Search

This study aimed to critically review methodologies for ranking of risks related to feed/food safety and nutritional hazards, on the basis of their anticipated human health impact. An extensive systematic literature review was performed to identify and characterize the available methodologies for risk ranking in the fields of feed and food safety and nutritional hazards, as well as the socio-economic field. Risk ranking methods from the environmental field were studied as well to determine whether approaches used in this field could also be applied for ranking human health risks related to feed and food safety and nutritional hazards. The review used a predefined search protocol. It covered the bibliographic databases Scopus, CAB Abstracts, Web of Sciences, and PubMed over the period 1993-2013. All references obtained were stored into an Endnote database and evaluated for their relevance. All references deemed to be relevant were studied in–depth so as to characterize the risk ranking method described. Characteristics of each method were stored in an Excel database. The methods for risk ranking were then grouped into method categories, which were described in general. These groups included: risk assessment, comparative risk assessment, risk ratio method, scoring method, cost of illness, DALY/QALY, willingness to pay, multi criteria decision analysis, risk matrix, flow charts/decision trees and expert judgment methods. Based on the characteristics of the individual methods and the method categories, an overarching framework was developed for selection of the appropriate method(s) that could be used for risk ranking of feed and food related hazards, on the basis of human health impact. This framework has the format of a decision tool, with which – given the characteristics of the risk ranking question at hand - the most appropriate method(s) can be selected. Application of this overall framework to several case studies showed it can be a useful tool for risk managers/assessors to select the most suitable method for risk ranking of feed/food and diet related hazards, on the basis of expected human health impact.

This study aimed to critically review methodologies for ranking of risks related to feed/food safety and nutritional hazards, on the basis of their anticipated human health impact. An extensive systematic literature review was performed to identify and characterize the available methodologies for risk ranking in the fields of feed and food safety and nutritional hazards, as well as the socio-economic field. Risk ranking methods from the environmental field were studied as well to determine whether approaches used in this field could also be applied for ranking human health risks related to feed and food safety and nutritional hazards. The review used a predefined search protocol. It covered the bibliographic databases Scopus, CAB Abstracts, Web of Sciences, and PubMed over the period 1993-2013. All references obtained were stored into an Endnote database and evaluated for their relevance. All references deemed to be relevant were studied in–depth so as to characterize the risk ranking method described. Characteristics of each method were stored in an Excel database. The methods for risk ranking were then grouped into method categories, which were described in general. These groups included: risk assessment, comparative risk assessment, risk ratio method, scoring method, cost of illness, DALY/QALY, willingness to pay, multi criteria decision analysis, risk matrix, flow charts/decision trees and expert judgment methods. Based on the characteristics of the individual methods and the method categories, an overarching framework was developed for selection of the appropriate method(s) that could be used for risk ranking of feed and food related hazards, on the basis of human health impact. This framework has the format of a decision tool, with which – given the characteristics of the risk ranking question at hand - the most appropriate method(s) can be selected. Application of this overall framework to several case studies showed it can be a useful tool for risk managers/assessors to select the most suitable method for risk ranking of feed/food and diet related hazards, on the basis of expected human health impact.

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) have been a controversial topic in recent years: while the scientific community has largely accepted the validity and safety of using this biotechnology in the food industry, public opinion still shows a certain suspicion and fear. The legislator is interested in knowing how public opinion could be engaged and what policy decisions regarding the assessment of the risks and benefits of GM animals and derived products might be addressed. This paper focuses on a Citizens’ Jury event organized in Parma (Italy) in 2012 in the context of the EU project PEGASUS (Public Perception of Genetically modified Animals – Science, Utility and Society, 7th FP). The main goal of the Citizens’ Jury was to address public perspectives and demonstrate ‘best practice’ in public engagement in order to develop future policy recommendations regarding innovation in the area of GM animals. The process, the potential role of citizens’ juries as a technique for engaging with the public about the development and application of Genetically Modified (GM) animals in the food and pharmaceutical industry and significant results are presented here. In particular, two case studies have been presented: growth-enhanced GH transgenic salmon and polyclonal antibodies from transgenic rabbits.

Despite developments in technology, design and marketing, many new food products are not successfully commercialised. Communication between key players with different expertise (food technologists, consumers scientists, end consumers, etc.) seems crucial to improve food technology development, respond better to consumer wishes and reduce innovation failures. In this study, preliminary results of a Delphi survey aiming to identify opinions and priorities of various key players regarding the elaboration of an effective communication strategy during food product development are presented. Survey participants were recruited from an ad-hoc online community and personal contacts from different areas of expertise and sectors. Results revealed that disciplinary differences constitute an important barrier to such communication, and these may relate to both theoretical and linguistic differences between communities. Inadequate communication between consumer scientists and food technologists is commonly (but not unanimously) regarded as a barrier to inclusion of consumer science data into product development. The problems include insufficient, ineffective and excessively late engagement and also non-engagement between actors. Some clear gaps between the perceptions of consumer scientists and food technologists exist, for example consumer scientists were more likely to agree that food technologists find it difficult to interpret consumer information, whereas food technologists were more likely to agree that consumer information is not specific enough for them to use. Given those identified barriers, it is important to explicitly recognise inter-disciplinary communication as a success factor in food development projects, with, e.g., the establishment of multi-disciplinary teams, and to improve knowledge and awareness of each other’s subject.

This deliverable reports on a first round Delphi survey conducted in autumn 2012. The survey asks participants ‘to articulate key priorities, preferences and identify perceived barriers to inclusion of consumer science data regarding technology acceptance into product development’ (DoW, p22). In all 75 usable responses were received to an on-line questionnaire. The survey identified three critical points of communication which influence whether commercialisation is successful: 1. Communication with consumers to determine their preferences so that products produced using a new food technology will be developed and purchased by them. 2. Communication with consumers to inform them about new food technologies to prevent subsequent rejection of resultant products. 3. Communication between actors in the chain extending from technology development to retail. The main communication difficulty results from inter-disciplinary differences, as key actors have different goals, different mind-sets, use different methods and terminology, and may have a low awareness of what others try to do.

