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Agricultural and environmental policies are being fundamentally reviewed and redesigned in the UK following its exit from the European Union. The UK government and the Devolved Administrations recognise that current land use is not sustainable and that there is now an unprecedented opportunity to define a better land strategy that responds fully to the interconnected challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and sustainable development. This paper presents evidence from three pathways (current trends, sustainable medium ambition, and sustainable high ambition) to mid-century that were co-created with UK policymakers. The pathways were applied to a national integrated food and land-use model (the FABLE calculator) to explore potential synergies and trade-offs between achieving multiple sustainability targets under limited land availability and constraints to balance food supply and demand at national and global levels. Results show that under the Current Trends pathway all unprotected open natural land would be converted to urban, agriculture and afforested land, with the consequence that from 2030 onwards tree planting targets could not be met. In contrast, the two sustainable pathways illustrate how dietary change, agricultural productivity improvements and waste reduction can free up land for nature recovery and carbon sequestration. This enables a transition to a sustainable food and land-use system that provides a net carbon sink with up to 44% of land able to support biodiversity conservation. We highlight key trade-offs and synergies, which are important to consider for designing and implementing emerging national policies. These include the strong dependence of climate, food and biodiversity targets on dietary shifts, sustainable improvements in agricultural productivity, improved land-use design for protecting and restoring nature, and rapid reductions in food loss and waste.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11625-022-01242-8.

Trichostatin A (TSA) has been shown to prevent fibrosis in vitro and in vivo. The present study aimed at investigating the role of reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging by TSA on transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β)-induced myofibroblast differentiation of corneal fibroblasts in vitro. Human immortalized corneal fibroblasts were treated with TGF-β in the presence of TSA, the NAD(P)H oxidase inhibitor diphenyleneiodonium (DPI), the antioxidant N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC), the NF-E2–related factor 2-antioxidant response element (Nrf2-ARE) activator sulforaphane, or small interfering RNA. Myofibroblast differentiation was assessed by α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) expression, F-actin bundle formation, and collagen gel contraction. ROS, H2O2, intracellular glutathione (GSH) level, cellular total antioxidant capacity, and the activation of Nrf2-ARE signaling were determined with various assays. Treatment with TSA and the Nrf2-ARE activator resulted in increased inhibition of the TGF-β–induced myofibroblast differentiation as compared with treatment with DPI or NAC. Furthermore, TSA also decreased cellular ROS and H2O2 accumulation induced by TGF-β, whereas it elevated intracellular GSH level and cellular total antioxidant capacity. In addition, TSA induced Nrf2 nuclear translocation and up-regulated the expression of Nrf2-ARE downstream antioxidant genes, whereas Nrf2 knockdown by RNA interference blocked the inhibition of TSA on myofibroblast differentiation. In conclusion, this study provides the first evidence implicating that TSA inhibits TGF-β–induced ROS accumulation and myofibroblast differentiation via enhanced Nrf2-ARE signaling.

International concern to develop sustainably challenges us to act upon the inherent links between our economy, society and environment, and is leading to increasing acknowledgement of biodiversity’s importance. This Review discusses the breadth of ways in which biodiversity can support sustainable development. It uses the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a basis for exploring scientific evidence of the benefits delivered by biodiversity. It focuses on papers that provide examples of how biodiversity components (that is, ecosystems, species and genes) directly deliver benefits that may contribute to the achievement of individual SDGs. It also considers how biodiversity’s direct contributions to fulfilling some SDGs may indirectly support the achievement of other SDGs to which biodiversity does not contribute directly. How the attributes (for example, diversity, abundance or composition) of biodiversity components influence the benefits delivered is also presented, where described by the papers reviewed. While acknowledging potential negative impacts and trade-offs between different benefits, the study concludes that biodiversity may contribute to fulfilment of all SDGs. Sustainability is a function of environmental, economic and social integration. This Review synthesizes knowledge on the many ways biodiversity can support sustainable development.

Assessing the combined impacts of future climate and socio-economic change at the country level is vital for supporting national adaptation policies. Here, we use a novel modelling approach to study the systemic impacts of climate and socio-economic changes on the Czech Republic, taking account of cross-sectoral interactions between agriculture, water, forestry, land-use and biodiversity, and, for the first time, trans-national interactions. We evaluate the national-level baseline results, scenario-neutral model sensitivities, and climate and socio-economic scenario impacts using a European-scale integrated modelling tool. Consistently across most climate and socio-economic scenarios, the Czech Republic is projected to have increasing importance as a crop-growing region in Europe, due to an increased competitive advantage within the continent. Arable land in the Czech Republic expands, at the expense of livestock farming and forestry, with associated impacts of increased water scarcity and reduced biodiversity for the country. Accounting for trans-national interactions in national-scale assessments provides more realistic assessments of impacts and helps to identify the changing role of the country within its regional and continental domain. Such improved understanding can support policy-makers in developing national adaptation actions that reduce adverse impacts and realise opportunities.

Current estimates suggest that the world is on track for ~3°C of heating relative to pre-industrial levels by 2100. This is likely to bring great disruption to earth systems, leading to increased natural hazard risks, crop failures, civil unrest and population migration. There is, however, a high degree of uncertainty about the impacts that such events may have on land use and ecosystems in individual countries. Integrated assessment modelling (IAM) of scenarios like the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) offers one way to address this uncertainty, allowing outcomes such as the relative land cover under food production or forestry to be compared for each scenario. However, global and continental-scale IAMs need to be complemented by landscape scale spatial modelling to inform national and regional policy making. In this paper, we demonstrate impacts and trade-offs of future land cover change in Scotland, a UK region with a high degree of political autonomy, using downscaled SSPs from Europe to the national and finally the regional level. Our methods integrate participatory knowledge co-construction approaches with land-use modelling. Firstly, a stakeholder workshop held in November 2018 led to the development of detailed narratives for 5 UK SSPs. Two contrasting UK SSPs, SSP1 (Sustainability), and SSP5 (Fossil-Fuelled Development) were then adapted to the case of Scotland and simulated to the year 2040 using a land use change model (APoLUS). Land use demands for each scenario were quantified based on historical tendencies, narrative information derived from the workshop, and future Scottish Government targets. Results highlight trade-offs between forest cover, grasslands, natural areas including marginal peatlands important for carbon sequestration, and cropland for food production and the drinks industry. We discuss these preliminary findings, highlight key areas of uncertainty and present pathways for future work.

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.

