Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
are not a suitable frame for maintenance work and database updates. This problem
might require in the medium to long term a different system of organisation, where
access to the model is coupled to the contribution of maintenance or financial
funds. With this objective in mind, a CAPRI consortium agreement is currently
under discussion amongst research institutions having participated in previous
Framework Programme projects and studies involving the CAPRI model. Such an
agreement might strengthen the club good character of CAPRI, i.e. one that is
characterized by non-rival use, but with the possibility of exclusion allowing to
share the costs among users based on private contracts. It remains to be seen if this
organisation together with the engagement of the European Commission in the
co-development and maintenance of the system will be able to secure the survival
of CAPRI in the years to come. Currently, the Institute for Prospective Technological
Studies (Joint Research Centre, European Commission) is launching an integrated
modelling platform hosting the CAPRI model amongst other well-established
agricultural models (see Pérez Domínguez et al.
2008)
.
SEAMLESS faces, compared to CAPRI, somewhat different challenges. At the
current stage, little experience can be gained with respect to its future applications,
maintenance or adaptation. SEAMLESS-IF faces two important challenges. The first
one relates to finding suitable policy questions where clients favour its application
over other existing modelling frameworks. CAPRI succeeded in entering the impact
assessment market due to its ability to deliver regional impacts of the CAP. Especially,
in the field of agri-environmental interactions, the rich layer of bio-physical simulation
models represented by the APES-FSSIM model interaction may provide a
comparative advantage for SEAMLESS-IF. The second important challenge relates
to ensuring maintenance of the system, which requires some continuity in key
personnel beyond the current project phase.
The maintenance question for SEAMLESS-IF is somewhat different from CAPRI.
CAPRI has a rather monolithic structure and does not aim at further modularity.
Moreover, little but highly specialized staff is needed for its survival. In the case of
SEAMLESS-IF, the key for success will be to find the right balance between
modularity (i.e. which components can find an attractive market niche for their
further development), complexity (i.e. degree of separation between models, data and
IT infrastructure) and attractiveness (i.e. involving research questions interesting
for future young researchers). These elements are considered within the current
SEAMLESS business plan, which includes a plan for establishing a SEAMLESS
association responsible for maintenance of the system.
Compared to CAPRI, SEAMLESS-IF offers a far richer set of model components
which allow the analysis of policy impacts at the farm type level, their compatibility
with the current institutional framework (see Chapter 3) and their effects on
the landscape, all within a consistent overall scenario. Most components within
SEAMLESS-IF have been developed as stand-alone components, putting emphasis
on a clear documentation of required inputs and provided outputs. SEAMLESS-IF
may hence address policy questions which cannot be answered by CAPRI and
allows for a more tailored analysis. Nevertheless, the simulation behaviour of
the APES-FSSIM-EXPAMOD-SEAMCAP model chain remains to be tested;