Building on the CONNECT4ACTION Round 1 Delphi study (D3.1), the Round 2 survey investigated the needs and approaches for improving communication between actors involved in the food technology development chain, particularly between consumer scientists and food development technologists, which might result in improved consumer acceptance of new food technologies. The survey was administered on-line to all respondents to the Round 1 survey and in all 54 usable responses were received (a response rate of 72%). The Round 2 survey confirmed that incorporating consumer science information is perceived as important throughout development of both new technological processes and the resultant products, but especially to guide critical decisions in the early stages of both activities, and also before and after product launch. Information about consumers’ preferred attributes and acceptability of products are ranked of higher importance than the acceptability to consumers of the underlying technological process.

[Departement_IRSTEA]Territoires [TR1_IRSTEA]DTAM [Axe_IRSTEA]DTAM1-REPRO [Axe_IRSTEA]DTAM2-ACPUB [Axe_IRSTEA]DTAM3-ECOPRA [Axe_IRSTEA]DTAM-QT2-ADAPTATION; Facing structural change, European rural areas still fulfil multiple social, economic and ecological functions. Because of scale interplays and sustainability trade-offs, their future dynamics are still difficult to ascertain. In addition to the inherent difficulties of this undertaking, challenges in actual assessments also depend on external shocks to the economy at large or to particular regions, along with spillover effects among neighbouring regions. PRIMA proposes to improve knowledge in scaling down this assessment. It focuses on agriculture, forestry, tourism, and ecosystem services, with special attention to the structural effects of the European policies at municipality levels. The six case studies of PRIMA, conducted in Germany, United Kingdom, France, Croatia, Czech Republic, and Bulgaria, are important for two main reasons: they provide test cases for the PRIMA approaches, and they have influenced the development of the PRIMA approaches. These case studies have been chosen for their variety of rural dynamics and governance organisation. Because of the bottom-up governance of the European cohesion policy, a large variety has been observed in the priorities and measures, targeted to several pillars of sustainable development. This variety has been narrowed in a pre-modelling stage, where 2 groups of stakeholders were interviewed: those who can assist in scenario and model development (coming from the institutions which implement policy), and the actors who may be affected by the policy and hence whose related behavioural changes should be captured by the model framework. A conceptual model has then been developed. This model focuses on the population dynamics in rural municipalities and on the decision making behaviours observed. The conceptual micro-simulation model was successfully adapted to three of the study regions (France, United Kingdom and Germany). Additionally, the developed agent-based model was adapted for the United Kingdom region; this allowed studying the effects of social aspects that are not captured in the micro-simulation model. For validation purposes, a series of workshops were conducted on the case study areas. The orientation of these workshops depended on the availability of the models for the given case study area. The workshops promoted stakeholder learning about modelling. On the whole, participants recognised models as simplifications of reality. They found explanations about the model components comprehensible, and reacted fairly favourably to the idea of having such a decision-support tool available. However, the lack of good data at a low geographical scale in most case study areas was seen as a severe limitation. Beyond pathways for model revision, some methodological advances in the field of participatory modelling have been identified. Among these is making explicit the role of a model broker, the endorsement of which should improve the various interpretations of participants. Scenario development, though far in advance of their technical skills, has also proved an efficient tool to involve stakeholders in challenging a model. Further conceptual work was identified and undertaken concerning the design of methods to reconstruct commuting network for regions where data was unavailable, to calibrate models with several number of variables and of new approaches to dynamically derive services jobs availability. PRIMA also developed a conceptual work that includes the MAGNET (formerly LEITAP) model for downscaling from world level to the country level, and a downscaling tool from country level towards the NUTS2 level. An interface has been developed for easy downscaling of scenarios. Special attention has been paid to procedures to process data from Eurostat towards a database useful as input for the downscaling model. Last, we progressed towards recommendations enhancing the scope of IA methods, with a review of literature and extensive work between all workpackages.

[Departement_IRSTEA]Territoires [TR1_IRSTEA]DTAM [TR2_IRSTEA]MOTIVE; International audience; Présentation générale détaillée du projet européen PRIMA réalisé dans le cadre du 7ème PCRD.

International audience; Rural areas are becoming increasingly differentiated and gradually losing their agricultural specificity. They now need to support the coexistence of two logical approaches to occupation of their space: one based on the supply of agricultural and forestry products, the other on the various demands from local residents and seasonal tourists. Under these conditions the roles of agriculture, forestry, and tourism industry are evolving; the focus is no longer simply on supplying market goods while limiting the impacts of this supply on negative external factors but now also on participating in land development and meeting the manifold expectations of society. The paper analyses EU policies related to multifunctional land use activities on the national and regional level. The policy framework within which multifunctionality of land use activities is realized is determined by three EU policies, namely the Cohesion Policy, Rural Development Policy, and Enlargement Policy. The paper focus on six cases: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Germany, France and UK. Three of the case study sites (in Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Croatia) were/are influenced by the financial instruments of the Enlargement policies (PHARE, SAPARD, ISPA, IPA). The impact of EU policies is assessed in three domains – economic, social and environment. The scope of impact of the major driving forces for multifunctional land use activities is assessed and analyzed.