In this chapter, we present how climate action that fosters transformations to sustainability and resilience in European societies can be developed in the context of high-end climate change. The chapter builds from the IMPRESSIONS inter- and transdisciplinary research project work on high-end climate change. It brings a unique perspective on long-term horizons (until 2100) and extreme climate change and socio-economic scenarios and uncertainties, as well as how to co-develop transformative adaptation and mitigation pathways with stakeholders to build capacities for responding to such scenarios. The chapter responds to the very fundamental question: ‘what is high-end climate change and why it is relevant for science and policy?’

Transition management has been applied in different governance contexts over the past 15 years, showing its modularity and also its ability to facilitate participatory strategic planning and agenda setting. This book chapter presents the operational framework of transition management as developed to guide the design of a three-series workshop in four case studies in Europe. What is unique in this contribution is a well-developed operational framework to explain how every phase and every step of transition management can be applied and tailored to climate change discussions and agenda setting. Another unique point is the introduction of climate scenarios as the context for developing transition pathways and acknowledging deep uncertainty in future actions. For each step, we elaborate on the lessons learnt and provide suggestions for future development and applications from the realisation of the transition management workshops in all four case studies.

The Paris Agreement established the 1.5 and 2 °C targets based on the recognition “that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change”. We tested this assertion by comparing impacts at the regional scale between low-end (< 2 °C; RCP2.6) and high-end (> 4 °C; RCP8.5) climate change scenarios accounting for interactions across six sectors (agriculture, forestry, biodiversity, water, coasts and urban) using an integrated assessment model. Results show that there are only minor differences in most impact indicators for the 2020s time slice, but impacts are considerably greater under high-end than low-end climate change in the 2050s and 2080s. For example, for the 2080s, mitigation consistent with the Paris Agreement would reduce aggregate Europe-wide impacts on the area of intensive agriculture by 21% (on average across climate models), on the area of managed forests by 34%, on water stress by 14%, on people flooded by 10% and on biodiversity vulnerability by 16%. Including socio-economic scenarios (SSPs 1, 3, 4, 5) results in considerably greater variation in the magnitude, range and direction of change of the majority of impact indicators than climate change alone. In particular, socio-economic factors much more strongly drive changes in land use and food production than changes in climate, sometimes overriding the differences due to low-end and high-end climate change. Such impacts pose significant challenges for adaptation and highlight the importance of searching for synergies between adaptation and mitigation and linking them to sustainable development goals.

The promise that ecosystem service assessments will contribute to better decision-making is not yet proven. We analyse how knowledge on ecosystem services is actually used to inform land and water management in 22 case studies covering different social-ecological systems in European and Latin American countries. None of the case studies reported instrumental use of knowledge in a sense that ecosystem service knowledge would have served as an impartial arbiter between policy options. Yet, in most cases, there was some evidence of conceptual learning as a result of close interaction between researchers, practitioners and stakeholders. We observed several factors that constrained knowledge uptake, including competing interests and political agendas, scientific disputes, professional norms and competencies, and lack of vertical and horizontal integration. Ecosystem knowledge played a small role particularly in those planning and policy-making situations where it challenged established interests and the current distribution of benefits from ecosystems. The factors that facilitated knowledge use included application of transparent participatory methods, social capital, policy champions and clear synergies between ecosystem services and human well-being. The results are aligned with previous studies which have emphasized the importance of building local capacity, ownership and trust for the long-term success of ecosystem service research. EEA Santa Cruz Fil: Saarikoski, Heli. Finnish Environment Institute; Finlandia Fil: Primmer, Eeva. Finnish Environment Institute; Finlandia Fil: Saarela, Sanna-Riikka. Finnish Environment Institute; Finlandia Fil: Antunes, Paula. Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia. Centre for Environmental and Sustainability Research; Portugal Fil: Baró, Francesc. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institute of Environmental Science and Technology; España. Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute; España Fil: Berry, Pam. University of Oxford. Environmental Change Institute; Gran Bretaña Fil: Garcia Blanko, Gemma. Fundación Tecnalia Research & Innovation. Energy and Environment Division. Parque Tecnológico de Bizkaia; España Fil: Gómez-Baggethun, Erik. Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Department of International Environment and Development Studies; Noruega. Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA); Noruega Fil: Carvalho, Lawrence. Center for Ecology and Hydrology; Gran Bretaña Fil: Dick, Jan. Center for Ecology and Hydrology; Gran Bretaña Fil: Dunford, Robert. University of Oxford. Environmental Change Institute; Gran Bretaña. Lancaster Environment Centre. Centre for Ecology and Hydrology; Gran Bretaña Fil: Hanzu, Mihail. Romanian National Institute for Research and Development in Silviculture; Rumania Fil: Harrison, Paula A. Lancaster Environment Centre. Centre for Ecology and Hydrology; Gran Bretaña Fil: Izakovicova, Zita. Slovak Academy of Science. Institute of Landscape Ecology; Eslovaquia Fil: Kertész, Miklós. Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Centre for Ecological Research. Institute of Ecology and Botany; Hungría Fil: Kopperoinen, Leena. Finnish Environment Institute; Finlandia Fil: Köhler, Berit. Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA); Noruega Fil: Langemeyer, Johannes. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institute of Environmental Science and Technology; España. Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute. Barcelona Lab for Urban Environmental Justice and Sustainability; España Fil: Lapola, David. Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Center for Meteorological and Climatic Studies Applied to Agriculture (CEPAGRI); Brasil Fil: Liquete, Camino. Joint Research Centre (JRC). European Commission; Italia Fil: Luque, Sandra. National Research Institute of Science and Technology for Environment and Agriculture; Francia Fil: Mederly, Peter. Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra. Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences; Eslovaquia Fil: Niemelä, Jari. University of Helsinki. Department of Environmental Sciences; Finlandia Fil: Palomo, Ignacio. University of the Basque Country. Basque Centre for Climate Change; España. Fil: Martínez Pastur, Guillermo José. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Austral de Investigaciones Cientificas; Argentina Fil: Peri, Pablo Luis. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Santa Cruz; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia Austral; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica; Argentina Fil: Preda, Elena. University of Bucharest. Research Center in Systems Ecology and Sustainability; Rumania Fil: Priess, Joerg A. Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research; Alemania Fil: Santos, Rui Ferreira Dos. Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia. Centre for Environmental and Sustainability Research; Portugal Fil: Schleyer, Christian. Alpen-Adria-University Klagenfurt. Institute of Social Ecology; Austria. University of Kassel. Section of International Agricultural Policy and Environmental Governance; Alemania Fil: Turkelboom, Francis. Research Institute for Nature and Forest; Bélgica Fil: Vadineanu, Angheluta. University of Bucharest. Research Center in Systems Ecology and Sustainability; Rumania Fil: Verheyden, Wim. Research Institute for Nature and Forest; Bélgica Fil: Vikström, Suvi. Finnish Environment Institute; Finlandia Fil: Young, Juliette. Center for Ecology and Hydrology; Gran Bretaña Fil: Aszalós, Réka. Institute of Ecology and Botany, MTA Centre for Ecological Research; Hungría

