Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Brunel University London, Uxbridge UB8 3PH, UK; School of Engineering, University of Southampton, Southampton SO16 7QF, UK.
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK; School of Engineering, University of Southampton, Southampton SO16 7QF, UK.
Sci Total Environ. 2021 May 10;768:144461. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.144461. Epub 2021 Jan 6.
Climate and socio-economic change impacts are likely to cross traditional sectoral and regional boundaries with cascading indirect, and potentially far-reaching, repercussions. This is particularly important for the food-water-land-ecosystems (FWLE) nexus, which is fundamental for the achievement of at least six of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A holistic understanding of the FWLE nexus interactions and how and to what extent various exogenous drivers of change affect them is therefore central to cross-sectoral adaptation planning. Here, we present such an integrated assessment for Europe applying a regional Integrated Assessment Platform (IAP). The study explores a wide range of future climate and socio-economic scenarios using more than 900 model simulations. The results show that food production is likely to be the main driver of Europe's future landscape change dynamics (with or without climate change). Agriculture and land use allocation is often driven by complex cross-sectoral interactions with cascading effects on other sectors such as forestry, biodiversity, and water under the various scenarios. The modelling also highlighted that while sustaining current levels of food production at the European level could be achievable under most climate and socio-economic scenarios, there are significant regional differences with winners and losers. The analysis raises the question of whether current production and consumption policies are sustainable in the long-term. Such systematic integrated model-based analysis plays a crucial role in informing development of cross-sectoral policies that maximise synergies and minimise trade-offs across nexus sectors, regions, and scenarios. This is essential to achieve the SDGs.
气候和社会经济变化的影响很可能跨越传统的部门和地区界限，产生级联的间接影响，而且可能会产生深远的影响。这对于粮食-水-土地-生态系统（FWLE）的联系尤为重要，因为它是实现至少 17 个可持续发展目标（SDGs）中的 6 个目标的基础。因此，全面了解 FWLE 联系的相互作用，以及各种外部变化驱动因素如何以及在何种程度上影响它们，对于跨部门适应规划至关重要。在这里，我们应用区域综合评估平台（IAP）为欧洲进行了这样的综合评估。该研究使用了 900 多个模型模拟，探索了广泛的未来气候和社会经济情景。研究结果表明，粮食生产可能是未来欧洲景观变化动态的主要驱动因素（无论是否存在气候变化）。在各种情景下，农业和土地利用分配通常受到与其他部门（如林业、生物多样性和水）的复杂交叉部门相互作用的驱动，这些相互作用具有级联效应。建模还突出表明，虽然在大多数气候和社会经济情景下，欧洲一级维持当前的粮食生产水平是可行的，但存在着明显的区域差异，有些地区是赢家，有些地区则是输家。分析提出了一个问题，即在长期内，当前的生产和消费政策是否可持续。这种基于系统综合模型的分析对于告知跨部门政策的制定至关重要，这些政策可以在 nexus 部门、地区和情景中最大限度地发挥协同作用，并最小化权衡。这对于实现可持续发展目标至关重要。
