Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 1
Introduction
Martin van Ittersum and Floor Brouwer
Context of Integrated Assessment: Policy and Research
Agriculture and rural areas face rapid changes in response to agreements to liberalize
international trade, the introduction of novel agro-technologies, and climate change.
Food production also faces new perspectives as a consequence of competition
between food, feed and fuel. Efficient agricultural and environmental policies are
needed to support a sustainable development of agriculture in Europe and elsewhere.
Increasingly proposed policies go through an assessment procedure before decision
making. The European Commission, for instance, has introduced mandatory Impact
Assessment regulations since 2003, that aim to reveal strengths and weaknesses of
policy proposals. The research community aims at developing relevant tools that can
provide better information for performing such impact assessments. Integrated
assessment and modelling has been proposed as a key approach to enhance manage-
ment of complex systems and provide objective information on policy options for the
decision makers.
Integrated assessment and modelling (IAM) combines the assessment of
biophysical, economic, social aspects of a system using computerized tools and
aims at involving stakeholders in the assessment. By using models relatively
cheap experimentation and quantification of different policy alternatives is possible.
Results from IAM complement other sources of information in the participatory
Impact Assessment process, which, for instance in the European Union, may take
~2 years.