Individual decision-makers at different governance levels operate in social contexts, which means that they sometimes need to compromise their personal values. Yet, this dissonance is rarely the direct target of empirical analyses of environmental decision-making. We undertake a Q-analysis of decision-makers' personal perspectives and the perspectives they perceive to dominate in their decision-making contexts. Our empirical analysis addresses biodiversity conservation, which has traditionally been justified with intrinsic value- and science-based arguments. The arguments have recently been broadened with the concept of ecosystem services, highlighting human benefits and values. This evolving context is interesting because of the new rise of anthropocentric values, which can lead to decision-makers experiencing dissonance. Our analysis of interviews with 43 biodiversity conservation decision-makers from nine European countries reveals four personally held perspectives that highlight different, yet partly overlapping, values – intrinsic, human benefit, conservation and connection – as well as three perspectives perceived to dominate in decision-making – utilitarian, insurance and knowledge values. The comparison of personally held and perceived dominant perspectives points to one major conflict: those decision-makers who personally associate with intrinsic values and perceive utilitarian values to dominate in decision-making experience dissonance. By contrast, personally held human benefit values are accommodated well in decision-making contexts and decision-makers who perceive insurance values to dominate experience the least conflict with personally held values. These findings demonstrate the potential of arguments stressing long-term benefits for easing tension and conflicts in conservation decision-making, and the usefulness of empirically testing of the coincidence of individual and social values.

Scenario-based approaches provide decision makers with accessible storylines of potential future changes. The parameterisation of such storylines as input variables for integrated assessment models allows using models as a test bed for assessing the effects of alternative land use policy options in different scenarios. However, the potential of this kind of policy-screening analysis can be further improved by assessing the institutional compatibility of the policy options under review. The aim of this paper is to explore the added value of combining institutions-oriented policy analyses with scenario-modelling approaches for improved assessments of EU land use policy options. We describe an expert-based, stepwise process to combine four scenario storylines and two integrated assessment model approaches (CLIMSAVE & IMAGE-GLOBIO) with a procedure for institutional compatibility assessment. Among the subsidies we assessed were those for technology-driven intensification of agricultural production, which would contribute to decreasing demand for cropland across a range of scenarios. In regionalised policy designs, they also contribute to ecological effectiveness, and higher costs of governing. Subsidies to promote biomass production can have negative effects on ecosystems including land conversion, conversion of grassland into cropland as well as conversion of natural forests into managed forests. These effects can to some extent be mitigated by careful policy design which considers the institutional context and features cross-sectoral coordination. An integrated Ecosystem Services Framework policy could accommodate regionalised policy designs and cross-sectoral coordination, however, it can operate only under specific circumstances and needs particular efforts. Rural development approaches are another alternative which feature expansion of cropland by means of a large-scale, bottom-up transformation based on voluntary changes in behaviour, flexibility, participation, and local and regional collaboration. Apart from a vast number of interdisciplinary lessons learned, we also gained insights from the science-policy interface. A weak EU appeared as a plausible scenario from a scientific perspective, given the current political environment. However, it appreaded to be unacceptable at EU level policy making. We decided to maintain scientific independence and looked at policy options also in the context of a weak EU yielding environmentally beneficial opportunities for regional decision making at the expense of relevance of our scenarios to EU level policy makers.

New European Union level scenarios have been developed in the FP7 project OpenNESS to fill a thematic gap in existing broad-scale environmental scenarios to assess the uncertainties and risks of different drivers of change for natural capital and ecosystem service provision. The scenarios are aiming at applicability for science and policy-making at different scales, including the European level and regional and local scales. The scenarios are going beyond the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment scenarios, making broader assumptions in covering different types of ecosystem services, and different pathways of ecosystem services provision, including risks of ecosystem service losses. The main research question is addressing uncertainties and risks related to land-use change, exemplified via impacts on a provisioning and a regulating service. The approach is based on participatory scenario development and integrated modelling with the CLIMSAVE modelling framework. Four scenarios were developed (WealthBeing, UnitedWeStand, EcoCentre, RuralRevival). Simulations of the combinations of driving forces caused land-use changes up to +65% for forest, or −37% for grassland, both in UnitedWeStand. The most extreme changes highlighted here for scenario UnitedWeStand can mainly be attributed to the highest increase in irrigation efficiency (+58%) and crop yields (+50%), an almost constant human population in Europe (+1%), moderate increases in meat demands (+10%) and increasing food imports (+10%). In terms of ecosystem services provision, no clear winners and losers could be identified in the four scenarios, but rather different mixes of trade-offs and synergies. Thus, drivers within Europe as well as trade with land-intensive commodities and the policies steering them contribute to lower or increased pressures and risks of ecosystem services loss, e.g., on agricultural land in Europe and the countries of trading partners.

In the version of this Perspective originally published, the footnote of Table 1 incorrectly described the meanings of symbols in the table, and the tick marks paired with obeli symbols should have been + signs. The symbols have been amended, as has the footnote, which now reads “Tick marks indicate recommendations made to address the issue in the indicated column; + signs indicate benefits to additional issues”. The online versions of the Perspective have been corrected.

Given the concern about biodiversity loss, there are a number of arguments used for biodiversity conservation ranging from those emphasising the intrinsic value of biodiversity to those on the direct use value of ecosystems. Yet arguing the case for biodiversity conservation effectively requires an understanding of why people value biodiversity. We used Q methodology to explore and understand how different conservation practitioners (social and natural science researchers, environmental non-Governmental organisations and decision-makers) in nine European countries argue for conservation. We found that there was a plurality of views about biodiversity and its conservation. A moral argument and some arguments around the intrinsic and ecological value of biodiversity were held by all stakeholder groups. They also shared the view that species valuation does not justify the destruction of nature. However, there were also some differences within and between the groups, which primarily reflected the espousal of either ecocentric or anthropocentric viewpoints. Our findings suggest that moral arguments and those around biodiversity’s intrinsic and ecological value could potentially serve as a starting point for building consensus among conservation practitioners.

