Keywords
land use change, income variability, agent-based modelling, production risk
Start Date
1-7-2012 12:00 AM
Abstract
Assessing the impact of climate change on Ecosystem Services (ES) requires an understanding of the dynamic link between land cover, ES and economically driven land use decisions. Land use decisions taken by farmers and foresters depend on the yield levels as well as on the prices for outputs and inputs the decision maker expect. However, the variability of yields and prices, i.e. income risk, is also highly relevant for the decision maker. Increasing volatility of climate and more volatile markets for commodities will enhance the relevance of risk for land use decisions in the future. To assess the impact of increasing production and price risks, we develop an agent-based economic land allocation model. Applying discrete stochastic programming and a safety first approach we integrate the consideration of income variability in the agents’ decision making. We intend to apply our model to the temperature sensitive alpine region of Davos, Switzerland and to compare land use under the consideration of production and price risks as well as using a deterministic (i.e. non-risky) baseline.
The impact of production and price risk on ecosystem goods and services provision from agriculture and forestry in mountainous regions
Assessing the impact of climate change on Ecosystem Services (ES) requires an understanding of the dynamic link between land cover, ES and economically driven land use decisions. Land use decisions taken by farmers and foresters depend on the yield levels as well as on the prices for outputs and inputs the decision maker expect. However, the variability of yields and prices, i.e. income risk, is also highly relevant for the decision maker. Increasing volatility of climate and more volatile markets for commodities will enhance the relevance of risk for land use decisions in the future. To assess the impact of increasing production and price risks, we develop an agent-based economic land allocation model. Applying discrete stochastic programming and a safety first approach we integrate the consideration of income variability in the agents’ decision making. We intend to apply our model to the temperature sensitive alpine region of Davos, Switzerland and to compare land use under the consideration of production and price risks as well as using a deterministic (i.e. non-risky) baseline.