The report on ―Screening impacts of EU policies on rural areas‖ (PRIMA Deliverable 6.1.) discusses the title topic in the context of the different contex-tual and methodological aspects taken into account in PRIMA with special emphasis on the screening of policies impacts. The report starts with the definition of the terms of screening and impact assessment for EU applica-tions. Several screening approaches are differentiated and the screening re-quirements are named for the screening of impacts, programmes and projects in the context of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and new approaches of Sustainability Impact As-sessment (SIA). The screening is mainly discussed from the perspective of (a) the policies assessment by the example of SEA, (b) the general screening requirements, (c) the ongoing developments of Sustainability Impact Assessment Tools (SIAT), (d) in the context of multifunctionality of rural areas, (e) in the mod-elling context of the Agent Based Modelling, (f) the stakeholder and local knowledge perspective, and (g) in the indicator application context of the rural development indicators applied in PRIMA. The report is organised in the way that in the first part experiences of Impact Assessment of policies are given followed in the second part by main aspects in the research focus of PRIMA. Screening should be enhanced in PRIMA for the usage in Ex-ante Impact Assessment to analyse potential effects of new policies before their adoption. SIA will be enhanced by using experiences developed for SEA and EIA. The policies assessment of the Strategic Environmental Assessment concludes the experiences made for the environmental dimension of sustainability and the main steps of a screening process are explained. The discussion about SIAT gives an overview about existing and future SIAT approaches, i.e. Tools dedi-cated to ex-ante Sustainability Impact Assessment, and recapitulates the expected links between the scope of PRIMA and this emerging field of applied research. A synthesis of main methodological research questions and steps of screening application is summarized. PRIMA will enhance the screening process by methods and model develop-ments (Agent based modelling and micro-simulation), stakeholder involve-ment techniques and the linkage of this approaches to impact indicators in the context of multifunctionality of rural areas. The stages of an EIA process is explained for the adoption to ABM model developments and clarified by the importance and relevancy of information for screening and scoping when implementing of ABM. Stakeholders and local knowledge should be linked carefully to the policy assessment when providing essential information for the model application and for the test of essential indicators and for the for-mulation of projects, plans and programmes wanted/needed by the stake-holders. Methodological issues for the production of local knowledge are named for the identification of stakeholders and the techniques application. Finally a list of indicators for the usage in PRIMA and developed on the basis of the indicators of the Rural Development Report is given. These indicators will link the Impact Assessment to the monitoring of rural development.; Le rapport analyse les apports du projet PRIMA concernant l'examen (screening) des impacts des politiques de l'UE sur les zones rurales. Après une définition des notions de » screening » et d'évaluation d'impact, plusieurs approches sont analysées et les conditions pour une analyse des politiques en termes d'évaluation environnementale stratégique, d'évaluation environnementale d' impact et d'évaluation des impacts sur la durabilité sont identifiées et caractérisées.

[Departement_IRSTEA]Territoires [TR1_IRSTEA]DTAM; Facing structural change, European rural areas still fulfil multiple social, economic and ecological functions. Because of scale interplays and sustainability trade-offs, their future dynamics are still difficult to ascertain. In addition to the inherent difficulties of this undertaking, challenges in actual assessments also depend on external shocks to the economy at large or to particular regions, along with spillover effects among neighbouring regions. PRIMA proposes to improve knowledge in scaling down this assessment. It focuses on agriculture, forestry, tourism, and ecosystem services, with special attention to the structural effects of the European policies at municipality levels. The six case studies of PRIMA, conducted in Germany, United Kingdom, France, Croatia, Czech Republic, and Bulgaria, are important for two main reasons: They provide test cases for the PRIMA approaches, and they have influenced the development of the PRIMA approaches. These case studies have been chosen for their variety of rural dynamics and governance organisation. The strategic and planning documents in these study areas highlights that many measures are targeted to several pillars of sustainable development, even though multifunctionality concept is often not directly addressed. Because of the bottom-up governance of the European cohesion policy, a large variety of priorities and measures has been observed in the priorities and measures, targeted to several pillars of sustainable development. This variety has been narrowed in a pre-modelling stage, where 2 groups of stakeholders were interviewed: Those who can assist in scenario and model development (coming from the institutions which implement policy), and the actors who may be affected by the policy and hence those related behavioural changes should be captured by the model framework. A conceptual model has then been developed from extensive literature review and information collected during the surveys. This model focuses on the population dynamics in rural municipalities and on the decision making behaviours observed. The conceptual micro-simulation model was successfully adapted to three of the study regions (France, United Kingdom and Germany). Additionally, the developed agent-based model was adapted for the United Kingdom region; this allowed studying the effects of social aspects that are not captured in the micro-simulation model. A strong effort was made to adapt the models to the remaining regions (Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Croatia) but the lack of sufficient data would have made the adaptations unstable in the sense that small changes in policy could lead to unexpectedly large changes on key behavioural aspects. For validation purposes, a series of workshops were conducted on the case study areas. The orientation of these workshops depended on the availability of the models for the given case study area. The workshops promoted stakeholder learning about modelling. On the whole, participants recognised models as simplifications of reality. They found explanations about the model components comprehensible, and reacted fairly favourably to the idea of having such a decision-support tool available. However, the lack of good data Contract no. 212345 | Deliverable no. | 07/01/2012 Periodic Report 10/85 at a low geographical scale in most case study areas was seen as a severe limitation. Beyond pathways for model revision, stakeholder on-model involvement in PRIMA’s workshops identified some methodological advances in the field of participatory modelling have been identified. Among these is making explicit the role of a model broker, the endorsement of which should improve the various interpretations of participants. Scenario development, though far in advance of their technical skills, has also proved an efficient tool to involve stakeholders in challenging a model. Adaptation of these models to local conditions revealed their limitations and scope. Further conceptual work was identified and undertaken concerning the design of methods to reconstruct commuting network for regions where data was unavailable, to, to calibrate models with several number of variables and of new approaches to dynamically derive services jobs availability. PRIMA also developed a conceptual work and an integrated simulation tool that includes the MAGNET (formerly LEITAP) model for downscaling from world level to the country level, and a downscaling tool from country level towards the NUTS2 level. An interface has been developed for easy downscaling of scenarios. Special attention has been paid to procedures to process data from EUROSTAT towards a database useful as input for the downscaling model. Last, we progressed towards recommendations enhancing the scope of IA methods, with a review of literature and extensive work between all workpackages.