Climate change impact assessments often apply models of individual sectors such as agriculture, forestry and water use without considering interactions between these sectors. This is likely to lead to misrepresentation of impacts, and consequently to poor decisions about climate adaptation. However, no published research assesses the differences between impacts simulated by single-sector and integrated models. Here we compare 14 indicators derived from a set of impact models run within single-sector and integrated frameworks across a range of climate and socio-economic scenarios in Europe. We show that single-sector studies misrepresent the spatial pattern, direction and magnitude of most impacts because they omit the complex interdependencies within human and environmental systems. The discrepancies are particularly pronounced for indicators such as food production and water exploitation, which are highly influenced by other sectors through changes in demand, land suitability and resource competition. Furthermore, the discrepancies are greater under different socio-economic scenarios than different climate scenarios, and at the sub-regional rather than Europe-wide scale.

To prevent further loss of our vital ecosystem services we must understand the linkages to their supporting natural capital attributes. Systematic literature reviews synthesise evidence of natural capital attribute to ecosystem service (NC-ES) linkages. However, such reviews rarely account for the context dependency of evidence that is derived from individual studies undertaken for a particular purpose, at a specific spatial scale or geographic location. To address this deficiency, we developed the LiNCAGES (Linking Natural Capital Attribute Groups to Ecosystem Services) platform for investigating the context dependency of literature-based evidence for NC-ES linkages. We demonstrate the application of the LiNCAGES platform using the OpenNESS systematic literature review of NC-ES linkages. A hypothetical use case scenario of a small-scale European forest manager is described. We find evidence for many NC-ES linkages, and trade-offs and synergies between services, is severely diminished or non-existent under certain contexts, such as larger spatial scales and European study location. The LiNCAGES platform provides a flexible tool that researchers can use to support collation, exploration and synthesis of literature-based evidence on NC-ES linkages. This is vital for providing credible and salient evidence to stakeholders on important NC-ES linkages that occur under their context, to guide effective management strategies.

A diverse range of response options was evaluated in terms of their utility for sustaining ecosystem services in the UK. Robustness of response options was investigated by applying a ‘stress-testing’ method which evaluated expected performance against combined scenarios of socioeconomic and climate change. Based upon stakeholder feedback, a reference scenario representing current trends in climate and socioeconomic drivers (‘business-as-usual’) was used as a dynamic baseline against which to compare results of other scenarios. The robustness of response options was evaluated by their utility in different environmental and social contexts as represented by the scenarios, and linked to their adaptability to adjust to changing conditions. Key findings demonstrate that adaptability becomes increasingly valuable as the magnitude and rate of future change diverges from current trends. Stress-testing also revealed that individual responses in isolation are unlikely to be robust meaning there are advantages from integrating cohesive combinations (bundles) of response options to maximise their individual strengths and compensate for weaknesses. This identifies a role for both top-down and bottom-up responses, including regulation, spatial targeting, incentives and partnership initiatives, and their use in combination through integrated assessment and planning consistent with the adoption of an Ecosystem Approach. Stress-testing approaches can have an important role in future-proofing policy appraisals but important knowledge gaps remain, especially for cultural and supporting ecosystem services. Finally, barriers and enablers to the implementation of more integrated long-term adaptive responses were identified drawing on the ‘4 Is’ (Institutions, Information, Incentives, Identity) conceptual framework. This highlighted the crucial but usually understated role of identity in promoting ownership and uptake of responses.

Despite the widespread use of the concept of ecosystem services, there is still much uncertainty over the precise understanding of basic terms such as ‘ecosystem services’, ‘benefits’ and ‘values’. This paper examines alternative ways of defining and classifying ecosystem services by using the specific example of boreal forests in Finland. We find the notion of final ecosystem goods and services (FEGS) operable, and suggest using it in economic valuation and other priority setting contexts, as well as in the selection of indicators. However, in the context of awareness raising it might be more effective to retain the well-established terminology of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Our analysis shows that the cascade model ( Potschin and Haines-Young, 2011. Progress in Physical Geography 35(5), 575–594 ) is helpful in distinguishing between ecosystem structures, processes, services, benefits and values by making the sequence of links visible. Johnston and Russell’s (2011. Ecological Economics 70(12), 2243–2249) operational mechanism for determining FEGSs proves also instrumental in separating intermediate (e.g. carbon sequestration) and final ecosystem services (e.g. reduction of atmospheric carbon). However, we find their definition of importance, which is based on willingness to pay, too narrow. Furthermore, we favour the CICES approach, which defines ecosystem services as the direct contributions that ecosystems – whether natural or semi-natural – make to human well-being.

Quantitative participatory exploration of the many complex issues surrounding cross-sectoral climate change impacts, vulnerability and adaptation under uncertain futures is dependent on the provision, in some form, of scenarios and scenario outputs. However, the normal provision by the research community of pre-defined scenario outputs results in a lack of flexibility for stakeholders regarding choice of climate models, scenarios, scenario quantification and output indicators which in turn can lead to a lack of trust. This Special Issue describes the development and application of a web-based interactive simulation and display environment, called the CLIMSAVE Integrated Assessment (IA) Platform, which provides a holistic (cross-sectoral, climate and socio-economic change) modelling framework. The IA Platform guides the user through simulation of (1) potential impacts under scenarios of climate and/or socio-economic change, (2) identification of sectoral and multi-sectoral vulnerability ‘hotspots’ either before or after adaptation, (3) the potential for adaptation to reduce impacts within the capital constraints of the selected scenario(s), and (4) the cost-effectiveness of adaptation measures. The Special Issue explores how the IA Platform has been: (i) designed to provide a user-friendly, intuitive and facilitating, rather than predictive or prescriptive, environment for users; and (ii) utilised to quantitatively explore a diverse range of uncertain futures across Europe.

© 2015, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. In Integrated Assessment modelling of climate change impacts and adaptation, there are two main uses for measures of capacity to adapt to climate change. The first is to represent the capacity for proactive adaptation: this can be termed adaptive capacity. The second is to represent the capacity for reactive or instantaneous coping: this can be termed coping capacity. Adaptive capacity helps to determine which proactive adaptation options are feasible as inputs to the models under any given pair of climate and socio-economic scenarios. Coping capacity represents the residual ability to react to conditions, and influences vulnerability under any given set of model outputs. Using the example of the CLIMSAVE Integrated Assessment Platform, we explain how these capacities can be represented in integrated assessment. We demonstrate how an index of adaptive and coping capacity can be developed using a five-capitals (human, social, manufactured, natural, financial) model of societal wealth and incorporated in integrated assessment models. We find that for very aggregate applications, but not local or sectoral applications, the same indicators can be used to simulate adaptive and coping capacity. In addition, we argue that it is generally unnecessary to account for the depletion of capacity through adaptation itself, and that natural capital can generally be omitted from capacity measures if it is already directly represented in model outputs.

