasting future socio-economic pathways. We demonstrate how complementary insights into land system change can be gained by coupling land use models for agriculture, forestry, and urban areas for Europe, in connection with other world regions. The simulated policy case of nature protection shows how the allocation of a certain share of total available land to newly protected areas, with specific management restrictions imposed, may have a range of impacts on different land-based sectors until the year 2040. Agricultural land in Europe is slightly reduced, which is partly compensated for by higher management intensity. As a consequence of higher costs, total calorie supply per capita is reduced within the EU. While wood harvest is projected to decrease, carbon sequestration rates increase in European forests. At the same time, imports of industrial roundwood from other world regions are expected to increase. Some of the aggregate effects of nature protection have very different implications at the local to regional scale in different parts of Europe. Due to nature protection measures, agricultural production is shifted from more productive land in Europe to on average less productive land in other parts of the world. This increases, at the global level, the allocation of land resources for agriculture, leading to a decrease in tropical forest areas, reduced carbon stocks, and higher greenhouse gas emissions outside of Europe. The integrated modelling framework provides a method to assess the land use effects of a single policy option while accounting for the trade-offs between locations, and between regional, European, and global scales.
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Stürck, J., Levers, C., van der Zanden, E. H., Schulp, C. J. E., Verkerk, P. J., Kuemmerle, T., et al. (2015). Simulating and delineating future land change trajectories across Europe. Reg. Environ. Change, , in press.
Abstract: Explorations of future land use change are important to understand potential conflicts between competing land uses, trade-offs associated with particular land change trajectories, and the effectiveness of policies to steer land systems into desirable states. Most model-based explorations and scenario studies focused on conversions in broad land use classes, but disregarded changes in land management or focused on individual sectors only. Using the European Union (EU) as a case study, we developed an approach to identifying typical combinations of land cover and management changes by combining the results of multimodel simulations in the agriculture and forest sectors for four scenarios from 2000 to 2040. We visualized land change trajectories by mapping regional hotspots of change. Land change trajectories differed in extent and spatial pattern across the EU and among scenarios, indicating trajectory-specific option spaces for alternative land system outcomes. In spite of the large variation in the area of change, similar hotspots of land change were observed among the scenarios. All scenarios indicate a stronger polarization of land use in Europe, with a loss of multifunctional landscapes. We analyzed locations subject to change by comparing location characteristics associated with certain land change trajectories. Results indicate differences in the location conditions of different land change trajectories, with diverging impacts on ecosystem service provisioning. Policy and planning for future land use needs to account for the spatial variation of land change trajectories to achieve both overarching and location-specific targets.
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