The Deliverable 6.4 “Handbook of efficient recommendations” deals with the main methodological developments in the context of screening, scoping and Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) developed and discussed in PRIMA. The main topics of this handbook deal with key aspects of the methodological enhancement of Impact Assessment within the context of experiences in Environmental Impact Assessment and Strategic Environmental Assessment. Key research is linked to the questions about (a) the better linkage of rural development policy scenario analysis to screening, scoping and impact assessment; (b) the enhancement of stakeholders’ engagement techniques to the screening of impacts and impact assessment; (c) the scoping of Agent Based Modelling of peoples’ behaviours and land use changes to impact assessment; (d) the linkage of population modelling to the scoping in impact assessment and (e) the methodological problem of scaling when combining local and regional scale levels of investigation. The organisation of this handbook of recommendations about methodological developments in screening, scoping and Impact Assessment is based on major definitions of terms and follows the main topics of (a) general improvements in impact assessment, (b) the clarification of the screening analysis from policies to objectives and scenario design, (c) the stakeholder perspectives and participatory approaches in the context of screening and scoping of policy impacts, (d) the role of Agent Based modelling and Micro-simulation for scoping and (e) the aggregated econometric modelling and scaling to in order to model policy impacts of rural development policies. The SIA of policies is based on the analysis of policy documents using matrices methods to link policies and impacts. Such structured analysis about the coherence between strategic planning documents and funding procedures should be linked to stakeholders’ perspectives and activities at the local scale. A clustering of municipalities is the basis for selection of representative case studies (regions) and because of the inherent complexity of policy impacts, also for interpretation of further monitoring of assessment activities. By comparing case study investigations, the variety and diversity of problems linked to policies, plans and programmes including driving forces and data issue, is explored. The integration of feedbacks, obtained from ex-ante evaluation and the formulation of potential future scenarios, can orientate further the formulation of policy formulation. Recommendations about stakeholder perspectives and participatory approaches in PRIMA, highlight that specification of the purpose of any stakeholder interaction is the first step to take. In relation to the identified information needs, a toolbox of methods is available to elicit information from stakeholders including interviews, surveys, focus groups, expert panels (think tanks), Delphi technique and others. Guidelines for choosing the most appropriate instrument to achieve successful engagement with stakeholders are essential. The problem to identify the appropriate stakeholders is linked first to the definition of the term ‘stakeholder’, over which confusion may arise, and second to the question of how to select the appropriate participants. PRIMA gives examples for useful inclusion of participatory approaches and about the used techniques to obtain information from stakeholders for the linkage of stakeholder knowledge to Impact Assessment. Generally a careful technique is required to ensure that stakeholder engagement activities yield credible results. A set of universal guidelines is developed. In PRIMA, integrated ABM and micro-simulation modelling confront population modelling and people’s behaviour dynamics as the basis to better comprehend agents’ behaviour resulting from policy effects. A structured integration of both the properties/activities of the main sectors and the stakeholders that drive or influence rural development is essential for the ABM/micro-simulation. Suitable modelling here should include the dynamics from household level up to the regional level on the basis of public statistics. The inclusion of land use/ land cover changes and of the environmental perspective into SIA investigation needs a further methodological development of site specific bio-physical modelling, combined with social and economic modelling, to integrate more aspects of sustainability. In this context, simulation experiments have been employed to test a large number of variables. This was done to determine uncertainty and sensitivity as a basis also for the improved regionalization by micro-simulation with stakeholder’s feedbacks. For the scoping in SIA of Rural Development policies it should be applicable for all sectors (not only for agriculture, tourism and forestry) on the basis of selected modelling tools, storylines and data. In contrast to ABM-micro-simulation, aggregated econometric and equilibrium modelling were employed in PRIMA for top town policy assessment, and scaling down of policy impact was done by employing econometrics. The possibilities for the re-use of SEAMLESS_IP software and model have been analysed with the goal of making it applicable to IA of rural development policies. Recommendations have also been made to clarify the linkage of population model outcomes which are useful for policy research. The modelling outcomes of ABM/micro-simulation and the aggregated model should be compared by means of assessments obtained by using the CMEF indicators framework. Impact assessment is seen as a tool for the screening and scoping of impacts of policy, plans, programmes and projects. The methodological development, including modelling for screening and scoping, should be intensified on the basis of statistics to explore the interlinkages between social, economic and environmental characteristics. In this context population change, the ageing of the society, impacts of economic activities, and other major social and economic driving factors are included in the content of a Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) when widening the impacts definition from the environmental to social and economic indications. A formal of SIA methods development using official guidelines of the EU seems to be a suitable way to apply the SIA in future. Stakeholder’s integration can enhance the quality of SIA at all scales. The selection of methods for impact indicators assessment includes the formulation of criteria related to problems of data availability, threshold levels and the orientation of change on the basis of policy goals. The CMEF is a suitable basis for the indication of policy changes on the regional scale level (Nuts 2), but further investigation is needed to break these indicators down to the local scale level. For Impact assessment it seems to be suitable to confront selected CMEF indicators with the project/ economic measures perspectives of agents’ behaviour on the local scale level. Finally a SIAT (Sustainability impact assessment tool) should include methods, data description lists, projects lists of potential SIA impacts and guidelines for the usage.