This paper presents a method for identifying a representative subset of global climate models (GCMs) for use in large-scale climate impact research. Based on objective criteria (GCM performance in reproducing the seasonal cycle of temperature and precipitation, and a subset ability to represent future inter-GCM variability), two candidate subsets are selected from a reference set of 16 GCMs. An additional subset based on subjective expert judgement is also analysed. The representativeness of the three subsets is validated (with respect to the reference set) and compared for future changes in temperature, precipitation and Palmer drought index Z (direct validation), and occurrence of the European corn borer and snow-cover characteristics implemented in the CLIMSAVE Integrated Assessment Platform (indirect validation). The direct validation indicates that one of the objective-based subsets (ECHAM5/MPI-OM, CSIRO-Mk3.0, HadGEM1, GFDL-CM2.1 and IPSL-CM4 models) provides the best choice for the Europe-wide climate change impact study. Its performance is balanced between regions, seasons and validation statistics. However, the expert-judgement-based subset achieved slightly better results in the indirect validation. The differences between the subsets and the reference set are generally much lower for the impact indices compared to their mean (across all GCMs in the subset) changes due to projected climate change. The ranking of the candidate subsets differs between regions, climatic characteristics and seasons, demonstrating that the subset suitability for a specific impact study depends on the target region and the roles of individual seasons and/or climatic variables on the processes being studied.

Impacts of socio-economic, political and climatic change on agricultural land systems are inherently uncertain. The role of regional and local-level actors is critical in developing effective policy responses that accommodate such uncertainty in a flexible and informed way across governance levels. This study identified potential regional challenges in arable land use systems, which may arise from climate and socio-economic change for two counties in western Hungary: Veszprém and Tolna. An empirically-grounded, agent-based model was developed from an extensive farmer household survey about local land use practices. The model was used to project future patterns of arable land use under four localised, stakeholder-driven scenarios of plausible future socio-economic and climate change. The results show strong differences in farmers' behaviour and current agricultural land use patterns between the two regions, highlighting the need to implement focused policy at the regional level. For instance, policy that encourages local food security may need to support improvements in the capacity of farmers to adapt to physical constraints in Veszprém and farmer access to social capital and environmental awareness in Tolna. It is further suggested that the two regions will experience different challenges to adaptation under possible future conditions (up to 2100). For example, Veszprém was projected to have increased fallow land under a scenario with high inequality, ineffective institutions and higher-end climate change, implying risks of land abandonment. By contrast, Tolna was projected to have a considerable decline in major cereals under a scenario assuming a de-globalising future with moderate climate change, inferring challenges to local food self-sufficiency. The study provides insight into how socio-economic and physical factors influence the selection of crop rotation plans by farmers in western Hungary and how farmer behaviour may affect future risks to agricultural land systems under environmental change.

Understanding the importance of cross-sectoral implications of climate and socio-economic change in Scotland is essential for adaptation policy. This study explored the direct and indirect sectoral impacts of future change using the CLIMSAVE Integrated Assessment Platform. There is great spatial diversity in projected impacts across Scotland, and increasing uncertainty in the direction of change of impacts from the national to regional scale associated with climate uncertainty. Further uncertainty associated with socio-economic change results in 6 out of 13 indicators (artificial surfaces, biodiversity vulnerability, forest area, land-use intensity, irrigation usage and land-use diversity) with robust directions of change at the national scale and only three (artificial surfaces, forest area and irrigation usage) that are robust across all regions of Scotland. Complex interactions between socio-economic scenario assumptions (e.g. food imports, population and GDP), climatic suitability and agricultural productivity and profitability lead to significant national and regional changes in the distribution and extent of land cover types, with resultant cross-sectoral interactions with water, forestry and biodiversity. Consequently, stakeholders characterised robust adaptation policy options, within the CLIMSAVE participatory process, as those beneficial to society (and the country) in all scenarios, irrespective of the direction of change of the impacts. The integration in CLIMSAVE of a participatory scenario development process and an integrated participatory modelling framework has allowed the exploration of future uncertainty in a structured approach and better represented the importance of qualitative information and the social and institutional contexts within adaptation research.

Understanding cross-sectoral impacts is important in developing appropriate adaptation strategies to climate change, since such insight builds the capacity of decision-makers to understand the full extent of climate change vulnerability, rather than viewing single sectors in isolation. A regional integrated assessment model that captures interactions between six sectors (agriculture, forests, biodiversity, water, coasts and urban) was used to investigate impacts resulting from a wide range of climate and socio-economic scenarios. Results show that Europe will be significantly influenced by these possible future changes with between 79 and 91 % of indicator-scenario combinations found to be statistically significantly different from the baseline. Urban development increases in most scenarios across Europe due to increases in population and sometimes GDP. This has an indirect influence on the number of people affected by a 1 in 100 year flood which increases in western and northern Europe. Changes in other land uses (intensive farming, extensive farming, forests and unmanaged land) vary depending on the scenario, but food production generally increases across Europe at the expense of forest area and unmanaged land to satisfy increasing food demand. Biodiversity vulnerability and water exploitation both increase in southern and Eastern Europe due to direct effects from climate and indirect effects from changes in land use and irrigation water use. The results highlight the importance of considering non-climatic pressures and cross-sectoral interactions to fully capture climate change impacts at the regional scale.

By their sheer size, adaptation investments are processes addressing multiple climate impacts at the same time. Nevertheless, cross-sectoral effects of adaptation measures are rarely taken into consideration in adaptation costing and cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA). We explicitly address joint adaptation processes by focusing on inter- or intra-sectoral adaptation synergies within a cost-effectiveness framework. A software tool – CrossAdapt - has been developed in order to quantify cross-sectoral adaptation impacts based on expert judgement. Our research shows that the calculation of cross-sectoral impacts and their integration into cost-effectiveness analysis can significantly affect the cost-effectiveness ranking of adaptation measures. Future European adaptation strategies can benefit from the analytical possibility of estimating net adaptation costs based on CrossAdapt.

