Stockholm University - Stockholm Resilience Center; McGill University; University of Edinburgh
Abstract
Integrated assessment models that incorporate biodiversity and ecosystem services could be an important tool for improving our understanding of interconnected social-economic-ecological systems, and for analyzing how policy alternatives could shift future trajectories towards more sustainable development. Despite recent scientific and technological advances, key gaps remain in the scientific community’s ability to deliver information to decision-makers at the pace and scale needed to address sustainability challenges. We identify five research frontiers for integrated social-economic-ecological modeling that incorporate biodiversity and ecosystem services: 1) downscaling impacts of direct and indirect drivers on ecosystems; 2) incorporating long-term feedbacks in ecosystems; 3) linking ecological impacts to social and economic impacts, 4) disaggregating outcomes for distributional equity considerations, 5) incorporating ecological feedbacks within the social-economic system. We discuss challenges and progress along each of these five frontiers, and the science-policy linkages needed to move new research and information into action.
Chaplin-Kramer, Rebecca and Polasky, Stephen and Alkemade, Rob and Burgess, Neil and Cheung, William W. L. and Fetzer, Ingo and Harfoot, Mike and Hertel, Thomas W. and Hill, Samantha and Johnson, Justin A. and Janse, Jan and Jeetze, Patrick and Kim, HyeJin and Kuiper, Jan and Lonsdorf, Eric V. and Leclère, David and Mulligan, Mark and Pereira, Henrique and Peterson, Garry and Popp, Alexander and Roe, Stephanie and Schipper, Aafke M. and Snäll, Tord and van Soesbergen, Arnout and Soterroni, Aline and Stehfest, Elke and van Vuuren, Detlef and Visconti, Piero and Wang-Erlandsson, Lan and Wells, Geoff, Integrated Modeling of Nature's Role in Human Wellbeing: A Research Agenda. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4678389 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4678389
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