The Deliverable 6.4 “Handbook of efficient recommendations” deals with the main methodological developments in the context of screening, scoping and Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) developed and discussed in PRIMA. The main topics of this handbook deal with key aspects of the methodological enhancement of Impact Assessment within the context of experiences in Environmental Impact Assessment and Strategic Environmental Assessment. Key research is linked to the questions about (a) the better linkage of rural development policy scenario analysis to screening, scoping and impact assessment; (b) the enhancement of stakeholders’ engagement techniques to the screening of impacts and impact assessment; (c) the scoping of Agent Based Modelling of peoples’ behaviours and land use changes to impact assessment; (d) the linkage of population modelling to the scoping in impact assessment and (e) the methodological problem of scaling when combining local and regional scale levels of investigation. The organisation of this handbook of recommendations about methodological developments in screening, scoping and Impact Assessment is based on major definitions of terms and follows the main topics of (a) general improvements in impact assessment, (b) the clarification of the screening analysis from policies to objectives and scenario design, (c) the stakeholder perspectives and participatory approaches in the context of screening and scoping of policy impacts, (d) the role of Agent Based modelling and Micro-simulation for scoping and (e) the aggregated econometric modelling and scaling to in order to model policy impacts of rural development policies. The SIA of policies is based on the analysis of policy documents using matrices methods to link policies and impacts. Such structured analysis about the coherence between strategic planning documents and funding procedures should be linked to stakeholders’ perspectives and activities at the local scale. A clustering of municipalities is the basis for selection of representative case studies (regions) and because of the inherent complexity of policy impacts, also for interpretation of further monitoring of assessment activities. By comparing case study investigations, the variety and diversity of problems linked to policies, plans and programmes including driving forces and data issue, is explored. The integration of feedbacks, obtained from ex-ante evaluation and the formulation of potential future scenarios, can orientate further the formulation of policy formulation. Recommendations about stakeholder perspectives and participatory approaches in PRIMA, highlight that specification of the purpose of any stakeholder interaction is the first step to take. In relation to the identified information needs, a toolbox of methods is available to elicit information from stakeholders including interviews, surveys, focus groups, expert panels (think tanks), Delphi technique and others. Guidelines for choosing the most appropriate instrument to achieve successful engagement with stakeholders are essential. The problem to identify the appropriate stakeholders is linked first to the definition of the term ‘stakeholder’, over which confusion may arise, and second to the question of how to select the appropriate participants. PRIMA gives examples for useful inclusion of participatory approaches and about the used techniques to obtain information from stakeholders for the linkage of stakeholder knowledge to Impact Assessment. Generally a careful technique is required to ensure that stakeholder engagement activities yield credible results. A set of universal guidelines is developed. In PRIMA, integrated ABM and micro-simulation modelling confront population modelling and people’s behaviour dynamics as the basis to better comprehend agents’ behaviour resulting from policy effects. A structured integration of both the properties/activities of the main sectors and the stakeholders that drive or influence rural development is essential for the ABM/micro-simulation. Suitable modelling here should include the dynamics from household level up to the regional level on the basis of public statistics. The inclusion of land use/ land cover changes and of the environmental perspective into SIA investigation needs a further methodological development of site specific bio-physical modelling, combined with social and economic modelling, to integrate more aspects of sustainability. In this context, simulation experiments have been employed to test a large number of variables. This was done to determine uncertainty and sensitivity as a basis also for the improved regionalization by micro-simulation with stakeholder’s feedbacks. For the scoping in SIA of Rural Development policies it should be applicable for all sectors (not only for agriculture, tourism and forestry) on the basis of selected modelling tools, storylines and data. In contrast to ABM-micro-simulation, aggregated econometric and equilibrium modelling were employed in PRIMA for top town policy assessment, and scaling down of policy impact was done by employing econometrics. The possibilities for the re-use of SEAMLESS_IP software and model have been analysed with the goal of making it applicable to IA of rural development policies. Recommendations have also been made to clarify the linkage of population model outcomes which are useful for policy research. The modelling outcomes of ABM/micro-simulation and the aggregated model should be compared by means of assessments obtained by using the CMEF indicators framework. Impact assessment is seen as a tool for the screening and scoping of impacts of policy, plans, programmes and projects. The methodological development, including modelling for screening and scoping, should be intensified on the basis of statistics to explore the interlinkages between social, economic and environmental characteristics. In this context population change, the ageing of the society, impacts of economic activities, and other major social and economic driving factors are included in the content of a Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) when widening the impacts definition from the environmental to social and economic indications. A formal of SIA methods development using official guidelines of the EU seems to be a suitable way to apply the SIA in future. Stakeholder’s integration can enhance the quality of SIA at all scales. The selection of methods for impact indicators assessment includes the formulation of criteria related to problems of data availability, threshold levels and the orientation of change on the basis of policy goals. The CMEF is a suitable basis for the indication of policy changes on the regional scale level (Nuts 2), but further investigation is needed to break these indicators down to the local scale level. For Impact assessment it seems to be suitable to confront selected CMEF indicators with the project/ economic measures perspectives of agents’ behaviour on the local scale level. Finally a SIAT (Sustainability impact assessment tool) should include methods, data description lists, projects lists of potential SIA impacts and guidelines for the usage.

International audience; Facing structural change, European rural areas still fulfil multiple social, economic and ecological functions. Because of scale interplays and sustainability trade-offs, their future dynamics are yet particularly difficult to ascertain. PRIMA aims to develop methods for scaling down the assessment of policy impacts on multifunctional land-use and economic activities. The project focuses on agriculture, forestry, tourism, and ecosystem services, with special attention to the structural effects of the policies. An analysis of the strategic and planning documents in the case study areas highlights that many measures are targeted to several pillars of sustainable development, even though multifunctionality (MF) concept is often unaddressed. Because of the bottom-up governance of the European cohesion policy, a large variety of priorities and measures has been observed, so we oriented the first stakeholders interviews towards their major objectives and the specific measures they activate from the cohesion policy to reach their own objectives. We developed a working regional economic model that interacts between global changes (GTAP-IMAGE interactions) and multi-agent based tool at local level. It covers activities agriculture, forestry, services and nature. A start has been made with a program for downscaling. We are working on a procedure to generate the basic regional data for the input. We have to start data generation and theoretical and empirical work to improve on the allocation procedures of national developments to regions. Considering backbone scenarios, first modelling at European level started, with the identification of key economic and demographic factors that drive land use patterns at regional and local levels. External drivers and policies have been distinguished. GTAP and IMAGES have been linked to provide a working modelling framework. Last, we progressed towards enhancing the scope of IA methods, with a review of literature and extensive work between all workpackages.