Mountains play a key role in the provision of nature s contributions to people (NCP) worldwide that support societies quality of life. Simultaneously, mountains are threatened by multiple drivers of change. Due to the complex interlinkages between biodiversity, quality of life and drivers of change, research on NCP in mountains requires interdisciplinary approaches. In this study, we used the conceptual framework of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and the notion of NCP to determine to what extent previous research on ecosystem services in mountains has explored the different components of the IPBES conceptual framework. We conducted a systematic review of articles on ecosystem services in mountains published up to 2016 using the Web of Science and Scopus databases. Descriptive statistical and network analyses were conducted to explore the level of research on the components of the IPBES framework and their interactions. Our results show that research has gradually become more interdisciplinary by studying higher number of NCP, dimensions of quality of life, and indirect drivers of change. Yet, research focusing on biodiversity, regulating NCP and direct drivers has decreased over time. Furthermore, despite the fact that research on NCP in mountains becoming more policy-oriented over time, mainly in relation to payments for ecosystem services, institutional responses remained underexplored in the reviewed studies. Finally, we discuss the relevant knowledge gaps that should be addressed in future research in order to contribute to IPBES. © 2019 Martín-López et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

© 2014, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. Recent research has increasingly focussed on whether long-term policies for adaptation to climate change are robust given uncertainties about future climate change, technological advances and alternative socio-economic development pathways. The aim of this study was to examine whether adaptation responses are ‘robust’, by looking at whether they reduce vulnerability to climate and socio-economic changes for a selection of ecosystem services across scenarios and two spatial scales: Europe (EU27 plus Norway and Switzerland) and a case study in Scotland. Outputs of the CLIMSAVE Integrated Assessment Platform (IAP) for multiple land-based sectors were used to test whether clusters of adaptation options referred to as policy archetypes reduced vulnerability to climate and socio-economic change for ecosystem service indicators related to biodiversity, flooding, water exploitation, land use diversity, land use intensity and food provision. The results show that the People-based Adaptation archetype is the most robust. This is because it reduces vulnerability by increasing coping capacity (people learn and build networks) and not only by reducing the impacts of climate and socio-economic change. By allowing comparative levels of vulnerability to be explored across sectors and scenarios, the CLIMSAVE approach provides a flexible tool for decision-makers and other stakeholders to increase understanding of which mixes of adaptation measures are robust responses to climate change.

In this paper we present an uncertainty analysis of a cross-sectoral, regional-scale, Integrated Assessment Platform (IAP) for the assessment of climate change impacts, vulnerability and adaptation. The IAP couples simplified meta-models for a number of sectors (agriculture, forestry, urban development, biodiversity, flood and water resources management) within a user-friendly interface. Cross-sectoral interactions and feedbacks can be evaluated for a range of future scenarios with the aim of supporting a stakeholder dialogue and mutual learning. We present a method to address uncertainty in: i) future climate and socio-economic scenarios and ii) the interlinked network of meta-models that make up the IAP. A mixed-method approach is taken: formal numerical approaches, modeller interviews and network analysis are combined to provide a holistic uncertainty assessment that considers both quantifiable and un-quantifiable uncertainty. Results demonstrate that the combined quantitative-qualitative approach provides considerable advantages over traditional, validation-based uncertainty assessments. Combined fuzzy-set methods and network analysis methods allow maps of modeller certainty to be explored. The results indicate that validation statistics are not the only factors driving modeller certainty; a large range of other factors including the quality and availability of validation data, the meta-modelling process, inter-modeller trust, derivation methods, and pragmatic factors such as time, resources, skills and experience influence modeller certainty. We conclude that by identifying, classifying and exploring uncertainty in conjunction with the model developers, we can ensure not only that the modelling system itself improves, but that the decisions based on it can draw on the best available information: the projection itself, and a holistic understanding of the uncertainty associated with it.

This article focuses on the development and pilot-testing of 10 reflective journal prompts designed to stimulate reflection on emotional intelligence competencies. Goleman’s framework of emotional intelligence domains and 18 competencies was used to guide development of the prompts and analysis of student ( N = 16) responses. A review of the literature related to emotional intelligence competencies and nursing education and practice is presented, and assumptions derived from the literature and guiding the project are summarized. Journal prompts are presented, and examples of student responses illustrating reflection on competencies are provided. The findings suggest that these progressive journal prompts are useful tools for introducing and stimulating reflection on emotional intelligence competencies in nursing students. Recommendations for use in a variety of nursing courses are discussed.

A new conceptual framework is presented for the assessment of the impacts of environmental change drivers on ecosystem service provision and the policy and management responses that would derive from the valuation of these impacts. The Framework for Ecosystem Service Provision (FESP), is based on an interpretation of the widely-used Drivers-Pressures-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework. FESP differs from the DPSIR by offering clarity in the definitions of the various DPSIR components as well as introducing novel elements of relevance to the ecosystem service approach. The value of a common framework lies in making the comparison across competing services accessible and clear as well as highlighting the conflicts and trade-offs between not only multiple ecosystem services, but also multiple service beneficiaries. The framework is explicit, for example, in recognising as state variables not only the attributes of the Ecosystem Service Providers (ESPs), but also the attributes of the Ecosystem Service Beneficiaries (ESBs). That a service depends as much on the attributes of the people whose well-being benefits from the service as on the attributes of the biology providing the service is an important step in integrated social-ecological thinking. FESP also identifies the mechanisms of either mitigation or adaptation to the environmental change problem through the effect of these response strategies on specific pressure or state variables. In this way, FESP can contribute to the policies and strategies that are used to support conservation management. This paper describes the principles of FESP and presents some indicative examples of its practical implementation.

The present paper addresses the issue of a dynamic approach to biodiversity conservation by focusing on published evidence on the dynamics of economic values and preferences for ecosystem goods and services. Empirical evidence referring to the dynamics of ecosystem values was identified as both demand-driven and supply-driven value dynamics. A survey of temporal reliability tests revealed considerable differences in the time span examined (2 weeks to 20 years). The evidence shows that ecosystem value estimates, as expressed through mean Willingness To Pay remain significantly stable in the time span of 2 weeks to 5 years, but this is not the case for time periods of 20 years. For longer periods, both a weak and strong version of preference evolution were examined; here the elements of cultural transmission and evolutionary approaches make the task of modelling the dynamics of preferences rather complex. Integrated models and dynamic bioeconomic models were examined as representative approaches to supply-driven dynamics. These approaches share a role in pushing our understanding of complex systems and alerting both researchers and policy makers to the dangers of oversimplification. The reviewed models are nevertheless normative in nature in the sense that they describe how the complex socio-ecological systems should evolve over time in order to fulfil the requirements of efficiency and sustainability. Mixing of methods and pooling of data seems the only way forward. In this respect, the potential of systematic and formalised interdisciplinary research lies in the integration of insights, methods and data drawn from natural and social sciences.

A meta-modelling approach has been adopted to link simulations of low and high water flows with simulations of suitable climate space for a selection of fen and bog species with differing drought and flood tolerance. The linked meta-models were used to examine the impacts of socio-economic and climate change scenarios on wetlands in two contrasting regions of the UK. The hydrological model shows that low and high flows are sensitive to climate change and to the regional distribution of abstractions and discharges. Where there are large changes in urbanisation, flows are more sensitive to socio-economic change. The changes in high flows have little impact on the species selected, but changes in low flows result in a number of areas becoming marginal or unsuitable due to dryness. At the regional scale, adaptation options appear to be limited and mostly involve, for surface water-influenced wetlands, increased water imports (either directly through increased non-consumptive water demand or indirectly through river augmentation), which may not be consistent with the socio-economic scenario or be feasible. This paper shows, therefore, that changes in hydrological regime are important for the future of wetlands and that these may depend as much on the future socio-economic situation as the projected changes in climate.

