Integrated Modeling of Global Environmental Change (IMAGE)

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Author(s): T. Kram (PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, The Netherlands)and E. Stehfest (PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, The Netherlands)
Copyright: 2011
Pages: 15
Source title: Land Use, Climate Change and Biodiversity Modeling: Perspectives and Applications
Source Author(s)/Editor(s): Yongyut Trisurat (Kasetsart University, Thailand), Rajendra P. Shrestha (Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand)and Rob Alkemade (Netherlands Environment Assessment Agency, The Netherlands)
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-619-0.ch005

Keywords: Environment & Agriculture / Environmental Science and Technologies / Environmental Technologies / Information Science Reference

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Abstract

Continued population growth, rising per capita income, industrialization and ever-increasing flows of materials, have created growing concern over how to ensure a more sustainable form of global human development. It is widely accepted that human development in currently less developed countries, following a similar path of many industrialized countries in coming decades, will lead to an unsustainable future. In particular, problems associated with climate change, loss of biodiversity, water scarcity, and the accelerated nitrogen cycle will be encountered at global, continental, and regional scales. Solving them will demand a comprehensive understanding of the Earth system. Integrated assessment models such as the Integrated Model to Assess the Global Environment (IMAGE) is a helpful tool for investigating these changes, their causes, and interlinkages in a comprehensive framework. This includes the major feedback mechanisms in the biophysical system. This chapter describes briefly the history of IMAGE, data and sub-models, and how they are linked together It is adapted from Kram & Stehfest (2006). IMAGE starts from basic driving forces like demographics and economic development, energy consumption and production, and agricultural demand, trade, and production. Important elements in the bio-physical modeling are addressed, such as land cover and land use processes, the global current and historical carbon cycle, the global nitrogen cycle, management of nutrients in agricultural systems, and climate variability including interaction with land use. A short discussion on uncertainty and sensitivity is presented, and finally, an overview of major applications is given.

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