Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
directions: vertical (e.g. spatial downscaling) and horizontal (link to biophysical
models or processing activities).
The vertical approach of SEAMLESS-IF allows the assessment of agri-
environmental policies (from a bottom-up perspective) or multi-sectoral trade
agreements (from a top-down perspective) compared to CAPRI. SEAMLESS-IF
aims at better exploiting existing agricultural economic, bio-economic and
bio-physical simulation models through flexible and automated linking. This
shall be achieved by a generic software platform facilitating the generation
of model chains flexibly tailored to the objectives of a specific analysis.
The issue of modularity receives special attention in SEAMLESS-IF, where
all models are linked within an open software infrastructure, which aims at
making models substitutable. This requires a clear and uniform way to define
generic interfaces of model components. SEAMLESS-IF employs an 'ontology' of
all system components (see Chapter 9) managed by a knowledge database to
serve this purpose.
CAPRI is a more standard product in the sense that it supports only one model
chain, in which components may be enabled or disabled. Since an iterative linking
between some modules is deemed necessary, the separation of model components
in the code is less stringent compared to SEAMLESS-IF. The basic structure of
CAPRI has been kept constant through the years, but the different modules and
their interrelationships have evolved. Also, some new model components, for
example introducing spatial downscaling (Leip et al.
2008)
or the calculation of an
energy indicator (Kempen and Kränzlein
2008)
, have added to the complexity of this
highly integrated modelling system and little attention has been paid to modularity.
The issues of data consistency and full EU coverage of agricultural production are
key drivers of CAPRI research activities and inherited by SEAMLESS-IF through
the SEAMCAP model component.
Differences in Concepts for Database and Coverage
CAPRI has strong roots in
mathematical programming approaches
, dating back to
farm type and regional models developed in the 1970s and 1980s at Bonn University
for the German agricultural sector models DIES (Bauer
1978)
and RAUMIS
(Henrichsmeyer et al.
1996)
. It equally carries genes inherited from economy-wide
accounting identities as found in Input-Output (IO) analysis or Computable General
Equilibrium (CGE) models. This materialises in a database concept where all
economic activities of the farming sector are described both in monetary and
physical units and consistent to the definition of the Economic Accounts for
Agriculture (EAA). To cover the whole agricultural sector, CAPRI comprises the
complete utilizable agricultural area of the EU at regional scale (NUTS 2), at
the same time incorporating all crop and animal production activities covered by
the EAA. Such an approach was only deemed feasible by using structurally identical
template models sourced by a harmonized regional database at European level.