The term vulnerability has been used in a variety of contexts, including climate change impact assessment. In this paper those issues relevant to climate change impacts on agriculture and species are discussed. Outputs from models are used to assess the vulnerability of fanners and species to climate and socio-economic change by estimating their sensitivity and capacity to adapt to external factors as a means of identifying what causes the differences in their vulnerability. The results showed that the vulnerability of both farmers and species is dependent on the scenario under consideration. In agriculture, it is the socio-economic scenarios that particularly lead to different patterns of intensification, extensification and abandonment. For species, vulnerability is more related to the climate change scenarios. In both cases, the adaptation options and potential were associated with the different socio-economic futures and policy intervention. The conceptual linking of the two sectors shows that impacts in the agriculture sector and consequent adaptation could have a significant effect on the adaptation potential of species. This demonstrates the importance of cross-sectoral assessments of vulnerability and highlights the importance of sectoral integration in policy development and implementation. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The ACCELERATES project aimed to assess the vulnerability of European agro-ecosystems to environmental change in support of the conventions of climate change and biological diversity. This was based on a study of the impact of environmental change on land use and biodiversity (for selected species and habitats) in agro-ecosystems. The approach integrated existing models of agricultural land use, species distribution and habitat fragmentation within a common scenario framework, so that impacts could be synthesised for different global change problems. The results suggest that policy and conservation strategies should not tackle the vulnerability of agriculture and biodiversity independently. Potential changes within one sector may have important opportunities for another sector that policy could fail to exploit, or positive outcomes in one sector could have adverse effects elsewhere. For example, there are potential benefits to conservation management that arise from agricultural land abandonment or extensification. However, agricultural land abandonment increases the vulnerability of farmers. Society, through policy, will need, therefore, to resolve the conflicts that are likely to arise between agriculture and the conservation of biodiversity in the future. The scientific community can contribute to this process by seeking to reduce the uncertainties that bedevil future environmental change assessments, through the development of better and more integrated methods (of modelling and scenario development) to analyse and interpret cross-sectoral vulnerability. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The availability of suitable climate space across Europe for the distributions of 47 species chosen to encompass a range of taxa (including plants, insects, birds and mammals) and to reflect dominant and threatened species from 10 habitats was modelled for the current climate and three climate change scenarios using the SPECIES neural network model. The present European distribution was satisfactorily simulated for 45 species, which showed good statistics of fit between observed species’ distributions and derived models. The predicted responses to climate change demonstrate that the distribution of many species in Europe may be affected by climate change, but that the effects are likely to differ between species. The general pattern is of a south-west to north-east shift in suitable climate space, with gains balancing losses for many species. Based on the total change in potential climate space in Europe, the species most sensitive to climate change were Rubus chamaemorus (Cloudberry; negatively affected) and Genista acanthoclada (Hairy greenweed; positively affected). This disparity in species’ response has important implications for EU biodiversity policy as the significance of different countries changes in terms of their future contribution to the conservation of habitats and species.

Many studies have predicted the potential impacts of climate change on species’ distributions at large spatial scales, yet the role of more local-scale effects remains poorly explored. Addressing more localised impacts requires that new integrated modelling approaches are developed to address fine-scale processes including species’ dispersal and local connectivity. Here we integrate four models (a continental scale bioclimatic envelope model, a regional scale bioclimate and land use suitability model, a dispersal model, and a connectivity model) in a scale-dependent hierarchical framework. The approach has been used to analyse the fine scale impacts of climate change on species’ distributions within two contrasting case study regions located in East Anglia (UK) and Almeria (Spain). Eight and six species respectively were used to test our approach under three climate change scenarios. Despite the uncertainties inherent in the modelling approach, our analyses suggest two general conclusions: (i) climate change involves the development of transient conditions and fragmentation within the core of species distributions; (ii) climate change would favour the opening of gaps within the current vegetation zones, rather than a simple zonal shift of them. Dynamic and integrated conservation policies are required, that take account of the current and potential future spatial arrangement of species and their habitats, to assist species to respond to future environmental change.

Policy makers and stakeholders are increasingly demanding impact assessments which produce policy-relevant guidance on the local impacts of global climate change. The 'Regional Climate Change Impact and Response Studies in East Anglia and North West England' (RegIS) study developed a methodology for stakeholder-led, regional climate change impact assessment that explicitly evaluated local and regional (sub-national) scale impacts and adaptation options, and cross-sectoral interactions between four major sectors driving landscape change (agriculture, biodiversity, coasts and floodplains and water resources). The 'Drivers-Pressure-State-Impact-Response' (DPSIR) approach provided a structure for linking the modelling and scenario techniques. A 5 x 5 km grid was chosen for numerical modelling input (climate and socio-economic scenarios) and output, as a compromise between the climate scenario resolution (10 x 10 km) and the detailed spatial resolution output desired by stakeholders. Fundamental methodological issues have been raised by RegIS which reflect the difficulty of multi-sectoral modelling studies at local scales. In particular, the role of scenarios, error propagation in linked models, model validity, transparency and transportability as well as the use of integrated assessment to evaluate adaptation options to climate change are examined. Integrated assessments will provide new insights which will compliment those derived by more detailed sectoral assessments.

Predictions of the availability of suitable climate space for the breeding distributions of eight birds of conservation importance were modelled for the current climate and four climate change scenarios using the SPECIESv2 neural network model. Changes were quantified in relation to six bioclimatic variables and the model was trained on a combination of observed data derived from the European and Britain/Ireland atlases of breeding bird distribution. The present distributions were satisfactorily simulated both at the European and Britain/Ireland scales with Kappa coefficients of agreement greater than 0.7. The predicted responses to climate change demonstrate that the distribution of many breeding birds in Britain and Ireland may be affected by climate change, but that the effects are likely to differ between species. Short-term and less severe changes in climate had a positive effect on the potential climate space of five species ( Streptopelia turtur , Motacilla flava , Luscinia megarhynchos , Acrocephalus scirpaceus and Sitta europaea ) and a negative affect on one species ( Tetrao urogallus ), whereas the overall suitability of Parus montanus and Gavia stellata remained relatively stable. More severe long-term changes in climate were predicted to lead to a contraction in the potential area of suitability of Luscinia megarhynchos and Sitta europaea in south east England, and a large reduction in the area of Parus montanus in southern England. Based on the total change in potential climate space in Britain and Ireland, the species most sensitive to climate change were Tetrao urogallus (negatively affected) and Acrocephalus scirpaceus (positively affected). Although the models provide a useful indication of potential changes in bird distributions, the extent to which bird populations will track changes in climate space will depend on many different factors including their ability to disperse, their habitat and food requirements (and how these are influenced by climate change) and their population status and dynamics.

