AIMES Member Featured Research: Carlo Giupponi

Integrated modelling of social-ecological systems for climate change adaptation

Carlo Giupponi1*, Anne-Gaelle Ausseil2, Stefano Balbi3,4, Fabio Cian1, Alexander Fekete5, Animesh K. Gain6,1, Arthur Hrast Essenfelder1,8, Javier Martínez-López3,7, Vahid Mojtahed9,1, Celia Norf5, Hélder Relvas10, Ferdinando Villa3,4

1 Department of Economics, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy

2 Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research, Wellington, New Zealand

3 BC3 – Basque Centre for Climate Change, Bilbao, Spain

4 IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao, Spain

5 Institute of Rescue Engineering and Civil Protection, TH Köln – University of Applied Sciences, Cologne, Germany

6 Environmental Policy and Planning (EPP) Group, Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA

7 Soil Erosion and Conservation Research Group, CEBAS-CSIC, Spanish Research Council, Campus de Espinardo, Murcia, Spain

8 CMCC Foundation – Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Venice, Italy

9 Institute for Global Food Security, School of Biological Sciences, Queen’s University, Belfast

10 Department of Environment and Planning & CESAM, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

Analysis of climate change risks in support of policymakers to set effective adaptation policies requires an innovative yet rigorous approach towards integrated modelling (IM) of social-ecological systems (SES). Despite continuous advances, IM still faces various challenges that span through both unresolved methodological issues as well as data requirements. On the methodological side, significant improvements have been made for better understanding the dynamics of complex social and ecological systems, but still, the literature and proposed solutions are fragmented. This paper explores available modelling approaches suitable for long-term analysis of SES for supporting climate change adaptation (CCA). It proposes their classification into seven groups, identifies their main strengths and limitations, and lists current data sources of greatest interest. Upon that synthesis, the paper identifies directions for orienting the development of innovative IM, for improved analysis and management of socio-economic systems, thus providing better foundations for effective CCA.

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AIMES Member Featured Research: Xin Zhao

Global agricultural responses to interannual climate and biophysical variability

Xin Zhao∗, Katherine V Calvin, Marshall A Wise, Pralit L Patel, Abigail C Snyder, Stephanie T Waldhoff, Mohamad I Hejazi and James A Edmonds

Joint Global Change Research Institute, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 5825 University Research Court, College Park, MD, 20740, United States of America

Abstract: Most studies assessing climate impacts on agriculture have focused on average changes in market-mediated responses (e.g. changes in land use, production, and consumption). However, the response of global agricultural markets to interannual variability (IAV) in climate and biophysical shocks is poorly understood and not well represented in global economic models. Here we show a strong transmission of IAVs in climate-induced biophysical yield shocks to agriculture markets, which is further magnified by endogenous market fluctuations generated due to producers’ imperfect expectations of market and weather conditions. We demonstrate that the volatility of crop prices and consumption could be significantly underestimated (i.e. on average by 55% and 41%, respectively) by assuming perfect foresight, a standard assumption in the economic equilibrium modeling, compared with the relatively more realistic adaptive expectations. We also find heterogeneity in IAV across crops and regions, which is considerably mediated by international trade. Studying IAV provides fundamentally new insights on measuring and understanding climate impacts on global agriculture, and our framework lays the foundation for further investigating the full range of climate impacts on biophysical and human systems.

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AIMES Member Featured Research: Dolors Armenteras

Fire-induced loss of the world’s most biodiverse forests in Latin America

Dolors Armenteras1*, Liliana M. Dávalos2,3, Joan S. Barreto1, Alejandro Miranda4,5, Angela Hernández-Moreno6, Carlos Zamorano-Elgueta4,7, Tania M. González-Delgado1, María C. Meza-Elizalde1, Javier Retana8

1Laboratorio de Ecología del Paisaje y Modelación de Ecosistemas ECOLMOD, Departamento de Biología, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Sede Bogotá, Bogotá, Colombia.

2Department of Ecology and Evolution, Stony Brook University, 630 Life Sciences Building, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA.

3Consortium for Inter-Disciplinary Environmental Research, School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, Stony Brook University, 129 Dana Hall, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA.

4Center for Climate and Resilience Research (CR2), Santiago, Chile.

5Laboratorio de Ecología del Paisaje y Conservación, Departamento de Ciencias Forestales, Universidad de La Frontera, Temco, Chile.

6Centro de Investigación en Ecosistemas de la Patagonia (CIEP), Camino Baguales s/n Km 4, Coyhaique, Chile.

7Departamento de Ciencias Naturales y Tecnología, Universidad de Aysén, Coyhaique, Chile.

8CREAF- Universitat Autonoma Barcelona, 08193, Cerdanyola del Valles, Barcelona, Spain

Fire plays a dominant role in deforestation, particularly in the tropics, but the relative extent of transformations and influence of fire frequency on eventual forest loss remain unclear. Here, we analyze the frequency of fire and its influence on postfire forest trajectories between 2001 and 2018. We account for ~1.1% of Latin American forests burnt in 2002–2003 (8,465,850 ha). Although 40.1% of forests (3,393,250 ha) burned only once, by 2018, ~48% of the evergreen forests converted to other, primarily grass-dominated uses. While greater fire frequency yielded more transformation, our results reveal the staggering impact of even a single fire. Increasing fire frequency imposes greater risks of irreversible forest loss, transforming forests into ecosystems increasingly vulnerable to degradation. Reversing this trend is indispensable to both mitigate and adapt to climate change globally. As climate change transforms fire regimes across the region, key actions are needed to conserve Latin American forests.

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