The report gives an overview over the methodological approach used in the PRIMA project for the development of alternative scenarios. Scenarios focus on policy changes and possible results/outputs of EU policy implementation on regional and local (LAU) level. In a first step a social economic analysis is implemented in each case study and bears on 5 domains: general characteristics, demographic trends, economic system, transport and environment. In a second step, and after identification of main driving forces, four scenarios are proposed and characterized: - Baseline scenario: The baseline scenario is defined to analyse a base situation without additional intervention and different alternative options for intervention, i.e. the introduction of new measures in agriculture, forestry, tourism, and environment. The baseline scenario is a projection of the status quo or business as usual, including the existing framework in terms of agricultural and environmental policies, technological and market conditions, and the projection of technological trends and of decided policy changes to be implemented until the target year 2013. - Environment' scenario: This scenario is built on the assumption that measures for landscape, natural and cultural heritage preservation will be leading. Having in mind importance of environment issue in global aspect, it is assumed that environment policy will be more closely linked to rural development and more specifically to multifunctional land use activities. Thus, changes in the policy priorities on EU level are expected - Rural development' scenario: Rural Development Policy will have a leading role in the next planning period (2014-2020). Sustainable rural development will be achieved through: increasing competitiveness of agriculture and forestry; improving land management; implementing complex measures for environment protection and preservation, wider rural economy through new agricultural and non-agricultural activities; increasing the role of local initiative groups in regional and local decision making process. - Infrastructure & Competitiveness' scenario: This scenario assumes widened and enriched policy measures in Cohesion Policy. This scenario is developed on the assumption that Cohesion policy will have leading role on national and regional level. New objectives and measures will be elaborated aiming increasing of competitiveness of SMEs, development of favourable business conditions, improving quality of human resources, increasing capacity of local/regional branch organizations, construction of relevant new infrastructure and restoration of the existing. Scenarios will be used as a starting point in modeling in PRIMA specific workpackages.; Le rapport fournit une vue d'ensemble de la méthode mise en oeuvre dans le projet PRIMA pour le développement de scenarios alternatifs. Les scénarios s'appuient sur les changements de politiques et les résultats plausibles de la mise en ½uvre des politiques aux échelles régionales et locales. Dans un premier temps une analyse socio économique est menée sur chaque étude de cas ; Elle porte sur 5 domaines : caractéristiques générales des sites, tendances démographiques, système économique, transport et environnment. Dans une seconde étape, après identification des principales forces motrices, 4 scénarios sont proposés et caractérisés : -Scénario de base -Scénario environnemental -Scénario de développement rural -Scénario infrastructures et compétitivité » Les scénarios seront utilisés comme point de départ de la modélisation dans les autres tâches du projet.

[Departement_IRSTEA]Territoires [TR1_IRSTEA]DTAM [Relecteur_IRSTEA]Turpin, N.; A scenario may be defined as a description of how the future may unfold based on 'if-then' propositions, and typically consists of a representation of an initial situation and a description of the key driving forces and changes that lead to a particular future state (Alcamo and Henrichs, 2008). Scenarios may be expressed qualitatively, by means of a narrative or story-line, or quantitatively, commonly making use of modelling outputs. Alternatively, as will be the case for PRIMA, they may be a hybrid of both approaches producing a final scenario which consists of a step-by-step storyline and quantification of the resulting changes. This deliverable sets out a generic method for scenario development which follows several stages: identification of a focal issue for study; defining the system in which the issue exists, including its driving forces; identifying possible evolutions of the system; building scenarios or dynamic stories describ-ing the evolutions; testing the scenarios, in particular their plausibility; and policy screening by which policies are tested, analysed and created. There is increasing acceptance that stakeholders can improve scenario development with respect to scenario relevance, credibility and legitimacy and consequently stakeholder inputs will be sought at several stages. At the pre-modelling stage, stakeholder interviews were conducted early in 2010 in one case study area (municipality) per participating member state. This identified driving forces, relevant policy areas and, by considering the successful working (or otherwise) of policy measures, gained an insight into agent behaviour. This information will allow researchers to develop narratives, with agent decisions explicitly included, which will be validated with stakeholders prior to quantification.

The report gives an overview over the methodological approach used in the PRIMA project for the development of alternative scenarios. Scenarios focus on policy changes and possible results/outputs of EU policy implementation on regional and local (LAU) level. In a first step a social economic analysis is implemented in each case study and bears on 5 domains: general characteristics, demographic trends, economic system, transport and environment. In a second step, and after identification of main driving forces, four scenarios are proposed and characterized: - Baseline scenario: The baseline scenario is defined to analyse a base situation without additional intervention and different alternative options for intervention, i.e. the introduction of new measures in agriculture, forestry, tourism, and environment. The baseline scenario is a projection of the status quo or business as usual, including the existing framework in terms of agricultural and environmental policies, technological and market conditions, and the projection of technological trends and of decided policy changes to be implemented until the target year 2013. - Environment' scenario: This scenario is built on the assumption that measures for landscape, natural and cultural heritage preservation will be leading. Having in mind importance of environment issue in global aspect, it is assumed that environment policy will be more closely linked to rural development and more specifically to multifunctional land use activities. Thus, changes in the policy priorities on EU level are expected - Rural development' scenario: Rural Development Policy will have a leading role in the next planning period (2014-2020). Sustainable rural development will be achieved through: increasing competitiveness of agriculture and forestry; improving land management; implementing complex measures for environment protection and preservation, wider rural economy through new agricultural and non-agricultural activities; increasing the role of local initiative groups in regional and local decision making process. - Infrastructure & Competitiveness' scenario: This scenario assumes widened and enriched policy measures in Cohesion Policy. This scenario is developed on the assumption that Cohesion policy will have leading role on national and regional level. New objectives and measures will be elaborated aiming increasing of competitiveness of SMEs, development of favourable business conditions, improving quality of human resources, increasing capacity of local/regional branch organizations, construction of relevant new infrastructure and restoration of the existing. Scenarios will be used as a starting point in modeling in PRIMA specific workpackages.; Le rapport fournit une vue d'ensemble de la méthode mise en oeuvre dans le projet PRIMA pour le développement de scenarios alternatifs. Les scénarios s'appuient sur les changements de politiques et les résultats plausibles de la mise en ½uvre des politiques aux échelles régionales et locales. Dans un premier temps une analyse socio économique est menée sur chaque étude de cas ; Elle porte sur 5 domaines : caractéristiques générales des sites, tendances démographiques, système économique, transport et environnment. Dans une seconde étape, après identification des principales forces motrices, 4 scénarios sont proposés et caractérisés : -Scénario de base -Scénario environnemental -Scénario de développement rural -Scénario infrastructures et compétitivité » Les scénarios seront utilisés comme point de départ de la modélisation dans les autres tâches du projet.