Climate change is having an increasing impact on the distribution and functioning of species and habitats. This has important implications for conservation practice and policy. The aim of this study was to model the direct impacts of climate change on terrestrial environments in Britain and Ireland in order to understand the possible changes in the distribution of species and the composition of habitats. A model, based on an artificial neural network, was used to predict changes in the bioclimate envelope of species, under the UKCIP98 climate change scenarios. A total of 50 species, representing several taxa, were modelled. Many species demonstrated a consistent response to climate change, either increasing or losing suitable climate space, although some had a variable response with losses starting to occur under the high scenarios. The percentage change in the bioclimate envelope of the species was calculated. This showed that montane species and habitats were the most sensitive to climate change. Other habitats from upland areas or species with northern distributions were also sensitive to losses, while species gaining suitable climate space represented a variety of habitats. Sensitivity needs to be viewed alongside vulnerability, the ability of the species or habitat to adapt to climate change. Montane species and habitats were the most vulnerable, with limited adaptation possibilities. Other vulnerable habitats, for which species modelling was carried out, include lowland raised bog, lowland calcareous grassland and native pine woodland. The potential impacts of climate change should be taken into account when planning conservation measures for these sensitive and vulnerable species and habitats.

Aim Climate change has the potential to have significant impacts on the distribution of species and on the composition of habitats. This paper identifies the potential changes in the future distribution of species under the UKCIP98 climate change scenarios, in order that such changes can be taken into account in conservation management. Location The model was applied to Britain and Ireland. Methods A model based on an artificial neural network was used to predict the changing bioclimate envelopes of species in Britain and Ireland. Fifty-four species representing 15 habitats were modelled. Results The modelled species could be placed into three categories: those losing suitable climate space, those gaining it, and those showing little or no change. When the species were associated with habitats it was found that Arctic–Alpine/montane heath communities were the most sensitive to climate change, followed by pine woodland and beech woodland in southern England. In lowland heath, wet heath, cereal field margins, coastal grazing marsh, drought-prone acid grassland and calcareous grassland, the species either showed little change or an increase in suitable climate space. The other eight habitats showed a mixed response. Conclusions The species show a variety of responses to climate change and thus their current habitat associations may alter. The uncertain future of some species and habitats is highlighted. Conservation policy and practice will need to be revised in the face of climate change.

A model, A Spatial Evaluation of Climate Impact on the Envelope of Species (SPECIES), is presented which has been developed to evaluate the impacts of climate change on the bioclimatic envelope of plant species in Great Britain. SPECIES couples an artificial neural network with a climate–hydrological process model. The hybrid model has been successfully trained to estimate current species distributions using climate and soils data at the European scale before application at a finer resolution national scale. Using this multi-scale approach ensures encapsulation of the full extent of future climate scenarios within Great Britain without extrapolating outside of the model's training dataset. Application of the model to 32 plant species produced a mean Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.841 and a mean Kappa statistic of 0.772 between observed and simulated distributions. Simulations of four climate change scenarios revealed that changes to suitable climate space in Great Britain is highly species dependent and that distribution changes may be multidirectional and temporally non-linear. Analysis of the SPECIES results suggests that the neural network methodology can provide a feasible alternative to more classical spatial statistical techniques.

Scaling methods in regional integrated assessments are often adopted as givens, when in fact there are a range of methods that each have their strengths and weaknesses. Methods such as a site within a polygon, spatially uniform grids, grids with relational data on polygons, interpolation and stochastic spatial models are reviewed for crop-climate modeling of climate change impacts developed in the European Union’s Clivara project. A similar suite of methods for downscaling from global climate models to local conditions exists, and is reviewed. Up- and down-scaling issues relate to availability of data, the level of technical expertise in the project team, validation, uncertainty and risk, stakeholder participation, and modeling of actor-agents. Given the many aims of integrated assessments, no one approach is best.

A systematic literature review was undertaken to analyse the linkages between different biodiversity attributes and 11 ecosystem services. The majority of relationships between attributes and ecosystem services cited in the 530 studies were positive. For example, the services of water quality regulation, water flow regulation, mass flow regulation and landscape aesthetics were improved by increases in community and habitat area. Functional traits, such as richness and diversity, also displayed a predominantly positive relationship across the services, most commonly discussed for atmospheric regulation, pest regulation and pollination. A number of studies also discussed a positive correlation with stand age, particularly for atmospheric regulation. Species level traits were found to benefit a number of ecosystem services, with species abundance being particularly important for pest regulation, pollination and recreation, and species richness for timber production and freshwater fishing. Instances of biodiversity negatively affecting the examined ecosystem services were few in number for all ecosystem services, except freshwater provision. The review showed that ecosystem services are generated from numerous interactions occurring in complex systems. However, improving understanding of at least some of the key relationships between biodiversity and service provision will help guide effective management and protection strategies.

Future renewable water resources are likely to be insufficient to meet water demand for human use and minimum environmental flow requirements in many European regions. Hence, fair and equitable water allocation to different water use sectors and environmental needs is important for climate change adaptation in order to reduce negative effects on human well-being and aquatic ecosystems. We applied a system of coupled sectoral metamodels of water availability and water use in the domestic, manufacturing industry, electricity generation, and agricultural sectors to simulate the effects of generic water allocation schemes (WAS) at the European level. The relative performance of WAS in balancing adverse impacts on the water use sectors and aquatic ecosystems was analysed for an ensemble of 16 scenarios for the 2050s, which were built from the combination of four socio-economic scenarios, developed in the CLIMSAVE project, and four climate projections based on IPCC A1. The results indicate that significant physical water shortages may result from climate and socio-economic change in many regions of Europe, particularly in the Mediterranean. In the energy sector, average annual water demand can largely be met even in water allocation schemes that deprioritise the sector. However, prioritisation of agricultural water demand has significant adverse impacts on the domestic and manufacturing industry sectors. Cross-sectoral impacts were found to be lowest if at least one of the domestic and manufacturing sectors is assigned higher priority than agriculture. We conclude that adapting spatial patterns of water-intensive activities to renewable water availability across Europe, such as shifting irrigated agriculture to less water-stressed basins, could be an effective demand-side adaptation measure, and thus a candidate for support through EU policy.