Rights statement: © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Applying Occam's razor to global agricultural land use change
AU - Engström, Kerstin
AU - Rounsevell, Mark
AU - Murray-Rust, Dave
AU - Hardacre, Catherine Jean
AU - Alexander, Peter
AU - Cui, Xufeng
AU - Palmer, Paul I.
AU - Arneth, Almut
N1 - © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
PY - 2016/1
Y1 - 2016/1
N2 - We present a parsimonious agricultural land-use model that is designed to replicate global land-use change while allowing the exploration of uncertainties in input parameters. At the global scale, the modelled uncertainty range of agricultural land-use change covers observed land-use change. Spatial patterns of cropland change at the country level are simulated less satisfactorily, but temporal trends of cropland change in large agricultural nations were replicated by the model. A variance-based global sensitivity analysis showed that uncertainties in the input parameters representing to consumption preferences are important for changes in global agricultural areas. However, uncertainties in technological change had the largest effect on cereal yields and changes in global agricultural area. Uncertainties related to technological change in developing countries were most important for modelling the extent of cropland. The performance of the model suggests that highly generalised representations of socio-economic processes can be used to replicate global land-use change.
AB - We present a parsimonious agricultural land-use model that is designed to replicate global land-use change while allowing the exploration of uncertainties in input parameters. At the global scale, the modelled uncertainty range of agricultural land-use change covers observed land-use change. Spatial patterns of cropland change at the country level are simulated less satisfactorily, but temporal trends of cropland change in large agricultural nations were replicated by the model. A variance-based global sensitivity analysis showed that uncertainties in the input parameters representing to consumption preferences are important for changes in global agricultural areas. However, uncertainties in technological change had the largest effect on cereal yields and changes in global agricultural area. Uncertainties related to technological change in developing countries were most important for modelling the extent of cropland. The performance of the model suggests that highly generalised representations of socio-economic processes can be used to replicate global land-use change.
KW - Global agricultural land-use
KW - Parsimonious models
KW - Parameter uncertainty
KW - Sensitivity analysis
KW - Cereal yields
U2 - 10.1016/j.envsoft.2015.10.015
DO - 10.1016/j.envsoft.2015.10.015
M3 - Journal article
VL - 75
SP - 212
EP - 229
JO - Environmental Modelling and Software
JF - Environmental Modelling and Software
SN - 1364-8152
ER -