[Departement_IRSTEA]Territoires [TR1_IRSTEA]DTAM [TR2_IRSTEA]MOTIVE [Relecteur_IRSTEA]Turpin, N.; Facing structural change, European rural areas still fulfil multiple social, economic and ecological functions. Because of scale interplays and sustainability trade-offs, their future dynamics are yet particularly difficult to ascertain. PRIMA aims to develop methods for scaling down the assessment of policy impacts on multifunctional land-use and economic activities. The project focuses on agriculture, forestry, tourism, and ecosystem services, with special attention to the structural effects of the policies. An analysis of the strategic and planning documents in the case study areas highlights that many measures are targeted to several pillars of sustainable development, even though multifunctionality (MF) concept is often unaddressed. Because of the bottom-up governance of the European cohesion policy, a large variety of priorities and measures has been observed, so we oriented the first stakeholders interviews towards their major objectives and the specific measures they activate from the cohesion policy to reach their own objectives. Two groups of stakeholders were identified: those who can assist in scenario and model development and in model validation (drawn from the institutions which implement policy), and the actors who may be affected by the policy and whose behaviour will be captured in the AB model. Two rounds of interviews have been performed, the first one to gain contextual information about the wider case study information. From cluster analysis and this information, sets of municipalities were selected, then a second round of interviews was conducted to identify relevant policy issues and appropriate policy measures. These interviews provide the main events which have occurred during the last 20 years, policy outcomes, the EU funding streams, proposals for new measures. A conceptual model has been developed from extensive literature review and information collected during the surveys. This model focuses on the population dynamics in rural municipalities and on the decision making behaviours observed in such areas, including indicators requirements to match with IA methods. A general method for generating households from different available data at municipality level has been designed: at this level, only average data are available and the method enables to generate relevant individual data to be included in the models. The model has been adapted to the case studies: at this stage, downscaling occurs to input data for the models. We developed a working regional economic model that interacts between global changes (GTAP-IMAGE interactions) and multi-agent based tool at local level. It covers activities agriculture, forestry, services and nature. A start has been made with a program for downscaling. We are working on a procedure to generate the basic regional data for the input. We have to start data generation and theoretical and empirical work to improve on the allocation procedures of national developments to regions. Considering backbone scenarios, first modelling at European level started, with the identification of key economic and demographic factors that drive land use patterns at regional and local levels. External drivers and policies have been distinguished. GTAP and IMAGES have been linked to provide a working modelling framework. Last, we progressed towards enhancing the scope of IA methods, with a review of literature and extensive work between all workpackages.; Le rapport présente le déroulement et les avancées du projet PRIMA à mi parcours de réalisation. Sont présentés les développements en termes d'analyse des politiques et des scénarios, d'implication des parties prenantes dans les processus de modélisation, de conceptualisation des modèles et d'apports pour les procédures d'évaluation des impacts.

The report reviews and analyses the EU policies that have direct and indirect impacts on multifunctionality. Subjects of the analysis are the Enlargement, Cohesion and Rural Development policies, and relevant financial instruments IPA, ERDF, SFs. Based on an in-depth litterature review of the multifunctionality concept, an original methodology of impact analysis is provided. Assessment and appraisal of multifunctionality is conducted at two levels NUTS2 and NUTS3, relying on a 4 steps approach: Elaboration of an assessment matrix covering policy measures and areas of impact; Identification of areas of potential impact in the economic, social and environment domains; Assessment of potential impact of EU policies on multifunctionality based on three possible values; Calculation of the potential impact and ranking of policy measures/submeasures by ABC method (inventory management method that categorizes items in terms of importance). The report underlines that the implementation of EU policies on national and regional levels focuses on coherent regional development, achievement of relevant regional competitiveness and sustainability. The evaluation of EU policies in rural areas shows that some degrees of symbiosis and/or overlaps are at work. Despite the existence of a common framework, a large diversity and complexity of measures and actions is experienced between countries and regions. The analysis on the potential effects of the policies on the multifunctional character of the activities shows the domains of action supposed to have the greatest influence in terms of multifonctionality. Moreover, it highlights the differences between countries due to their specificity. For scenarios design and stakeholder participation, the report provides a list of domains of intervention to be considered for the different instruments and countries.; Le rapport passe en revue et analyse les politiques européennes qui ont des effets directs ou indirects sur la multifonctionnalité. Les objets analysés sont les politiques d'élargissement, de Cohésion, de Développement Rural ainsi que les instruments financiers en jeu -IPA, ERDF, SFs. S'appuyant sur une revue de la littérature sur le concept de multifonctionnalité, une méthode originale est proposée. L'évaluation et l'estimation de la multifonctionnalité sont conduites à deux échelles - NUTS2 and NUTS3, et s'appuient sur une approche en 4 phases ; Elaboration d'une matrice d'évaluation couvrant les mesures des politiques et les domaines d'impact; Identification des domaines d'impact potentiel sur les trois piliers économique, social et environnemental; Evaluation de l'impact potentiel des politiques sur la multifonctionnalité basée sur 3 niveaux possibles; Calcul de l'impact potentiel et hiérarchisation des mesures et sous-mesures par la méthode ABM. Le rapport souligne que la mise en ½uvre des politiques aux échelles nationales et régionales converge vers un développement régional cohérent et l'accomplissement d'une compétitivité et d'une durabilité régionale pertinentes. L'évaluation des politiques européennes en zones rurales montre que des degrés de synergie et/ou de recouvrement sont présents. Malgré l'existence d'un cadre commun, une grande diversité de mesures et d'actions est expérimentée selon les pays ou les régions. L'analyse des effets potentiels des politiques sur le caractère multifonctionnel des activités révèle les domaines d'intervention qui sont supposés avoir la plus grande influence en terme de multifonctionnalité. Par ailleurs, elle identifie les différences entre pays dues à leur spécificité. Le rapport propose une liste de domaines d'intervention utile pour le développement de scénarios et la mobilisation des parties prenantes.

[Notes_IRSTEA]Je n'ai pas l'affiliation de Jelinek...M.P. [Departement_IRSTEA]Territoires [TR1_IRSTEA]DTAM [Relecteur_IRSTEA]Laplana, R. ; Turpin, N.; The report reviews and analyses the EU policies that have direct and indirect impacts on multifunctionality. Subjects of the analysis are the Enlargement, Cohesion and Rural Development policies, and relevant financial instruments IPA, ERDF, SFs. Based on an in-depth litterature review of the multifunctionality concept, an original methodology of impact analysis is provided. Assessment and appraisal of multifunctionality is conducted at two levels NUTS2 and NUTS3, relying on a 4 steps approach: Elaboration of an assessment matrix covering policy measures and areas of impact; Identification of areas of potential impact in the economic, social and environment domains; Assessment of potential impact of EU policies on multifunctionality based on three possible values; Calculation of the potential impact and ranking of policy measures/submeasures by ABC method (inventory management method that categorizes items in terms of importance). The report underlines that the implementation of EU policies on national and regional levels focuses on coherent regional development, achievement of relevant regional competitiveness and sustainability. The evaluation of EU policies in rural areas shows that some degrees of symbiosis and/or overlaps are at work. Despite the existence of a common framework, a large diversity and complexity of measures and actions is experienced between countries and regions. The analysis on the potential effects of the policies on the multifunctional character of the activities shows the domains of action supposed to have the greatest influence in terms of multifonctionality. Moreover, it highlights the differences between countries due to their specificity. For scenarios design and stakeholder participation, the report provides a list of domains of intervention to be considered for the different instruments and countries.; Le rapport passe en revue et analyse les politiques européennes qui ont des effets directs ou indirects sur la multifonctionnalité. Les objets analysés sont les politiques d'élargissement, de Cohésion, de Développement Rural ainsi que les instruments financiers en jeu -IPA, ERDF, SFs. S'appuyant sur une revue de la littérature sur le concept de multifonctionnalité, une méthode originale est proposée. L'évaluation et l'estimation de la multifonctionnalité sont conduites à deux échelles - NUTS2 and NUTS3, et s'appuient sur une approche en 4 phases ; Elaboration d'une matrice d'évaluation couvrant les mesures des politiques et les domaines d'impact; Identification des domaines d'impact potentiel sur les trois piliers économique, social et environnemental; Evaluation de l'impact potentiel des politiques sur la multifonctionnalité basée sur 3 niveaux possibles; Calcul de l'impact potentiel et hiérarchisation des mesures et sous-mesures par la méthode ABM. Le rapport souligne que la mise en ½uvre des politiques aux échelles nationales et régionales converge vers un développement régional cohérent et l'accomplissement d'une compétitivité et d'une durabilité régionale pertinentes. L'évaluation des politiques européennes en zones rurales montre que des degrés de synergie et/ou de recouvrement sont présents. Malgré l'existence d'un cadre commun, une grande diversité de mesures et d'actions est expérimentée selon les pays ou les régions. L'analyse des effets potentiels des politiques sur le caractère multifonctionnel des activités révèle les domaines d'intervention qui sont supposés avoir la plus grande influence en terme de multifonctionnalité. Par ailleurs, elle identifie les différences entre pays dues à leur spécificité. Le rapport propose une liste de domaines d'intervention utile pour le développement de scénarios et la mobilisation des parties prenantes.

absent

absent

[Departement_IRSTEA]Territoires [TR1_IRSTEA]DTAM [Relecteur_IRSTEA]Turpin, N.; Building on a selective literature review this deliverable provides a framework for identifying and characterising stakeholders and their roles in PRIMA. The origins of the modern stakeholder concept are in the corporate management literature. Numerous different definitions of stakeholders' have been produced and range from a narrow focus on the survival of the firm to the pursuit of broader objectives such as corporate social responsibility. In corporate theory, engagement and management of stakeholders is an important activity and many theories and classifications have been developed to enable corporations to distinguish between and prioritise their efforts in this respect. Useful criteria, which are expected to be used in PRIMA, include the degree of stakeholder influence and interest. The stakeholder concept has also been applied to natural resource management problems, and to policy analysis, and it is this approach which is more appropriate for PRIMA. Stakeholder approaches have been used to gain an intimate understanding of the socio-economic processes underlying use of scarce natural resources such as water, forestry and ecosystems especially in the face of complexity such as uncertain property rights and non-market goods. Acquisition of an accurate and in-depth understanding of these processes can assist the development of successful solutions. Four types of stakeholder roles are identified in PRIMA's DOW. At the pre-modelling stage information will be elicited from stakeholders to enable behaviour rules for the main actors in rural areas to be drawn up, to inform the agent based modelling (ABM). Also at the pre-model stage policy scenarios will be designed. At the on-model stage, stakeholders will assist model improvement, and at the post-model stage, stakeholders will be engaged in validating final outputs. It is envisaged that two types of stakeholders will be engaged in these participative processes. The PRIMA Description of work (DOW) defines stakeholders as actors within rural areas as well as policymakers at different levels'. Firstly will be the actors whose behaviour will be represented in the agent based models. To select these stakeholders, three steps are envisaged: i. defining the policy, its effects, processes and boundaries. ii. identifying the groups and individuals who are affected by those social and natural systems , and iii. prioritising those groups and individuals for involvement in the process. Identifying key contacts can be achieved by starting with known contacts and then snowballing. The second group will be involved in policy scenario development and model output validation. It is likely to include policy experts and practitioners who may also be conceptualised as stakeholders who represent the interests of civil society, on whose behalf they develop appropriate policies. One approach for policy scenario development is to attempt to mirror the group actually involved in formulating policy for the locality, although a final decision on the approach to be taken has not yet been reached. Theoretically either group might be involved in the on-model stage (model improvement).